The Brotherhood of St. Andrew invites the parish
to join in a ministry to veterans and military families
By Chris Waddle for the Brotherhood
Veterans Day was very big when I was growing up in Fort Worth, Texas -- also known as "Where the West begins."
Texans still remembered their own Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated combat soldiers of World War II. Sergeant York of World War I was the corresponding icon hereabouts.
The main drag in Fort Worth was Camp Bowie Boulevard, named since the first World War, like Camp and then Fort McClellan locally.
My home was on the front line of the Cold War, because the Air Force based bombers there.
So those of us in high school R.O.T.C. -- most of the boys in school --polished up our Reserve Officer Training Corps insignia, put on our uniforms and marched in the big -- I mean BIG -- parade downtown, bigger than the Christmas Parade. The Great Southwest Fat Stock Show and Rodeo Parade was bigger, but we couldn't march in it. The livestock that gave my hometown its other nickname -- "Cowtown" -- made it pretty near impossible to close ranks and keep cadence.
Nostalgia! It's a wonderful thing. It's a terrible thing.
Our minds and memories embrace flags and anthems. We are slower to embrace the actual veteran.
A month of salutes
November is Veterans & Military Families Month by presidential proclamation -- via Twitter.
Yet this Administration struggles like those before it to meet the needs of men and women who served to protect our national values.
- Alabama holds 388,865 veterans, according to the census, and 7.7 percent are women.
- Forty percent of the total are aged 65 or older.
- We have 542 homeless vets in the state.
- Veteran unemployment in Alabama is 5.6 percent, a higher figure than in the general population.
- Twenty percent have a service-connected disability, compared with 15 percent of veterans nationally. One-third of all Iraq and Afghan War vets suffer from PTSD or combat head trauma.
Tragic. Maybe we'd like to turn away, but we brush against the American flag when we leave the communion rail. And our own scripture keeps talking to us.
In the Bible reading for the Sunday closest to Veterans Day, Amos prophesizes of both darkness and terror. He could be William Tecumseh Sherman declaring, "War is hell!" Ask combat soldiers if the end of the world Amos described doesn't sound a lot like their experience.
The prophet also calls for justice to roll down like flowing waters.
Our ex-Service members stand in line for some just treatment.
Amos called for righteousness to flow like an everlasting stream. We are faced with the task not to let it trickle out before reaching either our military families or the ex-soldier, sailor and airman and woman.
The ebb and flow of caring
Community Attitude is stronger even than a presidential Twitter feed or a Facebook page. But public feeling shifts, leaving a needy soldier or veteran forgotten.
In my own military service, I saw both sides of Community Attitude.
Let me hasten to say I never went into combat or even shipped overseas. My only act of service was to accept the draft notice during the Vietnam War build-up. That wasn't heroic.
My namesake uncle died in in the Italian Campaign of World War II. Dad built airplanes for the war effort. What could I do but go when called?
And I wasn't much soldier. All I did was answer the call and wasn't interested in a long or intense conversation with the Army
My wife Sherrell and I had just gotten married. I had recently graduated from college. My career loomed in front of me. But after Basic Training she moved with me to Clarksville, Tenn. -- Sergeant York country -- where we asked to rent a nice, brick apartment off-base.
The landlady looked at my close-cropped hair, my fatigues, my eager face and said, "No! I don't rent to military."
I was stunned. It was my first personal experience with discrimination. The town made its living off the big Army base of Fort Campbell, but I was banned from a neighborhood.
Community Attitude!
We ended up in a tiny trailer we called, "The Green Bread Box." Electricity came from an extension cord the wind would blow down, so I had to pull my combat boots on and go plug it back in during the storm.
The oil heater was fed from a barrel on stilts outside. When the oil ran low at the end of the month I put the boots back on, went out and shook it back and forth until the gravity feed worked for what was left.
Bittersweet
We laugh now. We can't be bitter. That landlady gave me a valuable lesson about discrimination that has informed my life and approach to others ever since.
And later we saw the good side of Community Attitude. A couple of years after discharge we went to New York City on the GI Bill and I earned a master's degree from Columbia. When we were ready to buy our first home, we got a VA loan.
Community Attitude! Historians credit the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, the year I was born, for stocking America with human capital that created economic growth we still benefit from today.
Imagine if our state, our town, our parish put heart and mind to meeting the needs of veterans for jobs and housing and a sense of belonging -- not out of charity but of justice and righteousness to improve everyone's lot with our very own GI Bill.
That original act of Community Attitude proved economically and historically that harnessing the human capital of veterans is a benefit to everyone.
Join the effort
The Brotherhood of St. Andrew -- the Men's Ministry here at Grace Church -- is taking some beginning steps toward a Veterans initiative. We've met with the local Disabled American Veterans organization to give small financial help to some vets and their families. We're looking for other actions to take.
We'd welcome your own suggestions and contributions. We're all suffering from "charity fatigue,” but -- if you feel moved -- send a check marked "veterans" to the parish office.
Long range the Brotherhood may suggest Grace declare itself a "Veteran Friendly Congregation" -- an initiative of the national Episcopal Church and taken by other parishes.
Community Attitude. East. West. North. South. Right here.
Listen. You can hear it. Faint at first, the sound of justice and righteousness rolling down in a flow of compassion toward those who served -- those who serve now. The roar will grow and grow as we enable veterans to live better lives. Then we will be able to sing lustily and lyrically the majestic hymn associated with veterans and active service men and women . . .
Almighty Father, strong to save,
whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
who bidst the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea
O Christ, the Lord of hill and plain
o'er which our traffic runs amain
by mountain pass or valley low;
wherever, Lord, thy people go,
protect them by thy guarding hand
from every peril on the land.
O Spirit, whom the Father sent to
spread abroad the firmament;
O Wind of heaven, by thy might
save all who dare the eagle's flight,
and keep them by thy watchful care
from every peril in the air.
O Trinity of love and power,
our people shield in danger's hour;
from rock and tempest, fire and foe,
protect them wheresoe'er they go;
thus ever more shall rise to thee
glad praise from space, air, land, and sea.