White crosses and poppies

Too many fields in too many places are filled with poppies and white crosses --- row after row of white crosses – too many to count ---reminding us of the high cost of freedom. Somebody’s son, somebody’s mother, somebody’s fiancé lay beneath those tombs.  Each cross has a story behind it.

He’s in his eighties now and his buddy’s are close to all gone. They keep dying off, but he remembers them as if it was yesterday and he takes pride in the fact that his old uniform still fits him.

Those crosses in that field are not just name, rank, and serial number to him.  There was the one he shared the foxhole with and the one who always told jokes when he thought he could not stand another moment of sheer terror as bombs burst in air. 

Later came Korea, the “forgotten” war that is still being fought as the north launches missiles into the south and soldiers still man checkpoints and a DMZ is more myth than reality.

Then there is the Viet Nam vet.  We have yet to say our thank you’s to those men and women.  Mostly they were eighteen and twenty and didn’t want to go to war, but they answered when the lottery gave up their number.

She was just 19 when she left for Iraq.  She had joined the army right after high school graduation, thinking it would help pay for college when she finished her tour and the pay was good for someone with no experience. 

.  These are just a few stories of the hundreds and thousands of stories of men and women who lie beneath white crosses. The list goes on and on in places that make the news and places we have never heard of.   There are too many white crosses and too few thank yous. 

Whatever you may think of war, whatever horrors you can recite, these men and women, for the most part did what their country told them to do with no questions asked.  And they deserve our thanks --- the thanks of a grateful nation.

         So on this holiday weekend, pause to give thanks for the men and women who protect our world --- from Korea to Afghanistan.  They are the front line for freedom.  But also take the time to pray for our nation’s leaders that they will work to bring our soldiers home.

Because peace is the cause of every soldier.  Soldiers, more than any one else, long for the day when their swords will be beaten into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and the peace of God will reign through all the earth.