AN ARMY MAN 

 

 

            My mother's oldest sibling was a brother who was one of the best men I ever knew.  He never spoke a word that was ugly or off color.  I never witnessed him speaking ill of anyone.  That is not to say that none of these things ever happened but I never knew about it.  After my granddad passed away, he made sure my grandmother was taken care of.  He lived the closest to her so he looked in on her made sure she had what she needed.  Mother and her two sisters always looked up to him because he was the typical big brother to them. 

            I looked up to him because he was an army man.  Before I knew him as a soldier, I just knew him as an army man.  My cousin and I would play together as kids and when we played at his house we could play with one of his old combat helmets.  Wow!  To get to wear that helmet was something special.  My uncle was a Korean War veteran but when we played we were always in World War II.  Most of the time I had to be the German who was getting shot.  We played like we had machine guns and machetes, they were really just a piece of two by four and a stick off a tree.  Who cared?  What we lacked in reality we made up in imagination.

            My uncle was one who had my attention anytime he spoke but especially when he spoke to me.  As a young pastor, he asked me how my ministry was going.  I replied that I was pastoring a small church and for a small church we were doing okay.  He told me that if that church had been planted there by the Lord I should not call it a small church.  He also told me that “small church” needed a pastor just like the “large church” did.  According to him my job was just as important as the pastor's job of a larger church. 

            When the United States became involved in Desert Storm and many of our National Guard troops were called to go overseas and fight, I said to my uncle that I was sure he was glad to be out of the army.  He said that he would be over there in a heartbeat if they would let him.  I asked him to explain?  He said that it was an honor to serve his country.  I felt like a heel.  My uncle was an army man; he was family man; and he was a Godly man.  He served God first, then his family and then his country.  I learned from his life that you can love all three without unloving any of them.

 

 

 

Yours in Christ,

 

Brother Randy Burtram