July Tomes

Parson Tom’s Tomes

The deadline for the Trumpeter, the church’s monthly newsletter, is the 20^th and forces me to step into the future about what the next month will hold. As I write this edition of my Tomes for the month of July, I am planning to go down to Oregon Inlet to the retirement ceremony for Commander John Peter Rascoe III from the Coast Guard Reserves.

Oregon Inlet South Nags Head, NC

 Peter attends our church and is Town Manager of our town of Southern Shores. I knew him first when he would visit here taking vacation from his job as a County Manager of a neighboring county. He was facing some tough obstacles which he handled with integrity, strength and grace. I was pleased when he came here for I am proud that he chose to come here to work and set an example of what it means to be a Public Servant and a citizen-soldier. He spent some time being called to active duty three years ago to help out when the BP Oil Spill hit the Gulf. It was the last of four call ups to active duty since 9-11.

 

While I abhor war and the use of violence, my father and my older brother both served honorably when their country called and I respect those who serve our country. One Christmas season night in 1964, over the dinner table when my brother, home from the Marine boot camp, and I, home from being a Peacenik student, were arguing about the Vietnam War; my brother announced something like , “You follow orders and kill the enemy of your country!” to which I responded like, “It is wrong to kill!” My father, a Marine Corps Major during WWII, looked at me and said: “Then shoot high; you owe your country your life” and then turning to my brother he said, “But not your mind.” That settled that argument!

This country owes a great deal to its military personnel and there are times when the nation rises to the occasion to honor them. However, the honor, as the saying goes, “is more honored in its breach rather than its observance.” The paper this week told the story of the backlog of Veteran claims due to the underfunding of the Veterans programs. I find it hard it difficult to reconcile the statements of some of our political leaders and bloviators who wrap themselves in the American flag, urging us to go to war for the glory of our honor and then refuse to fund the results of their xenophobia. 

The paper also told the record of the High Command in dealing, or not dealing, with the endemic sexual harassment and abuse going on in the ranks, with the mindless excuse that changing the apparently permissive status-quo of “boys will be boys” will hurt morale and effectiveness. Military personnel need to be treated with respect as, and expectation of, men and women of honor not boys  in exploitative fraternities.

The Book of Common Prayer has this prayer for Heroic Service:

O Judge of the nations, we remember before you with grateful
hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of
decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy. Grant
that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the
benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines. This
we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This 4^th of July let us honor our service personnel but let us resolve that it will not stop on that day.

Shalom