The Soldier God Refused to Forget
By Peter Rosenberger - Posted at The Aquila Report:
Not all memorials are granite. In the genealogy of Christ, God preserved the name of a faithful soldier.As a boy in the early 1970s, I remember my father serving as a U.S. Navy Reserve chaplain in Atlanta. One of his duties was casualty notification, informing families that their loved one had been killed in military service, usually Marines.
In winter, he wore his Navy Service Dress Blues while accompanying other officers into some of Atlanta’s poorest neighborhoods and housing projects. There were no cell phones, GPS systems, or easy ways to locate families quickly. The notifications were time-sensitive, and strangers in uniform were often met cautiously in neighborhoods already carrying more than their share of hardship. Some families hid at first because they thought the men approaching their doors were police officers.
But my father carried a different burden: the worst message a family could hear.
In addition to preaching from a pulpit, he ministered on doorsteps.
He served for many years, eventually retiring with the rank of captain. But long before that, I watched him carry one of the hardest duties a chaplain could bear.
Memorial Day means more to me because of that.
Not all memorials are granite.
Some are folded into flags handed to trembling families. Others hang quietly in framed photographs or rest beneath white crosses overlooking distant oceans. And some are so small that readers almost miss them in Scripture.
One appears in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
