FROM THE EDITOR – Mark Wingfield – www.baptistnewsglobal.com -July 30, 2021
On Christmas Eve 1944, Carl McKeever, age 19, found himself crossing the English Channel aboard the HMS Cheshire, a British cruise ship that had been repurposed as a troop transport ship to help with the war effort. The Cheshire steamed alongside a larger ship, the SS Leopoldville, escorted by a flank of four destroyers. Just 5 miles offshore from Cherbourg, France, the SS Leopoldville was torpedoed by a German U-boat.
On that afternoon, 762 soldiers and officers were lost, despite rescue efforts by those on the Cheshire and the accompanying destroyers. Other ships in Cherbourg harbor were not able to come to the rescue quickly because their crews were ashore celebrating the holiday. This was the beginning of my friend’s overseas military service in World War II, and it no doubt shaped the rest of his life.
According to some accounts, Carl and the other soldiers of the 66th Infantry Division were ordered not to tell anyone about the sinking of the ship, and their letters home were censored by the Army during the rest of World War II. After the war, the soldiers reportedly were ordered not to talk about the sinking of the SS Leopoldville or their GI benefits as civilians would be canceled.
Carl abided by that policy for more than 60 years, never speaking much of his military service even to family until just a couple of years before his death, when the grandchildren began digging and asking insistent questions. And then his son, Dan, convinced Carl to participate in an Honor Flight, which took them to Washington, D.C., to see the World War II Memorial and other sites.
Just a couple of weeks before his death, I stood in Carl’s hospital room and listened to him tell with pride the story of that Honor Flight. He talked about how moving the World War II Memorial was, how he thought it was the most spectacular of all the war memorials on the National Mall. But the thing that most impressed him at age 90 was the people who lined the walkways to cheer for him and the other veterans on the Honor Flight as they came and went. He was moved to know that people remembered, that people cared, that people were grateful.
At the Memorial, on the 84-foot-wide Freedom Wall, Carl saw the beautiful field of 4,000 sculpted gold stars that represent the 400,000 Americans who gave their lives in the war. In front of this wall are engraved these words: “HERE WE MARK THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.”
Dan had to do some fast talking to get Carl to agree to go on the Honor Flight. Carl was concerned that he was not important enough to receive such an honor. After all, he had been only a private first class in rank. Surely there were more worthy people than he to be honored.
The Honor Flight staff assured Carl that he was, in fact, worthy of recognition because the war had been won by the efforts of men and women of all ranks. It was on the backs of PFCs like him that the 66th Division Panthers guarded the German submarine base pockets that were left after the D-Day invasion and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. And it was PFCs like Carl who kept the peace after the war in Germany and Austria.
Carl’s been gone from us four years now, and just two weeks ago I presided over the burial of his beloved wife, Velma. But I thought about Carl’s story this week as I listened to the heart-wrenching testimony of the four officers who served — and were attacked by insurrectionists — at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
One of the most disgusting things to hear in this testimony — and there were plenty of unbelievable disgraces these police officers endured — was how the foul-mouthed, racist and unhinged insurrectionists called themselves both “patriots” and “Christians.”
To be clear: They were neither.
There is nothing patriotic or Christian about participating in a violent insurrection against the seat of our democracy in an attempt to overturn a presidential election, kidnap or kill members of Congress and the vice president of the United States — all while hurling racial slurs at the non-white police doing their true patriotic duty.
To compare the fools who stormed the U.S. Capitol to true patriots like my friend Carl McKeever, who served his country on a true battlefield, is to besmirch the very word “patriot.”
Our columnist Michael Chancellor spelled this out in clear terms with his column this week. I urge you to read his piece, “If You Really Respect Law Enforcement, Don’t Obstruct, Obfuscate, Object and Misdirect on Jan. 6.”
True patriots like my friend Carl give themselves in humility because they love country more than self. Insurrectionists seek to elevate themselves and their cause out of self-interest and self-protection.
True Christians like my friend Carl seek to serve and protect those who are not like themselves but who are beloved children of God. They fight against any who would exclude or humiliate others based on skin color or nationality or gender or religion. Insurrectionists assault people who are not like them and only want power for themselves.
There are not “good people” on both sides of this question. There are true patriots, and there are violent insurrectionists. There are Christ-like Christians, and there are white Christian nationalists. We’ve got to be clear in pointing out the difference.
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