GIVING HONOR WHERE HONER IS DUE

I'm in the Atlanta airport awaiting a flight to Austen, TX which I will tell you about in later posts. I'll be speaking in TX and then on to Israel mid-September so I'll be taking you along on my journeys if you'll be reading these blogs. 

I had quite a meaningful initial start to my journey today.  Seated next to me was a Navy officer in a sparkling white uniform. We said hello and I couldn't help but ask him how he managed to keep his uniform so perfectly clean. He chuckled and said by the time he gets to TX, his destination also, something will happen. It seemed to be a rather constant vigil to keep the whites white! Little did I expect that before we landed I would be the cause of sprinkling my black coffee on his leg and sleeve when the stirrer to my coffee cup flipped out while reaching for the stewardess.  Needless to say I felt horrible.  A napkin and some water lessened the damage but not altogether.  But that's not why it was meaningful.

The first announcement from the pilot was that aboard were two Seaman officers who were escorting the body of a "fallen warrior" back to his family.  He said the names of the officers and I asked my seat mate if he was one of them. "Yes ma'am," he said. He seemed quiet, even sad.  I asked if he knew the man personally. He did. He was one of his men. I asked if he died in action. "No, ma'am," he said, shaking his head slightly. As we talked He shared how this young man died. Men see action in Iraq or somewhere in the Middle East, but then come home and something useless happens. This was one of those times.  This young man of 21 had car trouble. He pulled over to the side of the road and walked around his car and a tractor trailer hit him. Now Seaman Rodney (I don't know his last name) was escorting the body of this young man back to his parents, a task Rodney had never done before but volunteered for as he had evidently been fond of the young man.

As we spoke briefly off and on, I told Rodney that I had written a book about people who had died and had gone to heaven but Jesus sent them back to tell people of what heaven - and He - are really like.  I could see by his response that he knew the Lord, which he confirmed. He also believed that the young man did too (I asked this first or wouldn't have told him the rest). As I shared a little of the unhindered joy in heaven and how there is no sadness there whatsoever, the one in heaven would surely not want those they loved on earth to be in sorrow when they are in such joy, peace and love in the presence of the Lord.  I shared this, I told him, so that perhaps it would help him in his own grief but perhaps he could share some of this with his family. I told him I would probably blog this story and gave him my name. Since you're reading this, please say a prayer for this young man's family, and for Brother Rodney and his co-officers - and for any who have to bring home someone's loved one this way, a task few of us reading this would experience.

Rodney has been in the Navy for 18 years. I asked him if he had noticed any difference in the last few years in the Service.  He shook his head back and forth just slightly enough to let me know things are not what they were.  He told me of how this generation of young men and women do not have the idealism or the discipline of his generation. He seemed somewhat sad about this too.

As we approached the Atlanta terminal the pilot asked everyone to remain seated until the Navy Officers deplaned first in order to escort the body which was unloaded before the luggage. I once saw such an event in the Philadelphia airport and it was quite moving, a flag draped across the casket. I shook Rodney's hand and said a quick prayer that God would be with him in all he was called to do. As he and his fellow officers walked down the aisle toward the front of the plane to exit it, a crescendo of applause began for these men who serve to guard our nation.  Though only I and the officers knew the uselessness of his death, others on the plane likely imagined he died in military action overseas.  But what difference does it make. We are all in this life and death thing together. We all can have sympathy for a family who lost their loved one. We all can have respect for men like Rodney who seemed to me a man who reflected the dignity of the Navy I had known when young men my age then had in the service years ago. 

Now boarding for Austen.  Later.