Sherman and a little church

By Doug Page | Wednesday, January 2, 2008, 04:00 PM

The Sunday after Christmas in a small church on a corner in a small town in the midst of flyover country, the minister asked a congregant in the front pew to stand and tell the congregation where he was bound.

In a clear, forthright voice, the soldier explained he and his unit first would be sent to Texas for training, then to Kuwait, then Iraq.

It’s being called the largest call up of the National Guard in Ohio since World War II. In that small church in that small town in the midst of flyover country, it was a morning of tears and sadness.

The little church, like many in the small towns that are only seen by the movers and shakers from 30,000 feet en route to somewhere important, is a member of one of the “peace denominations”. Yet its pews have held veterans stretching back to the Civil War.

The minister — whose congregation once number 2,500 Marines in the middle of the Persian Gulf awaiting word to mount up their choppers and head into harm’s way — asked the congregation to lift up prayers for the soldier’s safe return.

And while they bowed they heads, many thought of another community of faith in small town up the interstate a short nine miles. Months earlier that congregation tried to comfort a family and a town at the death of a soldier — a son, a brother, a friend, a smiling face forever gone.

That Sunday morning after Christmas, the combat veterans from Vietnam and Desert Storm in the sanctuary also remembered to themselves the friends that never returned home.

William Tecumseh Sherman, an Ohio warrior dipped in the blood of the Civil War, gave a singular voice to the reality of war.

“I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers … it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”

At 30,000 feet, flyover country may look tranquil to the movers and shakers. Even if they should descend to a small town’s Public Square, a huge American flag at their back and dignitaries, television cameras and a friendly crowd before them, it’s easy to believe that all is well — to ignore the anguish and lamentations of distant families.

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