A Soldier's Thanks By Chaplain (MAJ) David Spears     Find out more about Free Will Baptist Home Missions by visiting www.homemisions.net.

AS I WAITED AT THE PASSENGER GATE in the Atlanta airport with 50 other soldiers returning to Iraq after a two-week leave, I watched a lady stop and stare as she passed by. Suddenly, she turned and waded through the group, shaking each soldier’s hand and thanking him or her for serving our country. As she clasped each hand in both of hers, I couldn’t help but think about what those hands had been doing only a few weeks prior.

Anna smiled as the lady shook her hand. Three weeks earlier, Anna’s hands had been engaged in a gruesome task that no 21-year-old should have to perform. She is an MP (Military Police), and on a cool November afternoon she was on patrol when she and her fellow MPs received instructions to go to the crash site of two U.S. helicopters. They arrived on a scene of utter chaos and horror. An infantry platoon had sealed off the area to deal with the threat of insurgents while the MPs began to rescue and recover the soldiers. Anna took charge of recovery, identifying and putting back together the bodies of 17 dead soldiers. She protected them during rescue and firefighting efforts.

Photo: Chaplains Terry Austin (left) and David Speers in Afghanistan.

When the lady came to John, infantry squad leader, she clasped the hands of a soldier who crawled on his belly into the burning wreckage of one of those helicopters. The roof had collapsed upon impact, crushing the soldiers inside. Yet two men were still alive, and John managed to reach one’s outstretched hands. He tried desperately to free the man as others scrambled for every portable fire extinguisher they could find. Several times John had to crawl backward from the wreckage until the fire could be suppressed, and then he would go right back in. As the soldier begged him not to let him die, John tried to reassure him by grasping his hands. When the flames finally drove him from the wreckage, John watched in horror as the helicopter became fully engulfed in flames.

As I watched that wonderful woman step out of her comfort zone, opening her heart to those faithful soldiers, my heart was filled with the deepest sense of gratitude. She ministered to my soldiers right in front of me. Even though that’s my job on a typical day, the Lord refreshed me by giving me someone to minister beside me. I marveled at the sovereignty of God.

I think it is only fitting that in an issue of this magazine dedicated to lay ministry, a soldier says “thank you” to the citizens of this amazing nation. “Thank you” to the grandmother whose tender nurture so thoroughly grounded a little girl she called “Anna-banana,” that she would serve her country in a combat zone on the other side of the globe. Her smile was out of place in such difficult circumstances.

“Thank you” to the pastor who led a young American Indian, bound by the chains of alcoholism, to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That young man now shepherds his men in a most violent place.
It is the citizens of this great land who give our military men and women a home worth fighting for—even dying for. If you continue to be the “salt of the earth,” soldiers will always have a reason to serve faithfully as they have for more than two centuries. Thank you for the godly heritage.

“For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die” (Romans 5:7).

ABOUT THE WRITER: Chaplain (MAJ) David Spears currently serves in the U.S. Army as a Free Will Baptist chaplain. He has been reassigned from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, to 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, NC.