What a beautiful letter (she says through the tears :). Thank you so much for sharing it with us all. We all need a little uplift and reprieve from the constant, drumbeat, negative media propaganda that feeds us the fabricated facts that the troops' morale is low, the Iraqi people don't want us there, our soldiers are mistreating the Iraqi civilians, etc., etc.
This wonderful chaplain says it all, and says it in such a heartfelt, eloquent way. I wanted to cut and paste the excerpts that brought the biggest lumps to my throat, but found myself cutting and pasting the whole letter! This, though, really means so much:
… I work to coordinate Good Friday, Easter Sunrise and Protestant Easter Service. Having services in a war zone is a little different.
1. We have to worry about getting large numbers of people in one place. One mortar round into the right place and you could kill a lot of marines.
2. Organists are in short supply and we don't have an organ. Music?
3. We are going to worship and it will be well attended ... we need Easter ... because we live in the valley of the shadow of death ... we need the resurrection.
Many of us FReepers attended Holy Week and Easter Day services, but I'm willing to venture a guess that nothing that we heard was more touching or appropriate than the chaplain's single paragraph above.
I pray for our troops, and our leadership, every day, but will keep this chaplain and his charges specifically in my prayers from here on in. God bless him!
In a similar vein, I received a forwarded e-mail (apparently somewhat outdated, but still pertinent) from a friend today that read as follows:
Sleep well last night?
Bed a little lumpy?
Toss and turn any?
Wish the heat were higher?
Maybe the air conditioning wasn't on?
Had to go to the bathroom?
Need a drink of water?
Scroll down …
Count your blessings.
Pray for them.
Talk to your Creator.
And the next time the other car cuts you off and you must hit the brakes, or you have to park a little further from Walmart than you want to be, or you're served slightly warm food at the restaurant, or you're sitting and cursing the traffic in front of you, or the shower runs out of hot water ...
Think of them ... enduring this to protect your freedom!
[The proud warriors of Baker Company wanted to do something to pay tribute to our fallen comrades. So since we are part of the only Marine Infantry Battalion left in Iraq the one way that we could think of doing that is by taking a picture of Baker Company saying the way we feel. It would be awesome if you could find a way to share this with our fellow countrymen. I was wondering if there was any way to get this into your papers to let the world know that WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN and are proud to serve our country. SemperFi.
The attached photo was forwarded from one of the last U.S. Marine companies in Iraq. They would like to have it passed to as many people as possible, to let the folks back home know that they remember why they're there and that they remember those who've been lost.]
~ joanie 