veterans' day

Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”(Luke 3:14)

There does time go? The old expression, time flies when you’re having fun. The problem is, time flies. Period. And the older you get, the faster it flies.

Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day. I hope you thanked a veteran. This came to mind when I realized that it was 41 years ago that I had been drafted into the US Army.

I never wanted to be a soldier. And of course, in 1969, not a whole lot of people aspired to that. It was the height of the Vietnam war and everybody knew someone who was wounded or killed in SE Asia. So, a guy’s main drive was to avoid the draft.

There were ways to do so. In fact, there was a book put out on how to avoid the draft. One way was to run around the block several times on the morning of your draft physical. After you had gotten your breath back, you went in for your physical and, even though you were no longer breathing hard, you had high blood pressure. Jumping up and down on concrete barefooted for a while gave you flat feet. The list went on.

I had flat feet (and still do) but I had no doctor’s papers, so they passed me. And I went in.

I have always been glad I went. Guys who didn’t always have reasons, and sometimes good ones, but they missed out on a  shared experience.

I was talking to the director of one of the Foursquare Church programs that takes young people and gives them a year in a mission field between high school and college. I told him that the army did that for a lot of my generation. He said that it was doing that again, that many young people join the army to “find themselves”.

It gave a guy discipline, the ability to take orders from someone you consider a fool, the ability to do meaningless tasks. Some of this is good, some not, but it all brought discipline and the knowledge that sometimes you are not in control.

The Bible mentions soldiers several times and never condemns them or their mission. Luke 3 has John the Baptizer talking to them. He told them just do your job and don’t be harsh.

It is easy for soldiers to be harsh. It is easy for soldiers of God to be harsh. In our desire to preach the word, we sometimes lose tact and forget love. We are so eager to puncture sin that we end up skewering people.

When choosing between doctrine and people, Jesus always chose people. As a Commander-in-Chief, he set the agenda. Love others. Fight for what is right, but love more than ever.

Don’t know what that has to do with Veterans’ Day, but it was on my mind.