60 Happy Pappy Daze in New Orleans: My dying request

My dying request

Nothing, NOTHING has ever been more important

HAPPY PAPPY DAVE HARRIS

ISBN: 979-8-35134-883-4

DEDICATION

To my wife Elizabeth, my sweetheart of more than six decades, whom I met in Rhode Island at a YMCA dance. People often thank me for my military service, but our wives--my wife--carried the heavy load, raising three children and maintaining the household during my numerous deployments. She deserves the highest honor, which she will get when our Lord Jesus says to her, “Well done, good a faithful servant.”

Introduction

My Dear One,

          I have the most urgent request you will ever receive from me or anyone else.
          Time is slipping away for me—and you. In my case I have exceeded my life expectancy now that I’m in my 80^th year.
          The darkest, most frightening, ghastly, appalling, unthinkable-but-very-real curse has threatened you and me: never-ending, everlasting torment.
          Nothing—nothing—is more urgent than for you and I to escape this awful, certain curse.
          My dying request: that you fully understand and take immediate, aggressive action to escape this otherwise never-ending curse, embracing instead the most glorious, fulfilling, joyous, exhilarating, purposeful eternity far beyond what you could imagine.

OK, Pappy, spill it--what is your vital, life-or-death request?

What garbage does the devilish world pawn off on us?

Am I so bad? No worse than anyone else

Am I good enough to go to Heaven?

Where does happiness fit in?

What's wrong with my current worldview?

What's the good news?

What do I get out of this and how soon?

What do I have to give up?

So, it's a smooth ride on the down escalator?

What's a Hedonist and how can I get in on it?

          I have exceeded my life expectancy, now in my 80^th year. I am reminded constantly of this horrifying danger to many of you.
          We can blame our forebears for this mind-blowing curse, starting with Adam and Eve, our relatives who had everything going for them and chose to absolutely blow their and our paradise life by turning their back and disobeying (sinning) against their/our loving Creator and suffering the consequences of spiritual death and ultimate horror by turning God’s wonderful gift of love into anger. Why? Because you can’t have a loving God without a wrathful God—in other words, a just God.
          But God came up with a plan to save our ancestors, as well as you and me.

          What if someone handed you a book that would give you the key to banishing your greatest fear…but you refused to read it?
          My greatest fear is that you will ignore the greatest gift anybody ever got, presented in this book you have begun to read.
          This very well be at least the second most important book you will ever encounter.
          It should scare you spitless.
          Then it will provide the most thrilling good news anyone ever heard of, designed with you in mind!
          I hope you will read to the end. But just in case you are a typical young person, I’ll pull out the tools of my 40-year journalist’s career when I was a media spokesperson under nine presidents. A reporter could get an answer from me packaged as a 10-second soundbite…or opt for 30 seconds, 60 seconds or the full meal deal.

10-second soundbite
You and I have been facing a certain ghastly, grotesque, terrifying and endless future of our own doing.
Without a radical and total turnaround, we’re utterly doomed forever and ever.

How’s that? We have no choice but to get it fixed now!

30-second soundbite
Our Creator has offered us the best gift in the universe: a most beautiful, everlasting, joyfully productive, exhilarating adventure “above and beyond all that we could think or imagine.” Only if we accept his free gift of eternal life with Him by changing our mind about our wrongful, selfish ways and inviting Jesus into our lives to completely take over.

It keeps getting better.

60-second soundbite
A friend put off committing his life fully to Christ, thinking about all that he thought he might have to give up. Instead, he was astounded at all the joys and peace he gained when he surrendered his life to Jesus, the One Who gave up His life in our place to rescue us from certain torment and destruction. “The thief [enemy, devil] comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].” --Jesus
Why not accept His free gift of eternal life today by telling Him that you repent (turn from your sinful ways) and want to live for Him from now on? [Sin means evil and selfish thoughts, words and actions that displease God, which only He can help us overcome in the midst of our challenges and setbacks].

Some of you may be thinking, “I’ve heard all this before, but people have convinced me that it’s all fairy tales and exclusive, leaving out billions of people. I’ve researched some of the objections and alternatives, and I fervently hope this book will provide answers.

WARNING: Becoming a follower of Christ is not necessarily easy. Some think it must be like riding down an escalator, a smooth life free of trouble. More likely it is like struggling your way UP a down escalator. Here comes an evil temptation! NO! The devil is trying to hassle or accuse me! STOP! But, here’s the GOOD NEWS: Jesus will walk with you through any difficulty, and He will never leave you. He will be the best friend you ever had!

I’m sure you’ve heard some opposition to God or His Son Jesus along the way--from friends, relatives or teachers. Stick with me, and I’ll give you God’s answer to these objections.

Who’s a loser?

          Do you consider yourself a loser…or an unbeatable winner? As a young person, I considered myself a hopeless loser, and as the years went by, poverty, favoritisms, break-ups, rejections and layoffs seemed to prove it. But something happened to turn me around and assure lasting success that never ends. I’d like to share this unsurpassed gift with you.
          Essentially completing most of eight decades, I have now exceeded my life expectancy. I’m grateful for each new day my Lord allows me. The sober-minded thought for you is this reality: You could die tonight. Then what?
          Everyone needs to know about their family roots--what one’s parents and grandparents experienced in the way of challenges, setbacks and triumphs, and their outlook for the future. You can avoid some of their mistakes and enjoy some of their lessons learned.
          I wasn’t what you would call a constant troublemaker, but neither would you call me a model good kid. I think the best description of my youth: one might observe me as shy with strangers, often goofy and shallow with friends, and a mild rebel whose behavior was frequently right on the edge at home.
          And yet, I was too timid to try anything at school, for example, that would cause my folks to be embarrassed. Underage smoking, drinking, streaking and panty-raids were out of the question. What’s streaking, you ask? A fad emerged in which mostly young men would run naked across an athletic field during a game. Most of the time they got caught and faced consequences that I never discovered.
          Oh, I knew when best to behave myself in front of authoritative adults. Even at church, I knew the right things to say, and I knew how to play all the hymns on the church organ. And yet, during the sermon, my buddies and I would, for example, put a bobby pin up our noses to make ourselves sneeze. And I gave Mom, the Junior Church leader, fits as my behavior often got me a trip upstairs to sit with a hapless adult guardian.
          At a very young age, 4 or 5, I had the faith of a child, fascinated by black-and-white movies about Jesus and commenting, “Wasn’t it nice of them to take movies of Jesus long ago, so we could see Him?”
          During the 1949 earthquake in Western Washington, I asked my folks, “Will we go up in the sky now?”
          Asked by Mom or Dad to say the blessing over the meal, I had a canned prayer that I recited for a couple decades:
          “Dear Jesus, thank You for the nice day and the nice food; help the missionaries. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
          As I grew, like many others (you?) I put on a front. I became a good actor. I even tried to pray. But I don’t think God was listening, because my “worship” was all about Self...kind of a self-preservation habit arising out of poor self-esteem. My kindergarten teacher, for example, never heard me talk. Ha! She gave me no incentive: she would tell the class that if Davy ever talked, they’d all jump out the window. Why would I want to cause such a catastrophe?! There are only two gods in the universe: the true God Who has proven Himself, as manifested, for example, in the Judeo-Christian tradition…or Self-worship. One of those is for fools. Like I was.
          I tried to “have fun,” but as an awkward, uncoordinated, shy person early-on, I wasn’t very good at it. No money (and yet I thought about money all the time, thinking I would be a failure in the workplace and becoming a miser from an early age). I would pause and gaze at a display of 10-cent candy bars, and then pass them up for an extra third of a gallon of gasoline--that’s right, 29.9 cents a gallon!
          Granddaughter Emma honored me by asking me to participate in a project for her university class. She was to interview a man over 50 and learn his--my perspective on a number of topics.
          I told her about a phenomenal lesson I learned from a book by a former philosophy head at the University of Southern California, Dr. Dallas Willard, who wrote several books, including Renovation of the Heart.
          He pointed out that so many families and relationships are messed up because of as many as four hurtful practices:
          Rejection – in my own life: favoritism shown to my siblings, translating into rebellion and reinforced by lack of self-esteem and rejection by dates and wives who abandoned me.
          Assault – we observe put-downs and mockery in marriages growing up & as adults, as well as outright shouting & sometimes violence (one wife threw a flowerpot at me. If she had better aim, I’d be dead). As kids, we take these experiences or observations in marriages to the playground, where they are practiced in abundance.
          Withdrawal – being attacked, or guilty of such, results in withdrawal or distancing in relationships or marriage, and then socially, we self-distance.
          Defensiveness – with assaults & distancing in our experience, we think we must defend our every thought and action.
          Think about these four factors. Think long and hard. Haven’t you experienced them and even practiced them? Some of you may have rejected and/or withdrawn from relatives (me?) whom you perceive as ignorant or biased.
          Love interests abandoned me, and no wonder. Who would love a fumbling oddball with no visible talents or social skills and who was only good at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time?
          To soothe myself from hurtful attacks, I’d sometimes choose to withdraw from the conflict, but as much as the attacks stung, such isolation made me even more miserable.
          If I didn’t withdraw, too often I’d retaliate with verbal assault--put-downs, mockery or undeserved harsh criticism.
          The practice of these four sorry tactics are nothing less than ghastly, horrible stains on relationships, families and societies.
          Inspired by Dr. Willard and ancient enlightenment, my desire is to pass on to you the proven remedies--hinted by the author: Renovation of the Heart. Please don’t give up on me. Stay with me to discover the most fantastic answers of your entire lifetime and beyond!

          Facing the draft, I had little choice but to join the Air Force. Before that, however, I barely escaped crawling in the Vietnamese mud as the lowest-rank enlisted infantry soldier with a severely shortened wartime life expectancy. I came down with infectious mononucleosis--“mono”--in my last term before graduating at the University of Washington. My draft deferment expired in weeks.
          Horrors! I could go to bed and try to get well, fail to graduate before my deferment expired and get drafted by the Army for duty in Vietnam. Or I could endlessly drag my disease-wracked body to classes and expend my last ounce of energy trying to graduate. I chose the latter.
          Incredibly, a God-wink enabled me to pass. I was facing a final exam in literature class on the substantive book, Crime and Punishment. I could barely stay awake long enough to read two pages at a time.
          The night before the final, I happened to glance at the TV listings. Shockingly, the movie Crime and Punishment was scheduled at 11:30 that night on the educational channel. I went to bed and set my alarm for 11:15. I furiously took notes on every scene and character in the movie. On that knowledge alone, I completed the exam and passed the course. I graduated! Thank God!
          I had to face the facts. You may not think of me this way today, but nervous-nelly timidity, relieved by outbursts of tomfoolery, described the shallowness of the two or three decades of my life--not the squared-away Air Force officer you would want putting his life on the line to protect you from enemies foreign and domestic.
          In fact, I goofed up two crucial questions on the Air Force Officer Qualification Test.
          One asked, “If you were to become an Air Force officer, would your seniors and peers regard your commitment, aspirations and performance as among the top 20 percent of the officer corps, the second 20 percent, third, fourth or the bottom 20 percent?”
          I wrongly surmised that they didn’t want me to portray myself as prideful or arrogant, and so I predicted the second rung down from the top. Duh. They had hoped I would strive for the top tier.
          The next question puzzled me: “When you were younger, did others customarily come over to your house to play, or did you more often go over to their homes?
          My friends had more toys, and so I chose the latter. Wrong again, Dude. Friends coming over to my house would indicate that I was leadership material.
          Fortunately, it wasn’t a showstopper. The Air Force desperately needed officer recruits for the ongoing war in Vietnam. They accepted me.


          More later about how my military career shaped my future.

Though I inconsistently went through the motions of thinking of myself as a Christian, I was terrible at it.
How about you? Do you live a good life?
Is your life good enough to go to Heaven?
I discovered a “test” to determine if I was “good enough” and I failed. As one of my relatives, I can almost guarantee you already failed as well. It goes something like this:
—Have you ever used God’s Name or Jesus as a swear word?
—Have you ever lied?
—Have you ever stolen anything, no matter the value?
—Have you ever looked at someone with lust? Jesus says that’s as serious as committing adultery.
—Have you ever hated or been furious at someone? Jesus says that such anger is as serious as murder.
—Have you ever shown disrespect to your parents or grandparents?
—Have you ever envied what someone else had?

Most of us said “yes” to most or all of these. We have broken God’s 10 Commandments, thus disqualifying us from Heaven. The Bible says that our actions in breaking God’s law—He calls them sin—stored up God’s wrath against us, and an eternity of torment and regret awaits us, separated from God, a terrible, lonely place of our own choosing—a choice caused by our rebellion against God, rejecting Him.

Tragically, some of you may have thought you prayed a prayer or you’ve been baptized, but you kept living your life as the world wants you to, instead of how God wants you to—fully surrendered to Him and completely trustingHis will for your life. The Godless way of the world’s way of living means that you may be a FALSE CONVERT, a horrible state, leading to a hellish eternity.

God foreknew that the sin sentence would apply to everyone in history. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.” That means you and I broke His perfect law. Knowing this awful fate for us, God had a plan—a gift—that you could accept and escape an unthinkable eternity, and instead, have an everlasting life of joy and productive happiness without end! In fact, this gift, this relationship with God’s Son Jesus, is unlike any religion. You can’t achieve it by yourself. It happens only when the Holy Spirit comes to live inside you. But you must consciously and with firm commitment ACCEPT His phenomenal offer and NOT reject it. Here’s how:

Someone said life is like a football game. At 18, you’ve finished the first quarter. At 36, it’s halftime. At 54, it’s the end of the third quarter. At 72, you’re in sudden-death overtime.

Are you good enough to go to Heaven? I want you there with me for all of eternity.
You can be thankful that here is a test to see if you’re eligible for Heaven:

AMAZING ADVENTURE spend eternity somewhere where are you going? Paid our penalty not what you’ve done, but Who you know debt You did not owe to pay a debt we could not pay

“If you will repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus, God says he will forgive all your sins and grant you the gift of everlasting life. “…if you repent (that means to confess and forsake your sins) and put your trust in Jesus, then you will not have to suffer God’s justice in Hell because the payment for your crimes was made by Jesus on the cross.”
“If you’re not sure what to pray, read Psalm 51, and make it a model for your prayer. The words are not “magical”; what God cares about is the attitude of your heart. When you pray, it should sound something like this, “Dear God, I repent of all my sins, such as (name them). I put my trust in Jesus Christ as Lord (to say Jesus is your Lord means you are now making Jesus the master over your life) and Savior. Forgive me and grant me your gift of everlasting life. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”
Now read your Bible daily, and obey what you read. God will never let you down.”

To find the way to God, to understand the truth of God’s Word, and to receive the gift of eternal life, begin by repentance and faith through a prayer like this: “Dear God, I understand that I have broken Your Law and sinned against You. Please forgive my sins. Thank you that Jesus suffered and died on the cross in my place and rose again. I now place my trust in Him as my Savior and Lord. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”
If you have repented and trusted in Jesus, then your sins are forgiven and you can now partake in the blessings of “the New Covenant.” Here are just ten of God’s exceedingly great and precious promises:
1. You have passed from death into life (Jn. 5:24).
2. God will supply all of your needs according to His riches (Phil. 4:19).
3. Jesus will be with you in trials, promising never to leave nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5).
4. The Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth, and give you the power to live a holy life (Jn. 16:13).
5. You are cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ—God has removed your sins as far as the East is from the West (Ps. 103:12).
6. As you abide in Christ, you will see the “fruit” of His Spirit begin to manifest in your life (Gal. 5:22-25).
7. As you read the Bible daily, it will come alive to you and cause you to grow in your faith (1 Pet. 2:1-3).
8. When you pray, God will hear you and answer your prayers (1 Jn. 5:15).
9. The cross will be continual evidence of God’s love for you (Rom. 5:8).
10. God “is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 1:24).
Search the Scriptures daily, and see what God has in store for those that love Him. Honor Christ’s command to be baptized, and find yourself a Jesus-centered, Bible-teaching church and commit yourself to it. I may be able to suggest one near you.
May God continue to bless you as you obey Him.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT IF YOU ARE A GOSPEL SKEPTIC:

1. Which of the 3 biblical reasons to criticize are you troubled with - ignorance, pride or a moral problem (please answer)?

2. Why do you desperately search for loopholes? See #1 above.

3. If you're wrong, what are the consequences? If you're right, what do you gain?

4. If you were wrong, would you want to know?

5. Dr. Habermas' studies zero in on the Resurrection. He is invited all over the country to debate atheists. He wins, saying, "I can get them to the Resurrection." After one debate, a bully and his wimpy followers approached the Dr. "I have a list of 9 guys that were resurrected." Dr: "Where did you get that list?" Skeptic: "From the internet." Dr. I can name every one of those 9 guys. Problem is, none of them ever existed."

6. WHY DO I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? My wife was instantly cured during prayer of a debilitating rheumatic heart condition. My friend, Walter C. Malley, was instantly cured during prayer of long-term alcoholism. Then, years later, during and after a golf game, died SEVEN times and through prayer he lives today. Before I went to Greece and Turkey last year, my Navy lady neurologist showed me my MRI. My brain was filled with white achemic material. She said I had had a massive stroke or I had been bashed in the head decades ago. Miraculously, everything reconnected without symptoms (it was Tommy Blevins throwing his bat between my eyes in 4th grade). Years ago my wife was awakened in the middle of the night to call out to God on behalf of her mother. She learned later that at that very moment her mother had turned on the gas in her stove and wanted to kill herself. Mom lived 40 more years to age 96, I can go on and on.

7. Dr. Habermas said, "We don't need any Rambo apologists (those who defend the faith)." I told my apologetics teacher, Mark Rambo!!! Lighten up! See the humor!

8. Several PhDs wrote books trashing Christianity - Dawkins, Hitchens, others. PROBLEM: They are not scholars in that their studies were in fields OTHER than theology.

9. I asked a skeptic, "What is a fundamentalist?" He provided a dictionary definition: someone who believes in a literal Bible, who believes in a 6,000-year-old earth." Oops. I'm not a fundamentalist by that definition. I don't think God has feathers!!! And many Christians believe in an old earth. To God a day is as a thousand years, scripture tell us.

10. If fundamentalist means I believe in the virgin birth, the Resurrection, and that Jesus died as a substitute for my (and your) sin, then color me fundamentalist.

11. Why on earth would I believe in the virgin birth? It was foretold in Isaiah and the Resurrection is the smoking gun. If it is impossible to disprove the Resurrection, then I believe the others who told me the rest.

12. Does doctrine, important as it is, get you to Heaven? No. What gets you to Heaven is trusting Jesus to empower you to live your live as He would live it if He were you!

13. I've tried other lifestyles without Jesus. Unfulfilling. Meaningless. Awful future. I've found that with Jesus, it's not what I would give up; it's the stunning joy and meaning that I gain, not to mention phenomenal brothers and sisters and glorious fellowship - with them and my Lord.

14. Do you love me? Really? If not, you're believing the wrong thing. I can't love you naturally. But God enables me to love you!!!

15. 300-plus prophecies about Jesus - FULFILLED! My friend, the head scientist of Allison, asked his brother, head of mathematics at a college, to run the numbers of the chances that 300 prophecies could be fulfilled. It was 1 over 10 to the umpteenth power. Both became believers.

16. Jews will be STUNNED to hear from you (on what authority?) that their scriptures about Moses, David and Isaiah didn't exist until the Middle Ages. Do you see now why God calls unbelievers fools (not my term - God's)?

16. Where does that leave you? Where is the evidence that will enable you to avoid a stunningly unimaginably ETERNITY of anguish and regret without God? Read "Deadline" by Randy Alcorn. His character went to Hell, shaking his fist at God. He was all alone for eternity. But then he heard a moan and scream. At first he was overjoyed. He was not alone! But then he realized: the moan and scream were his own.

17. You haven't noticed evidence of God? If you know 1% of all the knowledge of the universe, could God be in the other 99%?

18. Most religions depend on the PRIVATE revelations of their founder. Christianity is unique in that its Founder had thousands of eyewitnesses!

O MY O MY MUST READ IF YOU READ NONE OTHER: "Hegel’s idea was that God is synonymous with the universe itself. The universe is an unfolding process that rises to self-awareness in humankind. Humans are therefore the crowning achievement of the god-as-world process, and we are God’s self-consciousness. Therefore, if we want to know who we are and how to live the good life, we need only look within to discover God and the direction in which God is evolving.

This eventually gave birth to the New Age religious fad. How many times have you heard the suggestion that you have to make your own happiness, find the true self within, discover the god within? That’s the self-help industry’s prescription for attaining the satisfying life that seems perpetually just out of reach.

I can tell you that when I truly looked within myself, I was shocked and then disgusted. I found a self-righteous, self-satisfied guy who thought of himself as incorruptible because he had been taught ethics by his parents and had been highly educated. My self-righteousness had led to a failed first marriage, for which I bore the responsibility. It led me to play it as close to the line as possible when it came to dirty tricks in political campaigns. It utterly blinded me to the fact that I was committing a crime when I showed FBI files to a reporter. It told me I was a good guy, a caring person, when I did nice things for people. When I took a good hard look at all this, I didn’t find “the god within.” I found my corruption and even more devastating, my will to remain corrupt. Except for the troubling pain my failures were causing me, I enjoyed the way I was and I wasn’t sure I wanted to change. For two years after Watergate, I was proud, defiant, blind, and as intent on self-vindication as John Ehrlichman was. If we truly examine our own lives, we encounter the agonizing distance between what we should be and who we really are. For all the talk about honesty these days, why are we never honest about this? The only people who don’t experience this disturbing tension between the good we want to do and the evil we practice are sociopaths. It is precisely the lack of a guilty conscience that enables sociopaths to indulge their appetites for rape, torture, and murder. These dark appetites exist within us all. Think about your response the last time someone betrayed you or cheated you or verbally abused you. If you are like most people, you wanted to hurt the person who hurt you, and that’s the symbolic equivalent of what the sociopath practices. The only ways to escape that darkness lie in denial (we really didn’t do that), rationalization (we’re no worse than the next person), killing our consciences (we practice vice so often we become habituated to it), or declaring our innocence through appointing ourselves god." Colson

PAUL HARVEY'S LETTER TO HIS GRANDCHILDREN

We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. For my grandchildren, I'd like better.

I'd really like for them to know about hand me down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches.. I really would.

I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated.

I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car.

And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen.

It will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep.

I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.

I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother/sister. And it's all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him.

When you want to see a movie and your little brother/sister wants to tag along, I hope you'll let him/her.

I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.

On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your Mom.

If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one.

I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books.

When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head.

I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a boy / girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.

I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it... And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he/she is not your friend.

I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandma/Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle.

May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you - tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.

The Gospel is not God hatefully saying: “Turn to Me or I’ll send you to Hell.” The Gospel is God’s Mercy and Grace saying: “You’re already on your way to Hell.
Turn to Me, and I’ll save you.”

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
1 Corinthians 1:27-29

Here's the question everyone should ask themselves: You’re standing before God on Judgment Day & God asks you, “Why should I let you into my Heavenly Kingdom?”

Why does the sinner choose a life of sinful indulgence? Because he or she prefers it. The sinner chooses that whicxh is according to one’s nature and, therefore, before one will ever choose or prefer that which is divine and spiritual, a new nature must be imparted to that person; in other words, he or she must be born again. --A.W. Pink

After you commit your life fully to God, “You stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if He were you. --Charles Spurgeon

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. Ephesians 6:12-13

Nobody is born into this world a chold of the family of God. We are born as children of wrath. The only way we enter into the family of god is by adoption, and that adoption occurs when we are united to God’s only begotten Son by faith. --RC Sproul

BOOM!
          My fun-loving Col. Don Klein scared the bejeebies out of the reviewing General for parade-field airmen on the march. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
          I started helping Navy Master Chief Bob Evans write his hair-raising BOOM! autobiography when it dawned on me that my own Air Force career had some thrills, spills and gut-checks of its own.
          I had to face the facts. You may not think of me this way today, but nervous-nelly timidity, relieved by outbursts of tomfoolery, described the shallowness of the first 33 years of my life--not the squared-away Air Force officer you would want putting his life on the line to protect you from enemies foreign and domestic.
          In fact, I goofed up two crucial questions on the Air Force Officer Qualification Test.
          One asked, “If you were to become an Air Force officer, would your seniors and peers regard your commitment, aspirations and performance as among the top 20 percent of the officer corps, the second 20 percent, third, fourth or the bottom 20 percent.
          I wrongly surmised that they didn’t want me to portray myself as prideful or arrogant, and so I predicted the second rung down from the top. Duh. They had hoped I would strive for the top tier.
          The next question puzzled me: “When you were younger, did others customarily come over to your house to play, or did you more often go over to their homes?
          My friends had more toys, and so I chose the latter. Wrong again, Dude. Friends coming over to my house would indicate that I was leadership material.
          Fortunately, it wasn’t a showstopper. The Air Force desperately needed officer recruits for the ongoing war in Vietnam. They accepted me.
          I hope this book will demonstrate how God protects, molds, develops, opens and closes doors for a military man ill-prepared for the challenges he would sheepishly face, providing many plot twists and turns and, surprisingly, landing him on his feet with joy and satisfaction.
          I say my shallow lack of confidence lasted 33 years, give or take. That’s when I met the love of my life, Suzanne. Stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison at the time, my boss wanted to spend end-of-year money, and he paid for both Suzanne and I to attend a positive thinking rally at Market Square Arena downtown Indianapolis, where we heard success stories from the likes of Gen. Colin Powell; TV host Art Linkletter; my broadcast hero, Paul Harvey; and motivational author Zig Ziglar.
          That, coupled with a life-changing seminar called Basic Youth Conflict, opened my eyes to new horizons and even intermittent risk-taking. So, I’ll start at the beginning. I changed most names to protect the innocent.

    Curiosity with urgency

         Dad gave his World War II military experience mixed reviews. He despised what he thought was petty regimentation and questionable hierarchy. On the other hand, the federal government commandeered major universities to train recruits, and Uncle Sam sent Dad to MIT--the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology--to train him to be an electricians mate in the Coast Guard. Dad called military training the most efficient in the world.
          I faced the draft breathing down my neck during the Vietnam skirmish--not a draft lottery that my younger brother Daddles enjoyed. He could wait and see if his number came up. My number came up right from the start.
          My only reprieve: a four-year deferment to enable me to try to get a college education. As early as high school I started looking around for the best option, My buddy Lowell’s dad served as a Petty Officer first Class in the Navy at Sand Point in Seattle. Lowell would take me for visits there, and the spit-polish cleanliness impressed me. I thought the Navy might be a good choice, and relatively safe in wartime.
          My search became more serious during my last two years at the University of Washington. I used my lunch break to visit Air Force ROTC headquarters, but everyone there had vanished for lunch. I looked around.
          One sign sternly commanded, “Take two steps forward, salute and formally report, stating your business.” I mistook that to mean that a clueless civilian inquirer must knuckle under. I immediately lost interest.
          Finally, I realized less than a handful of months remained before my deferment expired. I found information on the Navy’s Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. The slick publication accomplished its enticing sales job, and I decided to visit a Navy recruiter.
          The recruiter, on the phone, noticed my glasses, and even though he, too wore glasses, he tapped them and waved me off. I guess he needed to fill his pilots quota that month.
          Knowing I needed to take action to avoid duty as an infantryman in Vietnam, I went next door to the Air Force recruiter.
          “Excuse me, Sergeant, can I join the Air Force?”
          “Probably not, unless you can answer one question as an airman. Imagine you’re an airman. What would you do if you found a scorpion in your tent?”
          Dumbfounded, I desperately searched the skies for an answer.
          “Well, uh, I’d call room service and ask why there’s a tent in my room.”
          “That’s the right answer; you’re in.”
          After a short conversation, he asked how soon I would graduate from college. I had only one more quarter to go. So he signed me up to test out for Officer Training School at lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

Crushing blow

          Big problem.
          In my last term at the university, I came down with a wicked sore throat and debilitating fatigue. I went to the university clinic for evaluation.
          “You have infectious mononucleosis”--the dreaded mono. Just hearing the diagnosis gave me a dizzy spell. Pondering the consequences staggered me: dropping out of school would sabotage my deferment and, after recovery, it meant Uncle Sam would send me to Vietnam as a vulnerable grunt and, I dreaded, certain death.
          I had but two choices. Skip my last term, go to bed and try to get well, or tough it out, disease and all, and keep going to class in order to graduate in time. I chose the latter. All my body wanted to do was to sleep. I mustered every ounce of energy to attend class and stay awake.
          The killer: my required literature class warned of a final exam on the Russian classic, Crime and Punishment. Wracked with the debilitating disease, I couldn’t read more than a page or two before nodding off. I managed to find necessary resources in the library for other classes, but the lit final threatened to thwart any chance I had to finish in time and avoid the harrowing draft.
          A God wink: the night before the final exam, I happened to look at the TV listings. I couldn’t believe my eyes. That very night, the educational channel had scheduled none other than the movie, Crime and Punishment, showing at 11:30 p.m. I set my alarm for 11:15, sat glued to the TV and furiously took notes on every character and event in the film.
          Somehow…I passed! And graduated! Thank God!

Hurry up & wait…& panic

I don’t remember my physical. It couldn’t have been very rigorous because Uncle Sugar desperately needed recruits. My recruiter told me to report to the induction center, downtown Seattle, complete a stack of paperwork, and I would receive commercial airplane tickets for the next day.
     I found a parking spot for my ’56 Ford and showed up as directed October 21, 1966. Sergeants didn’t seem to be in any hurry to complete the forms, and I endured the long wait. Suddenly, a sergeant told us to form up, and he took us across the street to a chow hall. How nice! I hadn’t expected to be fed, but why not? Food caught my attention, and I started warming up to the service.
     More long waiting after lunch. Finally, I asked one of the sergeants when I might get my plane ticket for the next day.
     “Oh, we’re flying you out later this afternoon.”
     What??
     After taking the oath of office, and told I now had enlisted initially as an E-1 airman basic, I found a pay phone and made frantic calls for someone to pick up my car and for the folks to quickly arrange to have someone throw most of my worldly goods into a suitcase and take a chance of finding me at the airport. Somehow, they connected with me before the powers that be whisked me off to my flight.
     A half-dozen officer recruits accompanied me on the Boeing 707. Before releasing us to our flight, our sergeant escort said we’d have a six-hour layover in Los Angeles. My newly found cohorts plotted a last-gasp bash. They’d catch a taxi and go bar-hopping in L.A. during the promised layover. I wanted no part of it. I’d cool my heels at the airport.
     This was my first flight on a passenger jet, complete with a hot meal and, unfortunately, a pack of about four cigarettes, which my companions quickly lit up and provided an unbearable tobacco stench in the air.
     We landed, and immediately, an airport worker directed our group to follow him. He had arranged an alternate flight leaving right then. Good! No layover. On the final leg of the trip, I starting wondering when the Air Force would allow us to sleep. We would arrive in the middle of the night.
     Sure enough, we landed around 1 a.m., or I should say 0100. Because of the quick change to another plane, our luggage didn’t arrive. The Air Force piled us on an old blue bus, and we took maybe a 20-minute ride to Lackland AFB.
     I won’t say the term slave labor, but they had corralled about 15 airmen basic recruits to process us in, having us sign papers, promoting us to E-5 Staff Sergeant for pay purposes, and getting our barracks assignment, along with a sergeant to march us (or shuffle us) to our bunks, hitting the pillow around 0230.
     “RISE AND SHINE!”--a rude awakening. “Gentlemen, it is 0530. Temperature today, high 84, low 49. Uniform of the day: 1505s (tans) and low-quarters (black shoes).
     Really? They’re going to get us up after three hours of sleep? I have no uniform. I had only the clothes on my back. I decided to roll over and try to ger more rest. I was sure my hosts would tell me otherwise if I guessed wrong.
     Thank God, they let us sleep a couple more hours. No more rude awakening that day. Someone came around to awaken the newbies, allow a quick trip to the “head” (no time for showers) stumble outside and fall in. We hadn’t received any training on how to act, and so an upper classman formed us up and had us try to keep in step to march to the chow hall where we stood in line and followed instructions to shout our eggs preference.
     “TWO! SCRAMBLED!”
     We had precisely 15 minutes to eat everything on our metal trays. Then it was off, in formation, to a parking lot. Our luggage had arrived. We lugged it to our rooms. Then, on to clothing issue. Airmen threw a duffle bag and garments at us. Skivvies. Running shorts. T-shirts. Socks. Next: tennis shoes, dress shoes and boots.
     “Size?”
     “Uh, 8-and-a-ha--make that 9.”
     Next came fatigues, dress blues and 1505s. Apparently previous OTs (call us Officer Trainees) guessed wrong on uniform sizes, and so airmen measured us. Two sets of each, plus an overcoat and a raincoat.
     Two more stops. We started getting the hang of simple marching (except turning corners) and we marched to the paymaster, who had a sign for, maybe, $50 cash, and then off to the BX--base exchange for some mandatory and optional personal items, including the requisite sewing kit and such things as bar soap, toothpaste and a toothbrush (deodorant, as I recall, hadn’t caught on in those early days. Early such products in high school had utterly failed me. I think Ban had appeared on the market).
     After a short break to put away our stash and a short, regimented lunch, we met our Flight Captain. Our group, organized into one of many flights and several squadrons, got most of our academic and lifestyle instruction from officers. Sergeants provided most of the physical training: aerobics and marching.
     Flight Captain Slabaugh took us to the parade field for one of our first sessions devoted to marching. He taught us to turn corners, “Left Oblique!” and how to stop: “Flight, Halt!”
     Following our marching instruction, he marched us to our barracks, and had us assemble in a classroom. One of the first things Flight Captain Slabaugh said about our marching:
     “One of you is a leaner.”
     He looked around at each OT, trying to recall the face of the Gomer Pyle culprit. Oh, wait. Gomer hadn’t made the TV scene yet.
     Of course. It was me.
     After the first day, the routine became a dizzying buzz of activity. Upperclassmen quickly drilled us on barracks clean-up. My job was, among squaring away my space and properly making my bed, was to clean the Venetian blinds.
     Class instruction on officer etiquette: If your commander invites you and your wife over for dinner and serves caviar, you need to return the gesture, but you can serve spaghetti. And it’s proper to order calling cards and leave one when you enter a senior officer’s home.
     Change into athletic gear and do push-ups, sit-ups and run.
     Quick shower, change back into the uniform of the day, march, and back to the classroom to study military jargon, hierarchy and protocol, hygiene, along with a brief history of the Armed Forces, particularly the young, proud tradition-free Air Force, established in 1947.
     In two or three days, disaster. I pulled the cord of a blind, and it came crashing down. It slashed and bloodied my thumb, needing medical attention. A fellow OT, Mr. Totman (we had to call each other “Mister”) had brought his car and drove me to the hospital. The doc sewed me up, bandaged the whole hand to keep the thumb immobile and instructed me to soak my hand in hydrogen peroxide every night and rebandage it.
     Although I feared my incapacity would skuttle my chances of graduation, the injury turned out to be another God-wink. It got me out of much of the physical training, including the obstacle course. Nevertheless, the Air Force expected me to keep sufficiently in shape to pass the running test at the end of the two-and-a-half-month grind.
     Did God, in His omniscience, allow the injury to this uncoordinated OT, knowing that his unhindered attempts at physical training would have washed him out? I don’t know, but what I do know is that my Lord gave me a supernatural alertness, curiosity and fascination with the academics which, in the end, pulled me through. My classmates doubted I would finish--I joked around too much, as a relief valve for the pressure we had to endure. Captain Slabaugh required us to do 360-evaluations, rating our fellow classmates. In a fight of 17 or 18, they consistently rated me dead last.
     The squared-away captain noticed the stressful looks on our faces, and he told us that Friday night we would march to the Officer Trainee Club, where we could relax, have a steak or whatever appealed to us.
     Don’t try to date the females in the program, he warned us.
     “Women who join the military have to be a bit off in the head.” He would be court-marshaled for saying that today.
     Friday evening, we formed up and marched to the eagerly awaited culinary pleasures.
     “Mr. Harris, why aren’t you having any hard stuff to drink?”
     “Well, uh, I never developed a taste for it.”
     “Oh, my, you’ve never sampled the good stuff.” My classmates ordered me a Tom Collins and a “7&7.” They both tasted sweet. Here it is almost six decades later, and I had to look up the ingredients of a Tom Collins:
1 1/2 ounces gin

1 ounce lemon juice

1/2 ounce simple syrup (whatever that is), 2:1 ratio

3 ounces club soda, or to taste

Maraschino cherry, for garnish

Lemon or orange slice, for garnish
Classmates told me a 7&7 was Seagram’s 7 and 7-Up. I just learned now that Seagram’s 7 is blended American whiskey.
I found this form of partying foreign and depressing, and so I broke the rules and walked back to the barracks alone. I fell on my bed (we didn’t call them racks as the Navy does), and I burst into tears, overcome by tightly scheduled, stressful activities, and the feeling I didn’t fit in.

Inspections, leadership
& security breach

          Upperclassmen constantly reminded us to know our chain of command, from our trainee leaders clear up to the president. Be prepared for surprise inspections. Upperclassmen had assigned each OT a rank, based on prior service or first impressions. My rank: first lieutenant but not displayed with brass. We wore corresponding Navy stripes on our epaulets. One broad and one narrow stripe on each shoulder depicted my rank.
          In a matter of days, we heard the clomp-clomp of inspectors from the trainee hierarchy. Someone yelled, “BUILDING, TEN-HUT!”
          We had memorized the Commander of ATC (Air Training Command) as part of our hierarchy, Lt. Gen. (3 stars) Sam Maddox Jr. Except our memorization didn’t include the number of stars, only the rank.
          As I recall, I had two roommates. Remember, we wore Navy stripes, and OTs that outranked us had more stripes. The inspector tried to throw us off with his first question:
          “What is the insignia of rank of the Commander of ATC?”
          “Uh, two stars, Sir?” My roommate committed strike one.
          “What??? Write one, Mister!” Erroneous Roomie had to write up his own black-mark demerit. The inspector turned to my other roommate, and repeated the question.
          “Er, four STRIPES. Sir?”
          “Write one, Mister!”
          Fortunately, the inspection team stomped out of our room without interrogating me. I knew that a lieutenant general had 3 stars, but I’m not sure how I would have responded to that curve ball question.
          Then, we changed double-time to athletic shorts for PT. We couldn’t just throw our uniforms on the bed, and we had no time to neatly store them away.
          Fortunately (or unfortunately, as it turned out, upperclassmen designated a single drawer in each man’s space as a security drawer. On our first-day trip to the BX, a combination padlock adorned the shopping list to secure our valuables in our security drawer.
          One roommate, Mr. Postma, was heir to the Polaroid Corporation. One time, weeks into our training, he was arranging the contents of his security drawer, and I, aghast, saw several Air Force check stacked up. So filthy rich, he didn’t bother to cash them!
          Anyway, following inspection and changing into shorts, we stashed the fatigues we had worn out of sight in our security drawers and ran outside to fall in.
          Bad idea.
          Flight Captains had been around the block a few times and knew all the tricks. They also knew we were in such a hurry, we didn’t check to see if everything was secure. During our PT, officers had come in and yanked at the security-drawer locks. Half of them weren’t completely closed and opened easily. When we returned, we found that the officers had strewn the contents all over the floor and left the ever-present demerit slips. Lesson learned.

Excessive comic relief
& overreach

          To dispel the stress, weekends included but just a half-day training on Saturday. We could use the rest of the weekend for chapel, TV football games, tasteless jokes and songs.
          One could hear the whole barracks motley crew singing at the top of their lungs:
          We gotta get outa this place
          If it’s the last thing we ever do.
          I had a top bunk. One night I hit the sack early, despite the din of voices. I forgot to take my glasses off, and so I grabbed them and leaned far over the bunk in an attempt to put them on the table.
          KARUMP-CLUNK!
          What was I thinking? I fell headlong out of bed. Only a few scrapes and bruises.
          After a few weeks, the joking and horseplay diminished markedly. Several of us were just squeaking by, either academically or physically, like me. The watchword among my cohorts was “Cooperate and graduate.”
          Nevertheless, sitting silently across from each other at meals, although some resented my earlier antics, they would stare at me and strain themselves trying to hold back their emotions, alternately turning red or spitting a restrained laugh.
          Again, they accommodated their worried scorn by rating me last in the class.
          Thank goodness my thumb laceration and bandages kept me from most physical activities. Even so, I had to fulfill a requirement to take charge of my flight and demonstrate I could bark out proper commands to keep the column going in the right directions. I felt satisfied afterwards, thinking I had demonstrated a good variety of turns and halts.
          Unfortunately, Captain Slabaugh differed with my assessment in his written evaluation: “Collided with another marching unit.” So, what’s the big deal?
          I had always wanted to visit the Alamo, just a couple bus rides away from the base in San Antonio. Davy Crockett loomed large as my childhood hero. Sadly, weekend after weekend passed, and upperclassmen saw to it that I was “gigged in”--too many demerits prevented me from leaving base.
          Leadership lightened up around the holidays, and I boarded a bus on my way to the Alamo on Christmas Eve. As I recall, I had to transfer once or twice, but I finally arrived at the historic landmark. I saw a notice on the door:
          “The Alamo is open to visitors 363 days a year. We close only on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.” So much for that visit.
          Decades later, the Air Force Reserve invited me to judge a base newspaper contest in San Antonio. I brought Suzanne along. Would this be my chance to see the Alamo? Nope. Judging sessions lasted 12-plus hours a day. I told Suzanne that she’d have to drive to the tourist sites on her own in our rental car if she wanted to see any. Not particularly comfortable driving in strange places, I was proud of her for venturing out to see the missions trail… and she alone visited the Alamo!
          Back to Officer Training School. We had to buy a mess dress--formal Air Force duds akin to a tuxedo. Tailors stood by to alter them to size, and to alter our uniform shirts. This turned out to be a mistake. All of our marching and running caused us to be at our skinniest. Later in our careers, we had to alter or buy new shirts and mess dress as we blossomed out.
          We wore a mess dress to a formal Dining In. I limited my participation, but in my opinion, a Dining In was no more than an excuse for most officers to party and more than a few had more than their limit.
          The banquet hall featured a huge tub called the Grog filled with booze. Officers would fill their glasses and someone would propose toast after toast…to the president…and Secretary of Defense…and the General…and the Base Commander…you get the picture.
          High school classmate Jim Stump tells of an Air Force base in England that planned a Dining In and wanted a sports speaker. Jim worked for the Christian organization, Athletes in Action in London. Base officials saw the name of the organization in the phone book and called, asking for a speaker, not knowing its Christian charter. Jim volunteered.
          On the night of the event, Jim was startled to observe the drunken activities. First, a Colonel stood up and told the filthiest jokes Jim had ever heard. Then, the General got up and outdid the Colonel in off-color stories.
          Finally, Jim’s turn came to speak. Not knowing what else to do, he began speaking as he had prepared. He simply told his testimony--how God had moved mightily on his life--and he led the officers in a sinner’s prayer. Suddenly, Jim felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back. The hand was that of the General, who had tears in his eyes.
          “Son, I needed that.”
          What a glorious conclusion to a banquet that earlier had gotten off to a devilish start.

          Back to the mission at hand, Officer Training was wrapping up. I passed my PT test, which included a mile-and-a-half run. But a final academic test loomed. We had learned how to brush our teeth properly. An officer duo taught us about the Uniform Code of Military Justice, with potential infractions and their dread punishments, such as “Six, Six and a BCD.” That translated into six months forfeiture of pay, six months confinement at hard labor and a Bad Conduct Discharge. O Lord, save me from such.
          Final exam: A swarm of sweaty OTs in a humid warehouse. The question:
          “You are leading a squadron on a two-week encampment. You want to erect a 50-foot flagpole. How do you make that happen?”
          OTs nervously broke out their primitive slide-rule “calculators” to determine proper ballast and sufficient depth. Shockingly, I was the only one out of the 1,000 OTs who got it right:
          “I’d say, ‘Sergeant, I want a 50-foot flagpole RIGHT HERE!”
          OK, I may have stretched the truth a bit on that story. I had so longed to be credited with doing something right!

          January 4, 1967--after two-and-a-half months, the day of graduation, and more importantly, commissioning had arrived. We had practiced marching for the pass-and-review by none other than the man whose name we had memorized as part of our chain of command: Lt. Gen Sam Maddox Jr., Commander, ATC (we had to think hard to remember what ATC stood for).
          I could hardly believe it. After all my awkward moments and distress, I would be commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force at the conclusion of the pass-and-review parade (one becomes a second lieutenant first and a first lieutenant second)! Many family members had traveled to observe this most memorable day. No one came from my family--too great of an expense in those penny-pinching days. In my elation over this milestone, I wasn’t concerned.
          The Air Force added a surprise to the ceremony. Leading our flanks was a stunningly exquisite marching band playing patriotic music. Drinking in the unbelievable splendor as I proudly proceeded, it seemed like a dream world. How in God’s green earth did I make it this far? The spectacle overwhelmed me, and I again burst into tears in gratitude to God for somehow pulling me through.

          I had been so intimidated by drill sergeants and young officers--even first lieutenants--that I was nervous around anyone who outranked me at my first assignment, Castle Air Force Base, in the San Juaquin Valley of California. My boss, Fred, was a first lieutenant.
          In my ignorance, I had purchased a new ’67 Mercury Comet, having asked the dealer to sell me just the basics. No air conditioner. No radio. Then, on my drive down to the base from Seattle, someone rear-ended my new car in San Francisco. Temperatures reached 120 degrees in the summer. I was ordered to attend a command function in a civilian suit in Merced. By the time I got there, I was drenched in sweat. Nice.
          I got that assignment because the public affairs office (then called Office of Information) became shorthanded when the officer in charge, a major got himself in trouble by confiding a story to a local reporter:

Crying Colonel Caper

One of my public affairs officer predecessors for the 93rd Bombardment Wing at Castle Air Force Base, Calif., was a legendary lieutenant apparently fed up with make-work silliness on the home front during the Vietnam era. He liked to push the envelope on security and rules. He deemed gate security a joke and he was proven right.
          The lieutenant was convinced that he could drive a truck up to the gate with a picture of a round black bomb, a lit fuse and the word “Explosives” written on the side, and the guards would wave him right through. I don’t know if he tried it. What he did try apparently succeeded. A pesky lieutenant colonel came to see him every week. The ranking officer oversaw the Base Beautification Program, and he wanted the junior PAO to write a weekly progress report for the base newspaper, the Valley Bomber.
          The younger officer quickly grew tired of warming up the same old news that his senior had planted young palm trees all around the perimeter of the parade field, decorating the large expanse of grass people would see as they entered the main gate.
          How could he put an end to these dreary reports? He concocted a plan. Our public affairs office had its own photo lab. Around midnight, the lieutenant let himself in, picked up a quantity of liquid “hypo” chemical photo developer, and carefully poured a few ounces on each of the young palm trees. The senior officer never found out why they all died. End of the Base Beautification Program. End of the weekly progress reports.
          It was not, however, the end of the base security problems. Two teenage members of the Civil Air Patrol decided to go on a joy ride one afternoon. They hopped in a hotrod that one of them owned, showed their CAP identification to the gate guard and headed for the bomb squadron.
          Inside the building, they walked into the locker room. One of the boys put on a flight suit with the silver leaf insignia of a lieutenant colonel. The other boy donned a major’s flight suit. The major’s suit hung by a couple flight caps, but the lieutenant colonel suit had no flight cap with it. Both boys put on the major’s caps.
          Outside in the parking lot, they found a blue Air Force van with the keys in it. They drove it out the front gate and saluted the guard, who noticed that one of the “officers” had silver leaves on the flight suit, but a gold leaf on his cap. He dispatched a patrol to chase them down, and the boys were apprehended in short order.
          When confronted, the young “colonel” began to cry. End of story? No. A Merced Sun-Star reporter visited PAO every Tuesday to see if there was any news on his beat. “Not this week,” the PAO said, but then the reporter heard a couple public affairs specialists talking with amusement about the boys who were caught. Headline the next day: “Crying Colonel Caper.” The Associate Press picked it up as a lighthearted “stinger,” and it ran in the Washington Post. Security is no joke, especially when the brass read about it at the Pentagon. End of assignments for the Wing Commander, the Base Commander and the PAO. That’s how I ultimately got the PAO’s job.
          The Sun-Star is where we went down once a week to publish the base newspaper. One day an Asian American walked in and said, “I want to speak to Wally Palmer.” Told there was no one at the Sun-Star named Wally Palmer, the man became insistent. Finally, when he demanded to put an ad in Wally Palmer, someone said, “Oh, you mean Valley Bomber.
          My boss did me no favors with his evaluation write-ups on me. He had been treated unfairly by his boss, starting him off with a “6” out of “9” on his first six-month Officer Performance Report. Accordingly, Fred told me up front that’s how he would rate me and, as his boss had done, mark me up one number every six months.
          The Air Force expected top-notch performance--a “9”--and anything less was a career-killer. My Lord was looking out for me, however, and despite a bumpy road, He landed me on my feet. More later.

          Three memories linger from that assignment. Our higher headquarter, 15^th Air Force, informed us a team of officers would arrive unannounced to inspect our vehicles. The transportation captain displayed the demeanor of Barney Fife in the Andy Griffith Show.
          “Captain!” The colonel’s sharp attention-grabber widened the captain’s eyes.
          “Yes. Sir!”
          “Some of our vehicles look scratched up and dingey. See if the regulations permit painting them.”
          The following week, the colonel asked Barney Fife if he had the results of his research.
          “The regs say we can only touch up the vehicles, Sir.”
          “OK. Touch them up all over!”

Each year the base invited the public to an open house. We invited guest celebrities and arranged for visitors to climb into aircraft for a close-up look. The first time I participated in an open house, I perched on the roof of Base Operations for a sweeping view of the activities. Suddenly, a band started playing patriotic music. Mindful of my officer training school graduation and commissioning, and overwhelmed by gratitude, I again burst into tears.

As part of my duties, I responded to requests from community organizations for a guest speaker. If I couldn’t convince someone else to speak, I got the job. One day, a well-to-do rancher in a cowboy hat picked me up to take me to his Kiwanis Club for a speaking engagement. He was proud of his Cadillac, and showed off his air conditioner, blowing it full-blast. I had thought my short-sleeve summer uniform would be appropriate in the blazing heat, but he turned his vehicle into an icy meat locker. Live and learn.

          The Air Force sent me to an occasional public affairs conference where an assignments officer would tells us what vacancies loomed in the system and what we might expect in the way of potential moves.
          He looked up my record and said I was first alternate for a position in Japan. As it turned out, the officer tapped for the job got diverted to another assignment, or he came up with some excuse, and I was given the PCS--permanent change of station--to Misawa Air Base in northern Japan.
          Such a move presented a lot of challenges, such as shipping a vehicle, finding housing, and those with pets learned that Japan required a month-long quarantine before they could pick up their pet.
          By riding a bike around Japanese neighborhoods, I found a three-bedroom home adjacent to the base for $4,500. My Master Sergeant’s wife worked at the credit union and co-signed for a loan.

The bloodletting started within seconds of a rocket blast that jolted me awake from my slumber on my rack at my Chu Lai base, signaling the start of the 1968 Tet Offensive in South Vietnam. My duty that midnight--OOD--Officer of the Day--at Camp Shields, NMCB-40 (Naval Mobile Construction Battalion).
          Instinctively, I ran with a flashlight down the passageway of my quarters in my skivvies toward the “hole,” the rudimentary shelter that took priority before any other construction. Directives told me to look for a hardhat, but no time for that.
          Impeding my egress was a sleepy sailor standing in the hatch. At full speed, I bumped and grabbed him, thrusting him aside and reaching my destination.
          He followed, hobbling, and revealed the source of the blood--his heels. Suddenly, I became aware of pain in my own toes. In my collision, my toenails had dug into his heels, causing the non-purple-heart crimson flow of the painful and messy wound.
          I had trained my people: If the first rocket doesn’t get me, when I hear the second rocket, I’m running for the hole. Don’t get in my way, or I may run you over!
           “Get out of here! Don’t lollygag around,” I told them. It was an instant life-or-death decision.
          Huge rubber bladders with aviation fuel topped the sand a few dozen yards away. If the rockets hit those, it was curtains.
          The hole accommodated eight-to-ten men in a 6-by-8 space, deep enough so one could stand up in it, protected by sandbags…protected, except for a direct hit, in which case you don’t need the hole; you’re gone anyway. The shrapnel would get you. My beachside hut sat near the South China Sea.
          Locally, it wasn’t a 24-hour siege. The scariest part was four or five hours. I didn’t, but some melted in fear. Finally, the rockets let up--for now--and we emerged from the hole to resume our mission.
          We had worked to build a hospital 20 miles from Chu Lai to support a Republic of Korea--ROK--commander.
          We linked Southeast Asia huts together, using plywood and screen wire to keep out the bugs and weather. One hut may serve as an operating room, and we may pour a concrete sidewalk to reduce the dirt and dust, keeping the structure knee-high off the ground. We provided plumbing, electrical utilities, sometimes even air conditioning if it was available.
          I worked for the Seabee company commander: company chief as senior chief electrician. I was the commander’s representative over the whole camp of 550 men and some 30 officers.
          We had relieved another battalion. Formerly, we had brought all of our own equipment, but no more. An advance party would inspect and start up the equipment in place that had a sticker identifying the assets with the number 71. If a piece of equipment checked out, our guys would rip off the 71 and replace it with a 40 sticker.

Supposedly we were self-sufficient; we had everything we needed for 30 days--food, supplies, ammo, building material. Did the system work perfectly? No way. Diesel fuel didn’t last 30 days. Heavy equipment would go through a 55-gallon drum in a couple days.

We had our own doc, dentist, chaplain, and the supply officer oversaw the galley.

“Hayes’ way and underway”--we carried on that old Navy motto.
From my perspective, I regarded Koreans as the best fighters in Vietnam, because they had experience in their own country living through and fighting communists. None of the other countries participating with us had such battle-hardened savvy.
The ROK captain--probably a lieutenant colonel Marine--got word from the local village that the Viet Cong were waiting for the Seabees to finish the hospital so they could torch it.

Not to be outwitted, the captain talked to the mayor of the village to spread the word: “Let them know that any village that sets fire to anything of ours--even accidentally--I’ll burn everything from 50 miles south to 50 miles north, from Quang Nai to Phu Bai,” he said. “For 100 miles, I’ll burn every village, and I won’t worry about collateral damage.”

American fighters try to avoid such damage: kids running out, asking for “chick-a-lay”--chewing gum. And yet a young girl in a kimono might leave something in an American jeep.

BOOM!

The Vietnamese aren’t born bad people. They are forced to act treacherously by the communists who are ruthless and will kill families of those who do not cooperate.

If someone plants a bomb, typically, one doesn’t have the time to profile bombers; he shoots them. Some crossed over the line, such as the infamous Lt. Calley, who faced trial and justice held him accountable for his excessive actions.

The Vet Cong were so depraved that they would warn American soldiers by hanging a GI in a tree, stretched out, his manhood cut off and shoved into his mouth.
Seabees carried arms. I had my M-16 readily available and my .45 hung beside me. We weren’t aggressive, but if the enemy put us in a corner while we moved equipment or had a construction mission, we protected our assets as necessary.

I made some really good friends in that battalion. Some of us recall that the Lennox brothers moved up to the Spokane area from Texas and started the famous Longhorn restaurant. Floyd Lennox was one of my heavy-equipment operators

We worked six-and-a-half days a week, not Sunday morning. Leadership encouraged us to go to chapel in a thatched hut built by the Vietnamese.
          Ed Dickinson hadn’t won favor with fellow heavy equipment operators, but he worked his way up and made chief in our battalion. He was proud as a peacock, a good Christian who aided the chaplain, whom we considered the “Big Daddy” of public affairs and a really swell guy. The chaplain had a way with words. He opened a song book to sing a hymn.
          Suddenly, a big rat fell from the ceiling, suffering a fatal blow. The chaplain, undeterred, always knew the appropriate thing to say.
          “Brother Dickinson, would you kindly remove our recently departed Brother.”

Early days

All her life, Mother suffered from various pains. When she was born on Aug. 11, 1917, she didn’t breathe. The doctor rolled her back and forth on a barrel-shaped trunk top to get her breathing. It worked, but apparently injured her back. This action, strange as it may sound to modern medicine, apparently saved the fresh newborn’s life there in a farmhouse near Troy, Alabama.

In 1945, doctors gave Mother a spinal fusion in Birmingham, Alabama. This procedure was developed by the military during World War II. She spent six weeks in the Birmingham hospital. Later, after the family moved to Florida, Dad, too, was given a spinal fusion in Orlando and spent nearly a month there.

Mother’s back tormented her with constant discomfort, and she suffered from respiratory problems as well.

“I didn’t love you more than Pat,” she told me, and yet she seemed to lean more toward showing affection for me because, as she put it, my dad overdid his favoritism with Pat.

________________________________

Never compliment a child on his or her good looks. An ugly duckling nearby will overhear and be scarred, perhaps for life.

“I solemnly command you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus and the highest angels to obey these instructions without taking sides or showing favoritism to anyone.” 1 Timothy 5:21

________________________________

In their eyes, Pat was always a good boy, as far as they knew. In our teen years, I knew better! He was more like my dad, who was even-tempered. I was more like my granddaddy Evans, who was fiery-tempered.

We played a lot with little cars. I would arrange my roads and towns exactly right. Pat was satisfied with a lower standard--“close enough”--and then I would walk through our setup and wreck it, just to be ornary. It was obvious to me how my dad felt about Pat.

Dad did take me squirrel hunting when I was about 8 or 9 years old. We rode bicycles 15 miles out of town to a farm owned by folks from church. We were on bikes, riding along US 231, a two-lane highway ,at 4 o’clock in the morning to go squirrel hunting with a .22 rifle--I with a .22 rifle and Dad with a shotgun.

I was always bigger than Pat, since I was 14 months older, until we became adults. He ended up over 200 pounds, but I was determined not to overtake 200 pounds. I didn’t go on any diet; I just quit eating so much after I retired and in my 50s and 60s.

Granddaddy Evans was essentially blind all my life. He had sight as a young person. Dad said that he’d see him plowing and would hear him holler, “Gee/Haw!” He would be squinting at the crooked furrow he’d plowed and would curse and beat the mule with the plow lines. If he had just left the mule alone, the animal would walk and yield a straighter furrow on his own!

When Dad left the farm he had grown up in, he went to Montgomery and wanted to be a mechanic, and so he applied at the Montgomery City [Bus] Lines. They didn’t need mechanics, but drivers.

“Do you know how to drive?”
“Yeah.” (He’d driven a friend’s Model-T one time about one-half mile on a country dirt road).

Without explaining this “extensive” experience--Dad didn’t have a driver’s license in those days--he drove a bus around one city block--no curbs, no failures to stop at corners, no collision with anyone, and so he was hired that day. He was about 19 or 20 (1932-3).

After his “railroad days,” he returned to driving city bus during earlier World War II days. He probably hauled a million soldiers between downtown and Maxwell Field (Army Air Corps) in those years.

Finally, a friend from church (AG) helped him get on with the Health Department as a restaurant and meat-market inspector. He remained there until 1947 when we moved to Tampa, Florida. I was 10 years old.

When World War II started, Dad had to register for the draft, and we wanted to join the Navy. But, the military doctors rejected him as soon as they discovered that he had no sensory feeling on the right side of his body. Oh, he’d know if a finger got mashed, but he had his obvious limitations.

He was always left-handed. He applied at the Atlantic Coastline Railroad for a job as a brakeman and was hired. Six months later, he was required to join the union. When his physical exam was underway, his right-side disability came to light. They couldn’t believe he’d been hanging on a rail car with one arm and swinging a lantern with the other in the middle of the night.

Before World War II, he drove a semi-truck for Alabama Transfer between Montgomery and Atlanta.

Dad finally found his niche when he hired on as a health department inspector in Alabama, but in Florida he worked as a Ford mechanic, semi-truck driver hauling citrus, city bus driver, garbage truck driver, and ultimately got on with the Polk County Health Department as an inspector.

His passion: persuade customers never to fail to make a sanitation-related complaint. It was more important to point out a flaw and make sure the establishment was clean, rather than his having to put a padlock on the door for 30 days.

Finally, he served 30 years as senior rodent control officer.

Discipline? Dad would get fed up with me and Pat over something, and he whipped me with a folded belt, a folded bullwhip or a long, green switch, and he’d wear it out on me. I decided not to pattern my life by others’ bad actions and to make sure I never do such as that. I developed a positive way of looking at negative behavior. For example, “saving up” (as Dad did) infractions. I didn’t do that. If my kids needed whacked, they got whacked. Now! That might mean even outside of church. Oh, and Mother, I recall, had the sharpest nail to pinch my upper thighs in church! Ouch!!

My own kids had better behave, and don’t mess around in church. Sit ahead of me. That was the rule. Of course, boys will be boys. They’d elbow one another or whisper. All I had to do was provide a sudden finger snap, and they’d freeze. I could tell they got the message. Their ears would turn red!

Dawn was never subject to this because she was always a perfect little lady--and still is!

In early summer, 1947, we headed to Tampa for two months. We visited former church friends who liked to fish. We enjoyed that so much that in late summer, we loaded the ‘37 Plymouth, and if anything didn’t fit in the car, it didn’t go.
Off to Tampa again--to live. We were there several months.
Pastor Courtney, father-in-law to our Montgomery pastor, was at the AG in Winter Haven. We visited and later moved to Polk County. Owen Bilbrey owned a fruit brokerage, and he lost one of his drivers who hauled, processed and separated fruit for juice packing companies. So, he hired Dad to operate a refurbished citrus hauler truck semi. Pickers would dump loose fruit into the field crates. They’d slap a sticker on a box and get 15 cents a box. Dad would load the crate contents by hand and al from the groves.

When Dad was 19, he got a dollar a day at the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in West Florida, where the men rubbed out palmetto growth by hand. Half of a worker’s pay was sent to his family. The camp was located near where Mike boats (landing craft) and soldiers practiced the landing at Normandy prior to D-Day.

The Assemblies of God Church was particularly strict about social activities when I was growing up. It was the same with my friends, the Thompson boys, who went to a local Church of God. No pool allowed in our town, so the Thompson boys and I would go over to the next town. All pool halls were in bars.

One of the Thompson boys didn’t turn out so well, but the second boy, two days younger than I, had a sister who married a man at Lee College in the 1970s. He became head of foreign missions in the Church of God. Theologically, the Church of God is a twin of the Assemblies of God, both very Pentecostal.
God working through the church got my attention, however. One man, a heavy smoker, was invited to a tiny AG church. He didn’t leave before God got hold of him and he was saved. God instantly delivered him, and he never smoked again.

Discoveries: Girls, Cars & Jobs

One of my first encounters with “romance”: A girl from church in Auburndale, one year behind me—she was in fifth grade—and she was always trying to kiss me. I liked her, but I wasn’t that interested. She was a nice kid, and a bit aggressive, but the feelings were not reciprocal. I was more interested in playing marbles.
Oh! Back in Montgomery, I liked a girl in first or second grade, Carol Williams, but she didn’t know I even existed!

   Later, in Florida, a family arrived from Indiana in the summertime to visit our neighbors. They had a daughter, 12, whom I started noticing. I thought, “Girls—they’re different!” That was when we were starting junior high.
          I had no steady girlfriend in high school. I dated a few times, not much, mostly church activities, but I was more interested in my car, a ‘38 Plymouth, tomato red, with big moon hubcaps and a gutted muffler. Sounded good!
          Of course, there were girls at the A/G Southeastern Bible College where I attended for a time, but in the second year, I quit and went on active duty in the Navy.

My first car was a two-door Model A sedan with no right-side floorboard. I bought it for $75 from a painter at church who knocked out the back seat and used the vehicle as a pickup to haul paint. I was 17.
          One Sunday I asked a girl I really liked, Peggy Powell, to take a ride in my “new Model A. So, she in her white eyelet dress rode around for a while, but afterwards, she noticed that the filthy “work truck” with no floor board had resulted in that pretty dress becoming very speckled from road debris. She didn’t seem upset, but I felt bad. It wasn’t very long before Gail entered the picture. She was 13, and I met her at the Church of God nearby.
          When I had just turned 15, I got a restricted license, which one could get as early as 14. In Florida, when you turned 16, your license became unrestricted, which allowed you to drive after dark and without a fully licensed driver in the passenger seat with you.
          Dad was trading a standard-shift ‘50 Plymouth for a ‘51 Pontiac with an automatic transmission. If you had “automatic” stamped on your license, due to your taking the exam in an automatic-transmission vehicle, you could not drive a stick shift. Most of my early “learning” was done on a ‘46 Chev with a vacuum shift that was miserable to learn on.
          However, Paula (Owen Bildrey’s daughter) talked her dad into letting us take his Jeep and ride around in the groves off-road on Sunday afternoons. Joy Courtney, our pastor’s daughter, was a year older than me and had a driver’s license, so she would go as part of the “group,” so I could get in more driving. Paula was a lifelong friend, and she and her husband later traveled with us in our motorhome to Alaska in 1997 (a two-month trip). My brother Pat was usually the fourth person in our “party.” He was 14 years younger than me.

With my Model A, you had to open the door by reaching for the outside handle. Also, mud puddles would splash on the muffler and a cloud of steam would surround my passenger. I recall once when my church and school friend, Charles Clary, was with me, and this happened. I yelled, “Get out—the car’s on fire!” He was panicking, and I was laughing my head off!
Charles went on to be a preacher. He loved golf, and he was really good at it, but the Lord convicted him of his obsession with the game, and he gave it up.

          At 17, we had four cars in the yard. Two were mine, until Dad made me get rid of one, because it looked bad. About that time, as a senior in high school, I joined the Naval Reserve in January 1954 and then graduated in 1954. My first steady job was packing bags at a grocery store and later riding a bicycle, delivering telegrams for Western Union.
          A real Godsend, Dad’s friend, a deacon and his wife, Gordon and Hazel Herndon, owned the electric company in town, Haven Electric. They had hired a young man from church, Otis Willis, who was four or five years older than I, to learn to be an electrician, but Otis later went into the Army. Then, I came along.
        Dad was a hunting and fishing buddy with Gordon. One day he asked Dad, “Would that boy of yours want to learn to be electrician?”
          When Dad asked me, I said nothing and shrugged. At 12 years old, I’d never thought about such things; then he added that I would get paid 50 cents an hour while I was learning. Suddenly, I was interested! Now you’re talking! That was real money back then. Gordon’s offer launched my electrician career. I was a Construction Electrician in the Seabees for 30 years, and I’ve been a Journeyman in Washington State for the last 30 years.
          That job wasn’t grunt work like sweeping the dirty floor. Gordon put me on a truck with a crew and with three tools: side-cutter, a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers.
          Gordon warned me, “Boy, remember one thing: these are my tools, and never lay them down. They’re either in your hand or in your pocket.” From the very beginning, he literally had me twisting wires and doing electrical work.

Once, I laid my pliers atop a ladder. I still remember, 73 years later, when Gordon spotted these pliers and startled me by jumping on my case. It still keeps coming back to me! Today, I still hesitate to lay a tool down on a ladder.

          One time I felt lousy and had a lot of pain in my abdomen. I went to the Bond Clinic. When Dr. Bond poked me, it hurt like the dickens.
          “Appendicitis!”
          Immediately, they rolled me into the operating room to take care of it right now. They kept me overnight. Everything the guy in the next bed said was funny, but it hurt to laugh!
          Sometime later when I was in Saipan, I wanted to watch an appendectomy. The Navy doctor asked me, “Are you going to pass out on me?”
          “No, Sir!”
          “Well, I don’t need two patients. You can go stand in the corner by the wall and watch.”
          Watching him pull gut out of a 3-inch incision and jabbing it back in until he found the right one (the appendix), I then understood my former pain.

          Thinking back on the jobs I’ve had, I’ve told all my kids, “If your employer pays you for eight hours of work, don’t cheat on them; you put in eight hours of work.”
          All my kids show up on time and do the work. Sometimes other employees would mock them, pleading with them to take a break or slow down. My hardworking kids made them look bad.
          Dawn, 18, and just out of high school, went to work at the Navy administration building of the Construction Battalion Center at Port Hueneme, California. (often referred to as “Port Who Needs Me?” Or “Port Y Enema”)!

Career influences

              Recruiters from several Armed Forces showed up one day at the high school. I heard what they had to say, and I already leaned toward the Navy. Sounded pretty easy to me! Ha! Convinced that’s what I should do, and not having anything else in mind, I took the required paperwork home for parental consent. Mother said, “No way!”
          Dad reached over, pulled the papers across the table to himself and said, “I’ll sign ‘em!” So, I joined the Naval Reserve when I was 17.
          Beyond the high school buildings and football stadium sat the Armory, the only structure not high-school related. An old Navy Chief, a boatswain (bos’n) mate, taught us young recruits some of the basics on how to become to be young sailors, including how to tie knots. He insisted we tie square knots, bowline knots and sheep shanks that promised practical use aboard ship. They have come in handy for me many times throughout my career, and since. The Chief was, maybe, 40, but to me that was old!
          After graduation, I continued with my Reserve commitment. Every Monday night, we held our Reserve drills for a couple hours The commitment was for six years, two of which was to be active duty. I’m not sure why I went to college. I had no visible means of support, other than living at home, and I didn’t want to stay at home.
          Playing trumpet in band is what kept me in school, taking up two periods out of six. I started learning to play the trumpet in seventh grade. I say “played,” but I tell people I really didn’t know which end to blow in! My interest in playing trumpet was inspired by a family friend that played trumpet in church.
          Woody was a dental technician in the Army there at Maxwell Field at the end of World War II. His wife, Dot, was an awesome piano player. She could give the piano a real workout! They inspired me to have an interest in playing a trumpet.
          Later after we relocated to Central Florida, Dot’s parents, whom we call Mom and Pop, would come visit every year when they were down for the Daytona Beach Motorcycle Races. Pop owned the Indian, Triumph and Vincent motorcycle dealership for the State of Delaware, there in Wilmington.
          We visited there in 1950 (first vacation our family every had) and it whetted my appetite for motorcycles. I bought my first one when I got home from Vietnam in 1968. I still have a trail bike, even though I rode a Triumph Bonneville for 13 years before moving to wet Washington State.
          A next-door friend, Floyd Hedberg who worked for the state, helped teach me to drive when I accompanied him on his route. He was a chemical engineer for the state. He had been a fighter pilot in World War II on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. He would take me as he collected water samples from flowing water sources, such as springs and creeks. He was in his late 20s. I was 13, and he let me drive his state van on the back roads.
          He and his wife had twin toddlers, Paul and Nancy. They later moved across street from us after we had located, and they would ask me to babysit for them. I was about 15. He had 16mm movies he had taken during his years aboard the aircraft carrier. I would watch them on his projector while babysitting. Those pictures had a lot to do with my joining the Naval Reserve. I was able to help them relocate to Richmond, Virginia, when Floyd got a job with Phillip Morris.
          At 13, I was not a very nice person, rather rude, and had an ugly disposition. I had gone to church all my life, since my parents were saved when I was about 1 year old in Montgomery. But one Sunday-night service--I don’t know what it was; there was no special speaker, just a regular sermon--I responded to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and went forward when an altar call was given. I committed my life to the Lord.
          It was certainly the right thing to do. The Lord helped me clean up my language and behavior, and I left all that behind. For me, those things were over. I later went to youth camp for a couple summers. During my teen years, my brother and I always seemed to be able to go to Bible camp, sponsored by the Assemblies of God District Council.
          They had missionaries, and the Lord spoke to my heart. I felt He was possibly leading me to be a missionary. I knew Bible school training would be needed, at perhaps Southeastern Bible College. I even considered Northwest Bible College, 3,400 miles away. SEBC was 14 miles from home. Mother was a telephone operator and was able to help me with finances. The whole first year’s tuition, books, room, board was $600.
          Just before Christmas in my second year at Southeastern, I decided to serve the two-year active-duty part of my USNR obligation. I also applied at the Florida Highway Patrol, but they said, “Come back when you’re 21!” What am I gonna do in the meantime, starve? I had run out of time, money, grades, patience--you name it; I ran out of it.
          I’m so glad the Lord let me go to Southeastern for a year and part of the next. I did learn a lot about God’s Word and met godly people who knew the subjects they were teaching. The president of the college later wrote me while I was stationed on Saipan, my first duty station. Seventy years later, I still remember his thoughtfulness vividly.
          Just after I got my Model A, one of the first things I did was to ask a girl, Peggy Powell, 16, if she wanted to go for a ride. I was 17. Peggy was a really nice girl, and in her all-white eyelet dress, she looked exceptionally attractive. But by the end of the ride in that dirty vehicle that had been used for a truck, her dress was not white! Riding in that Model A was more suitable for Lee Riders, since it was a working truck. Painters didn’t ride around in spotless Corvettes (they were just coming out about that time, 1952-’53). I later graduated on June 1, 1954.

My first assignment: Saipan
& ICE cut it short

          Saipan is the largest island in the Northern Mariana Islands, near the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific. Saipan is about 120 miles north of Guam and five nautical miles northeast of Tinian, from which it is separated by the Saipan Channel. Saipan is about 12 miles long and 5.6 miles wide. Both islands suffered bombed-out devastation, but Tinian stands out in the World War II history books.
          Before being sunk by the Japanese, the heavy cruiser, USS Indianapolis, delivered to Tinian “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb that Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets dropped on Hiroshima after taking off in a B-29 from Tinian, “using every inch of the runway.”
        Upon completion of A School (apprentice-level) in 1956 I received orders to Saipan. I drove my ’50 Chevrolet and got as far as Winslow, Arizona, before hearing a hard rod knock in the engine. A local Assemblies of God pastor allowed me to park my car in the church parking lot. I took a Greyhound part way into Florida, couldn’t stand bus-riding any more, and thumbed my way for the last 250 miles to Tampa.
          Dad, and two of my friends drove back to Winslow in order to retrieve my car with a tow dolly. Dad returned to Florida, and I boarded a bus to San Francisco. I spent two weeks at Treasure Island prior to departing from Travis Air Force Base for Guam via Hawaii and Kwajalein Island. The Navy transported me onto Saipan on a PBY seaplane to Saipan, for duty at the Navy Support Activity.
        Although I found it to be terribly war-torn, it was a picturesque island with sunny beaches, along with World War II bombed-out tanks half-submerged in water. I couldn’t choose a better locale for a first tour of duty. It had the most pleasant weather, and the native population were nice, easy-going people, having been liberated for just over a decade.
          I spent the first three months mess cooking--peeling potatoes and such. These were seven-day workweeks. Other services call it KP. Two days before the end of my galley duty, the Navy promoted me to Construction Electrician Third Class.
          Finally, I got to do what I longed to do. On occasion, I’d be sent out alone into the boonies, part the bushes (no snakes or bad guys on the island) and do a well check. I’d open the top of the well and, holding a flashlight, descend to check the pump, clean it up and tighten up the motor connections for the pump. It was rather deep in the 3-foot-diameter well--not an OSHA-approved operation! They didn’t exist on Saipan in 1956.
          The island hosted an American Baptist mission and a Catholic church. I’d see islanders on the back of a truck passing the impressive Catholic church and making the Sign of the Cross. Down the road they’d pass the Baptist mission and turn their heads away. They wouldn’t look at such an “evil” place, as the Catholic priests taught them. I went to the Baptist mission a few times with a congregation of maybe 25 people. We worked five days a week during my seven months there, plus duty nights about every third night, often as switchboard operator for the island population.
          The Navy hired natives for various jobs and would issue safety shoes. They’d put them on a shelf at home and wear their customary flip-flops, which we sailors called Saipanese safety shoes! Our Naval Support Unit - Saipan provided necessary maintenance and construction services in 1956, but the island was a war-torn mess. Go into the jungles and one may find a war-disabled tank or other heavy equipment. One can see American or Japanese open bunkers with piles of papers still scattered from the war. As an aside, it is reported that in nearby Guam, 120 miles south, a Japanese soldier hid in the jungle for years after Allied victory, unaware the war had ended.
          One end of Saipan had a restricted area. If we saw aircraft on the horizon to the north, we were told officially, “we saw nothing.” Years later, Time Magazine wrote that American pilots trained Taiwanese crews to use U.S. aircraft.
          Sadly, a leper colony occupied an isolated area in the hills, near the Navy hospital location. The only one who could make direct contact with a leper was our Navy doctor, who did what he could to meet their medical needs beyond their incurable disease. I understand he got some type of hazardous duty pay for that. A Corpsman buddy was the one who arranged with the surgeon for me to watch an appendectomy on a native man. When I had my appendectomy at age 12, I always wondered why I was so sore afterwards…now I know! (It’s not a gentle procedure searching for the right piece of gut to cut off through a two-and-a-half-inch slit in one’s stomach.
          In addition to other duties, we could help the lepers enjoy some entertainment by setting up chairs and projector equipment, so long as we never made direct contact. I was requested to show outdoor movies, since I knew how to operate a 16mm projector. We would separate from the lepers and watch the movie with them during these recreation times. We’d feel sorry to see those unfortunate people, someone with an ear eaten away or an arm or hands deteriorating.
          The construction electrician’s rate included everything ashore that was electrical. We trained to work on large and small generators, power distribution, and any size motors. At certain times the duty electrician was tasked to fire up a railcar-mounted generator and sync it with the main power plant (huge Worthington generators). If two of the three phases were ever crossed, that would produce the next BOOM in my story, tripping the breakers, as it was designed to do. But in my one-time experience, it felt like the rail car had jumped off the track. (The native plant operators had done maintenance work on the railcar generator earlier that day and had inadvertently crossed two phases in the reconnection process).
          Our Naval Support Unit provided limited physical services. The island government provided administrative services to the island native population.
          After a while, nothing surprised me. One could see a native with just one arm in an outrigger canoe paddling across the sound to a sunken Japanese ship with a couple of sailors who wanted to swim there. No SCUBA, only snorkels. The cargo ship near the northside reef depicted the tough battles and the resulting damage from battleships and aircraft bombarding the island relentlessly. It was more fortified and manned by the enemy than had been anticipated.
          I got an occasional ration of coconut milk when a native would expertly cut off the end and hand the whole coconut to me to drink the milk. You learned really soon not to drink too much!
          Throughout my career, I often volunteered for things. One day we got a message from BUPERS (Bureau of Naval Personnel) that was asking for volunteers for the NAVCAD (pilot training for selected enlisted personnel). They screened enlist sailors, and if qualified, they could train in Pensacola to become enlisted pilots, flying small aircraft as spotters and even flying the Douglas C-47 Skytrain “Gooney Bird.” My GCT (Government Competitive Test) math score came up one point short to be considered. Later, I was to retake the GCT at Newport, Rhode Island, for further consideration; again, one point short!
          In the meantime, another message solicited volunteers for Operation Deep Freeze III (it was the third year of “wintering over” in the Antarctica and it was the IGY (International Geophysical Year).
          Since I had volunteered for Operation Deep Freeze, I had served on Saipan only eight months, instead of the 18-month unaccompanied tour. From Saipan I went to California for two or three days, visiting my Marine Corps brother and other friends and family in Southern California. Then I flew on to Rhode Island by commercial air to Davisville, R.I. I was assigned to the Antarctic Support Activity there at the Naval Construction Battalion. In getting acquainted with other Deep Freeze volunteers, Jimmy Brown, about 18 years old, and a hard-core “twist” tobacco-chewing West Virginian, kept badgering me to go with him to the YMCA dance in Providence, 30 miles north of the base.
          “Oh, you’ve gotta meet my girlfriend.”
          “I’ve gotta meet YOUR girlfriend? Why? I don’t dance, either!”
          And so, finally, I agreed to go, after being there exactly one week. His “girlfriend” was someone who a little later set the record straight. She was no girlfriend of his! She always had more class than that. I spoke to her a couple times. The women there, ages 18-24 had a dress code to comply with the women’s service corps of the YMCA. So, they all looked really sharp. ****
          Another Saturday, I went again, and I saw this “girlfriend” in a green dress on other side of room. I thought she was nice. Was it love at first sight? No. The West Virginia “hillbilly’s” “girlfriend” turned out to be Betty, and she certainly was attractive, and we kinda hit it off. I asked her if she wanted to leave the YMCA and go get a Coke somewhere. The members of the women’s service corps couldn’t return that night if they left. She agreed to go with me, and I took her to a nearby White Castle, of all places! Big spender! I don’t think I’ve been back to a White Castle since we began dating. “Burgers” were 10 for a dollar.
          We dated from time to time, and I never dated anyone else from the “Y.” I’d go occasionally with Betty to her ornate, majestic Congregational church, and she went to my small Assemblies of God church with me. Later, she went to my church, even though I was not there. Her majestic church reminded me of the prominent landmark Lutheran church in Poulsbo, where we live now. Interestingly, Betty’s family name was inscribed on the end of pew, second row back on the left side. Congregants paid for their pews in the “high” churches. Less formal churches like mine never did! Congregationalist and other large churches, back to the founding of America, had that practice.
          Later, Betty invited me to her house to meet her mom, and her family took to me, maybe because I occasionally worked on their cars, resolved electrical problems…and I talked funny!.
          I had arrived in Rhode Island in March 1957. I met Betty a week later. It was one-and-a-half years later, in December 1958, when we were married in her church, there in Pawtucket, R.I.
          Being a poor sailor in a “foreign land” (an Alabamian in New England), I had to hitchhike up US 1 from Davisville to Providence. The bus fare was 78 cents each way, and I needed that money for our outing to White Castle. Wow!!
          We saw each other lots that summer when her family would have outings, cookouts, beach trips--I was always invited.
          By mid-summer, I thought maybe she was “the one,” so I asked her, but got no answer. She had been engaged a couple years before to another sailor who apparently still had maintained contact with a previous love interest back in Virginia. Betty broke it off and returned his ring.
          So later, we got serious enough to start making plans. She came to Clearwater, Florida, where I was visiting my parents, and during that time I had bought a half-carat diamond in St. Petersburg from a jeweler Dad knew. He made me a setting I designed with the six prongs (that I knew Betty liked) and sitting at the beach in the car that night, I slipped it on her finger. The rest is history!
          We had talked about theological issues when we were dating. When Betty said she hadn’t thought about certain spiritual matters, or was unsure, we endeavored to clear them up, and since the Congregational doctrines seemed a bit fuzzy, I suggested that after we got married, we attend Assemblies of God churches. She agreed.
          So, we talked about children (if any), my career (whatever that might be: staying in the Navy, returning to pursue the ministry, or law enforcement), and my hunting (when the season opened). We’d discuss and plan together, but I’d have to make the final decision. I promised to take care of her, provide a decent place to live, and good food (even if it did turn out to be jack-a-lope in Wyoming).
          Not being a drinker, you still need to be a bit tipsy to volunteer for Operation Deep Freeze! I was always volunteering. Jump school to be a dog handler in Antarctica? Why not? They soon found an experienced dog handler and selected him, so scratch that! And I was more convinced to bag it after after only two days of jump training off a 55-gallon drum!
          I met a Navy frogman (the former SEALS). Oh my! He said that during World War II, the Navy would deploy two frogmen but expect that only one would return. I like adventure, but not with those odds.
          From March to November, I was assigned to the Naval Construction Battalion Center there at Davisville, R.I., in preparation for going to Antarctica.
          In 1957, after seven months, I left from Rhode Island aboard a cargo ship (USNS John R Towel) operated by Merchant Marine sailors/crew. There were about 30 Deep Freeze III (DFIII) sailors/Seabees being transported to the “Ice.” Betty was pier-side, and after our “good-byes,” I went aboard. As we set sail, I literally ached inside, knowing it’d be 13 months separation from the girl I had really fallen in love with. I felt sick, physically sick!
          A few days later, we dropped anchor on the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal awaiting our turn to transit the Canal through the locks and interior lake. We were moving within a few hours and overnighted in Panama City.
          Next event was “crossing the equator.” Oh, happy day! There were probably 11 or 12 “Shellbacks” on board; the rest of us were “Polliwogs” (uninitiated). The Shellbacks made their shillyshalliers, and we Polliwogs endured the beating going through the line--willingly or dragged through. I literally had bleeding welts on my butt.
        Then, King Neptune pronounced you guilty (of what, I don’t know), then you kiss the queen’s belly (a light smack against that fat, greasy belly didn’t get it)--“she” rubbed your face all over the grease, etc., then through the garbage tunnel, crawling with a fire hose at your butt causing you to cross from port to starboard on your belly…BUT coming out the other side as a “Shellback.” My hair had to be whacked horribly by the “court barber” until I shaved my head before making port in Wellington, New Zealand (for refueling and additional supplies for the ICE). We were there overnight, then on down to the South Island to Christchurch for about 10 days, loading and waiting for our escort into the ICE by the USS Glacier (the largest icebreaker at the time).
          Christchurch is a beautiful city with the river Avon flowing though the center of it. It’s about 100 yards wide and flowing gently, with lots of boarts for couples to float around in. The banks are grassy, right to the water’s edge--romantic looking, but my romantic interest was half a world away!
          I was able to pal around with our new Chief Photographer, who was also a non-drinker, and re rented a couple of scooters for our days there, so we were able to see the countryside as well. I met some really nice people there. They really liked us “Yanks.”
          Accompanying our ship was the USS Nespelem, a fleet tanker. Crossing the Pacific, we encountered very heavy seas, and water was coming over our bow, flooding the open decks. The Nespelem looked more like a submarine than on the surface. I was glad to be on the USS Towel!
          Going into the Ross Sea (Antarctica), the ice kept getting thicker and thicker. We were several hundred yards behind the USS Glacier, which kept ramming into the frozen sea ice to make a path for the two following ships. Watching an ice breaker ram into an ice shelf and then shifting its ballast water in order to rock and break through the ice is a most interesting sight. And we started seeing penguins, whales, sea lions and skua gulls.
          The first year in camp, I worked on a generator situated on a sled. The runway didn’t sit on land. Instead, it launched aircraft on ice. We had a “ski-way.” Aircraft landed on skis.
          Admiral Robert Byrd commanded the Antarctic activities. The Navy’s mission: provide support facilities--physical (equipment) as well as camp amenities for day-to-day living conditions for the National Science Foundation. Two scientists participated. One was Russian Igor Zodacopf.
          The mission included seven bases and I was at the biggest base at McMurdo Sound, used for studying cold-weather phenomena, living and working during IGY--the International Geophysical Year, 1958, and it involved crossing over 500 miles of ice from the South Pole, at elevation 10,000 feet. We were at sea level. It was 64 below at our camp and 112 below at the South Pole. We couldn’t see the mountains at South Pole because of the ice at Scott’s Hut.
          Putting together facilities seemed like assembling Legos buildings--prepackaged components hauled in on sleds and assembled. I had plenty of challenges--keeping warm, of course, and close calls that invariably come in such an environment.
          As part of camp detail, a Third Class Petty Officer taught me taught how to operate big D-8 bulldozer with a blade to move garbage, and I dumped human waste from “honey buckets” into 5-gallon drums (full in two-to-three days), place them on sleds, and the D-8 with cleats would push them into the water, through the ice, at what was called Williams Field.
          The biggest icebreaker the U.S. had was the Glacier, ultimately turned over to the Coast Guard. It would carefully ram the ice with its massive hull lifting up and then rock up and down, crushing down on the ice. It couldn’t ram too hard or it would get stuck. It was interesting following them to McMurdo Sound, not too far behind, or we’d get iced in, and not too close, in order for the Glacier to have room to do its thing.
          Then small D-2 Caterpillar tractors and a larger tractor would team up to haul supplies from the ship, towing sleds, one at a time to Athey wagons over 10 to 15 feet of ice. These wagons comprised a train of sorts and a bulldozer would pull the train four or five miles to camp or to dirt (land).
          Three Construction Electrician Third Class Seabees, led by a First Class, would fix anything that needed fixing, including elevating the power distribution system on imported de-limbed trees. We’d dig 2-3-foot holes for the 25-foot poles and string lines between huts. Otherwise, tractors would run over the power lines. The problem with green trees: frozen sap. So, we had to secure our climbing hooks inside the spur, or it would chip out, and the spur would come loose from the tree. We had three generators, rotating them so that two ran at a time, providing power for the camp huts, galley and shops.
          I learned many lessons and skills in that frozen environment, skills that would serve me well in future assignments.

For further study:

Ray Comfort, God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life: The Myth of the Modern Message (Bellflowcompletioner, CA: Living Waters Publications, 2010).

Ray Comfort (commentary), The Evidence Study Bible (NKJV) (Newberry, FL: Bridge-Logos, Inc., 2011).

Will Metzger, Tell the Truth (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, Fourth Edition, 2012).

Another book by Dave Harris:
Safe Sects—Settled: overcoming self, sacred cows, Pharisees, heretics & weak-kneed false prophets by scrutinizing my own spiritual heritage & riding the elusive silver bullet to the Promised Land (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2018).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dave Harris is hesitant to say anything about himself. He’s been told that talking about oneself displays pride—“it’s a guy thing.” Pastor-author Tim Keller confesses that he cannot lead in prayer or preach a sermon without sinning, because doing so with pure motives is difficult or impossible. Suffice it to say that God’s knowing Dave was a frustrated teacher, a failure with Daily Vacation Bible School junior-high-school-age kids, the Creator arranged for him to teach journalism to all five Armed Forces. Often erring during Air Force assignments, God reassigned him with perfect timing, putting him in positions held by even bigger failures, so that the only way to go was up! Dave tries his hand at writing, because he has the mechanical ability of a walnut. Writing is his last resort! He thanks God for that, and for landing Dave on his feet after so many stumbles!

60 Happy Pappy Daze in New Orleans

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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

My dying request

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