I recently purchased the DVD of the film, We Were Soldiers. It is based on a book written by Hal Moore describing the first major land battle between the Americans and the North Vietnamese. Moore (played by Mel Gibson) was the leader of the U.S. troops. It is a powerful movie. A. O. Scott, the New York Times film reviewer has written: “Like the best war movies — and like martial literature going back to theIliad — it balances the dreadful, unassuageable cruelty of warfare and the valor and decency of those who fight.”

Even though the American troops are victorious in this battle, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that the lives of many wonderful young Americans (not to mention the Vietnamese) were lost in an ultimately futile cause. Moore’s book itself ends with a quotation from the Prussian military strategist Clausewitz: "No one starts a war — or, rather, no one in his senses ought to do so — without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to achieve it." (Something we should certainly contemplate as the possibility of an American invasion of Iraq looms).

One of the coolest things about DVDs is that they often contain scenes that were deleted from a film’s original release. The scenes are usually deleted to shorten the movie and/or improve its pacing. The scenes deleted from this film are truly amazing. I don’t know how the director, Randal Wallace, could have cut them. (Actually, I admire Wallace’s ability to cut such good material. I’ve preached many a sermon that would have been better if I had left some stuff out, but some things are just hard to cut.)

The deleted scene over which Wallace admitted that he grieved the most depicts a Sunday worship service (the battle began on a Sunday) at a protestant chapel at Fort Benning, Georgia. Many of the soldiers’ wives are present at the service. They had put on a brave face in front of their husbands as they left for battle, but now their brave façades were beginning to crack. One of them stands in front of the congregation and begins to sing a solo, “On Christ the Solid Rock.” She falters after she sings the opening lines: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame…” She apologizes and attempts unsuccessfully to start again. Finally, Julie Moore (Col. Moore’s wife) begins to sing the chorus, “On Christ the solid Rock, I stand—All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.” She is joined by others in the congregation. This give the soloist, the strength to go on with the verse: “When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.” The scene is made even more powerful because among the actors in the congregation are the real Hal and Julie Moore and the real Barbara and Cami Geoghean (Barbara’s husband, John, was a young lieutenant killed in the battle. Cami was their daughter).

As I contemplated this deleted scene, I realized that much of our lives is like that. Many of the scenes of our lives are open to public but there are those other scenes that the public does not see. It is there that our true selves are often revealed. Some scenes we would be embarrassed for others to see. But it is also out of public view that often a person’s true struggles are revealed and also the faith that enables them to face life’s challenges. As in the movie’s deleted scene, it is often in the context of church that we allow our public faces to drop and we become “real” to one another. Such times are moments of grace and power.


©2002 C. David Hess

I and several others from our region (Helen Young, Solomon Ernst, Emily Keyes, Marge Spencer and Lynne Stewart) attended this year’s World Mission Conference at Green Lake. We found it an to be a very enjoyable and powerfully inspiring event. Evidence that the other 900  participants found it to be the same was the $67,000 offering for the support of new missionaries which was received on Wednesday (Wow! What an offering!).

Most inspiring (and entertaining and even humorous) were the stories told by the missionaries on home assignment. I will never forget the story told by Michael Lowery who serves, with his wife Jill, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One night Mike and Jill were awakened by the cries of one of their children. Mike responded by saying to Jill, “Your turn.” Jill dutifully went to check on them.

Shortly, she called out, “Mike, you had better come in here and take a look at this!” Mike drug himself out of bed and sleepily made his way to the children’s bedroom. The sight he saw immediately jolted him to a state of complete wakefulness. There was a wide column of what seemed to be thousands of army ants crawling in the bedroom window and down the wall. Mike immediately had everyone flee the room. Mike retrieved a can of insecticide from the kitchen and began spraying the ants. The ants did not react well. (Mike admitted that they had been warned not to do this). The ants attacked Mike and began climbing his legs and biting. He retreated,  shut the door to the bedroom, and picked the ants off his legs. The whole family went to the parents’ bedroom. Mike and Jill made some makeshift beds for the children on the floor. Everyone went to sleep but only for a short while.

The parents were again awakened by cries from the children. They had ants in their hair. Everyone got out of bed and fled to the living room. Mike closed their bedroom door and stuffed towels under it. Then he and Jill picked the ants out of their children’s hair and put them to bed on a table. Mike sat up in a chair on guard against any advancing ants, thinking about how much sleep he was losing. The flesh was week, and after awhile he feel asleep, only to be awakened by a cry from his wife from the kitchen, “Mike, you had better come in here and take a look at this!”

The kitchen was  full of what seemed to be millions of ants coming from cupboards and everywhere and heading out the kitchen window. On top of the wave of ants were lizards and roaches that they were carrying off. Mike described the roaches as being on their backs with their waving feet in the air, calling out, “Help me! Help me!” Mike did not answer their calls for help. After awhile the whole column of ants and their cargo of live and dead vermin were gone.  They had been “on a mission”—a mission to search for and retrieve food and return it to their colony’s nest. Nothing was going to dissuade them from their task  or stand in their way.

Mike and Jill didn’t recognize it at the time, but the visit of the ants proved to be a real blessing.  They had unsuccessfully been trying to poison the roaches for weeks, even to the point of almost making themselves sick with the insecticide. After the army ants passed through, their roach problem was gone. You never know how God is going to bless or who or what God is going to use as His instruments.  They found other inspiration in the event, as well.  Like the army ants, we as God’s people are “on a mission”. Nothing is to dissuade us or turn us aside. God has promised to be with us as we perform our mission and help us sometimes in quite unexpected and mysterious ways. May we be as persistent and dedicated as the army ants.

 
©2002 C. David Hess