Vietnam Thoughts

A few weeks ago a friend and ex-neighbor of ours called and asked for prayers. She and her husband would be traveling to Vietnam with a missions group consisting of people who had served in the US military during that war. While there her husband and a few other men would be returning a Vietnamese helmet that was brought home in 1968 by one of the men as a war souvenir. Our friend wanted prayers because she was worried that there might be a negative response to their intended presentation and also because even after 46 years her husband still struggled with memories from his time in Vietnam.

A couple of weeks later I'm turning on my Yahoo mail page and notice in the news clips a photo of an Vietnamese helmet, white dove scratched onto it, with the caption that it was returned to the family of it's original owner. Clicking onto the link I see a photo of four men my age, very serious looks on their faces, dressed in blue shirts and khaki pants, walking through a rural village, towering over the crowd of people walking behind them, and each holding a corner of a small platform upon which is sitting the said helmet. The man in the right rear was my friend.

The Yahoo article gives the story of how and why the helmet was returned as well as the reaction of the 52 year old nephew of the slain soldier. “This is a very sacred moment for my extended family.” The nephew “wept as the helmet was placed in front of a family altar in his house. The Americans, along with around 100 villagers and local officials gathered for the ceremony, looked on. 'We consider this helmet as part of him and we will keep as a reminder for our family's future generations,' he said.”

The Vietnam war was going full bore in 1968, the year I graduated from high school and started college. It was not a popular conflict for several reasons, the chief of which was the inability for our government to communicate to the American public what exactly “winning” meant while being mired in a land war thousands of miles away in the jungles of Southeast Asia. I had an older brother who graduated from Notre Dame a year previous and while there shared a house with a bunch of anti-war radicals. Clear memories I have of going to bed, my brother coming home late from college and then listing to my father and brother yelling at each other about the war for a couple of hours. This happened several times.

My father hated war. He served as a fighter pilot in WWII, had his planes shot up a bunch of times and the last time needed to bail out over the Mediterranean. His unit suffered 170% casualties. As fast as the new guys would come in they would be shot down. When he came back to the US the people in charge wanted him to tour to promote to young men “the glories of war.” to get them to enlist. The idea disgusted my dad. He fully supported the cause and yet saw too much blood and suffering to call it glorious.

But when young men with radical ideas, taught by professors that actually support Communist theory (ignoring the history of 30 million dead in Russia and 60 million dead in China), come at a proud vet and financially successful self made man with the argument that our military/industrial machine who is actually running our government is engaging in war for financial reasons for the benefit of small group of capitalist fat cats, well . . . you think there wouldn't be yelling? Eventually though my father got really mad at the bombing campaign in Cambodia. He sent a nasty telegram to President Nixon and got rewarded a few months later by being audited for the first time.

My brother became a conscientious objector and did alternate service after college. He did not believe that Vietnam was what his Catholic professors would call a "just war."   I am proud of him for that. On the other hand I had high school classmates that enlisted, two who gave their lives in Vietnam, but I went on to college in the fall of 1968. If called I would have gone, I believed the cause was both just and necessary, but honestly for me and for most people I knew there was no great desire to volunteer to go off and fight in the jungles of Asia.

While I was in college the government instituted a draft in December of 1969 and had a lottery to assign draft priorities for men born from the years 1944 to 1950. We had a deferment for the time we were in college but there was still a lot of anxiety for the guys in my class to find out the draft order of our birthdays. I remember the guy who got number 1. He walked around in a daze for about a week. Perhaps part of that was the party we held for him. My number was 140. By the time the draft ended in 1973 a year after I graduated from college the selection number was up to 120.

You are not going to get a straight story from the press about our efforts and the after effects of the Communist take over of South Vietnam. Liberals like socialism and dislike what they consider the inequalities created by capitalism. They love the idea of pure Communism and so ignore the overwhelming weight of Communist disasters in history. Ninety per cent of college professors consider themselves liberal. They teach and help form the young minds that become the Eastern media and that media reports what it believes is truth without imagining they are in any way biased.  For example, the Yahoo article with my friend saw fit to remark that “a bust of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's victorious war time leader was also in the room” and that “up to 3 million Vietnamese were killed in the war which the United States undertook to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia.” You would think South Vietnam didn't exist and we were the invaders.

I have met a lot of people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Many needed to leave their countries because to stay would be to die. A lot of them lived many years in refugee camps before coming to America. I met a Vietnamese guy last week whose father worked for the CIA and who had also been employed by the CIA. He was in the same prison camp as John McCain for two years. Although a lot of the people I know have been able to return to visit, this man and his family are not welcome. He says he doesn't care, this is his country, he and his family are Americans and he is thrilled that he doesn't have to live under Communism.

Things have changed quite a bit in Vietnam since the war. Like China they are now open for business and the quality of goods for the common person are gradually improving, although I am told that the good stuff all goes for export. After the killing fields of Pol Pot in Cambodia the Communism dominoes did stop falling, although many countries still struggle with insurgencies.  The halt of the spread of world wide Communism has a lot to do with the collapse of state controlled and planned economies that could not compete in the global market. They had to change to survive or become like North Korea, but there is further revolution coming. Communist countries are run by a cadre of elites whose families benefit the greatest from the system. In the past most people could be kept in the dark about life in the rest of the world but not anymore.

There is politics involved in all foreign policy decisions.  It would be great if we could trust that our leaders were strong morally and always have in mind the best interests both of the United States and the other countries we interact with.  But times are changing and right and wrong are being redefined.  Some think it would be better if our country was weak.  They despise our past, want to change our traditions and work to determine our future.  The moral glue that has held us together from our countries founding is coming undone, replaced by love of self and hate of absolutes. 

Yet men and women are still called to serve, to risk leg and limb, mind and body for something that is bigger than them.  They will do this with good leaders and with bad and they do not get to debate while they serve, apart from clear moral boundaries, the wisdom of every order.  My friend came back from the horrors of war to a country that was divided over the conflict he served in and he and his generation were not embraced.  Yet he still suffers for you and me, for the cause of freedom, for the hope that others will be blessed with what we take as our birthright.

V Ellis

I wonder if my Aunt Virginia, who left this morning to be with her precious Lord, is now satisfied with her new clarity of vision, or if after the required time for greetings with family, friends and of course Jesus she is still going to keep busy digging, digging and digging into the glorious mound of eternal truth.

She taught me by her insights and questions and deep respect for the unlimited treasure found in the Word of God that we should take no doctrine for granted, no answered as settled, no teacher as infallible until we lay upon them the full weight of sacred scripture, line upon line, passage upon passage and fully seasoned with the Holy Spirit's flavor. Satisfied that God rewards those who desire and search for the truth we then go back later and ask if there is more.

Virginia was a watchman on the wall. She understood the invisible enemy that motivated the dark forces that sought to tear down her city, and called out to be prepared. Awake at night, horn in hand, she also hoped that it would be her honor to proclaim that the King was coming! Now her watch has passed, the horn is on the ramparts, and who will rise up in her place?

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.  

Therefore comfort one another with these words.  1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18

January Thoughts

When my dad was in Florida

he'd call every day

ask how is my weather

I'd answer OK

seventy three and sunny

a nice little breeze

it couldn't be better

and then I would sneeze.

So how is your dear wife

the kids, win or lose

did I ask bout your weather

I follow the news.

Why Bill glad you wondered

hope your AC is fine

we've got natural beauty

(cough) time after time.

Let's just hope your ocean

does not get too high

watch warm humid nights

beech sand in your eye

did I mention the spiders

in the green you call grass

I'd check all your pockets

when you fall on your ass.

I think son you're playing

on an old man's desire

to brag of his golfing

and natty attire

you know what I shot

last night what I ate

Um, dad, works a calling

better not to be late.

You know that I love you

so wear your broad hat

steer clear of the gators

and don't get too fat

your pill's on the dresser

a tool you can borrow

yes I miss mom too

we'll talk more tomorrow.

The Cost Of Having A Baby

Earlier this year one of my road test clients told me that she was pregnant. When I asked when the baby was due she gave me the exact date. When I asked how she knew the exact date she told me that she was scheduled for a cesarean delivery. When I asked if she needed a cesarean because of health concerns she responded; “No, I'm scared of the pain plus that date is more convenient for me.”

This girl was single, 18 years old, unemployed and currently living with her grandmother. She lives in an area and has been brought up in a culture where a two parent family is the exception. Odds are great that she will have the baby, leave it with her grandmother while she attends a semester or two at the local community college, drop out, find a job in retail, have more babies and never get married.

Somehow she can afford a cell phone and plan to keep in contact with her friends, although some will stop calling when the baby comes because she can't club hop with them as before. She has a big screen TV to watch at grandma's, has not missed a meal, seems well dressed but is considered one of the urban poor by government standards.

I hear stories like hers everyday. The guys are always telling me how their girlfriends are pressuring them to get married. They tell me they earnestly want to step up and “be a man” because they fathered a child but can't quite see the benefits of giving up their freedom. The girls, well, they tell me about maybe going back to school, wanting to find a job, and how their life has changed. I hear nothing about marriage.

To be honest with you, I got mad after my client informed me that she was going to have birth by cesarean because vaginal birth would be painful and it fit in better with her schedule. I was thrilled that she did not plan to abort a human life. However, I know that because of the values in her community, the government system that would enable those values, the greed present from top to bottom that benefits from the situation, this woman would suffer far more long term than a few hours of labor and delivery pain.

If this woman and/or her family and/or her boyfriend knew they would have to come up with the money to pay for the delivery of a baby would she still have gotten pregnant? Obviously there are many variables to consider here but knowing that there would be a $12,000 bill for a cesarean delivery which one had to personally pay off would seem to have at least some effect on a couples sexual behavior. Please don't call me naïve. Remember the old adage, it's naïve to keep doing the same thing over and over, or to enable the same behavior over and over and expect different results.

I don't know who was going to pay the bill for this woman's cesarean but most likely it will be covered by Medicare or our state's Medicaid plans. In Michigan there are different birthing options available for women with different costs. Vaginal delivery at home using the services of a mid wife costs between two to three thousand dollars. This includes both prenatal and postnatal help. Vaginal birth at a birthing center costs about $4300. Vaginal birth at a hospital averages $8000 and cesarean deliveries at a hospital averages $12,000.

One of my daughters is a traveling labor and delivery nurse. Eighty percent of the deliveries at the hospital of her current assignment are by cesarean. This seems really odd because a vaginal birth is safer if there are no complications and better for future fertility. Cesarean delivery is an operation which always carries some risk and the risk increases if the woman has had a previous cesarean. They generally have longer recoveries and a greater risk of infections, blood clots and adhesion’s.

If this is the case then why do doctors schedule cesarean deliveries for healthy women? Although there can be valid reasons a lot of the time it comes down to the convenience for the provider and the amount that they will be reimbursed. The doctors at my daughter's hospital want to work during regular hours. C-sections provide that flexibility. The time needed to deliver a baby vaginally or cesarean is about the same but reimbursement for the provider is greater for a cesarean. If the reimbursement rate is set by Medicare or Medicaid statistics show that odds of having a cesarean go up 3.9 per cent for every $100 dollars over the vaginal birth reimbursement rate.

Something is not right here. My poor lady is in a poverty cycle that is perpetuated by the very benefits she receives and will no doubt vote for in the future. She will take advantage of a system that will take advantage of her and there will be no end in sight to rising costs and expanding services except that all this requires real money and the money will eventually stop flowing.

Our country is over 17 trillion dollars in debt, a lot of it to China, but we also have 90 trillion dollars worth of unfunded liabilities. Politicians refuse to take ANY steps to stop our country from the inevitable implosion because whoever suggests any real financial cutbacks will get pounded by those that want to stay in power. Friends, a decrease in the rate of expansion does not equal a decrease in debt. The refusal to fund promises now but rather leave them to the next elected officials will never decrease the amount of those promises.

Politicians who promise to give you everything you want without actually funding everyone of those promises should be lined up in a public square and shot, trillions of times. We the people should be told we have X amount of money to spend. Some must be used to pay off our debt. Some must be set aside to fund our promises. The rest should then allocated by making the hard decisions necessary.

We the people do not have the right, under the banner of fairness, to unfairly tax those who have more than us. The executive level of the government should not have the ability to raise money by printing more, devaluing and thus draining the savings accounts of we the people.  We are all in this together and the first thing we require from our government is honesty and responsibility, not massive growth and altruistic social change. 

I fear, because human nature is selfish, greedy and pleasure seeking.  The balance to that is not a society becoming increasingly devoid of Judea/Christian values.  Faith, morals and common sense financial decisions are being driven away from the public sector by a constant onslaught of mockery, threats, intimidation and character assassination.  There is a debt to pay for all of those attributes.  A society that remains in debt is going to collapse.  There will be chaos in the streets and the gift that was passed on to us by our founding fathers will be replaced by a despot who will change all that we hold dear.

Faith, hope and love means that we have a responsibility to help those around us.  Human nature wants us to abrogate those responsibilities to a third party.  There is merit in that what we can do together can be greater than what we can do alone.  But when the third party has a life of it's own, when we lose a voice in its  management and direction, when it becomes one of the biggest employers, when it can be used to silence our voice, when it demands an ever increasing share of our daily labors, when it spends more than it takes in, when it demands that we accept what God tells us to reject, then we need to rethink this whole deal and let our voices be heard.

2014: The Year Of New Hearts

things that are impossible with people are possible with God.  (Luke 18:27)

I began the year in 2012 by declaring it to be a year of blessing for my family.  Waking up in the morning I would say, "God morning Lord.  Thank you for this year of blessing".  I would tell Jackie often; "This is our year of blessing."  And indeed we were blessed in many ways that year.  Building on a good thing I declared 2013 to be a year of double blessing for our family, and it really was.

After praying about the theme for 2014 I had a dream about a week ago.  It was at about 5 in the morning and was one of those dreams where you are half asleep but also half awake.  I was on a beach filled with hundreds of people and to the right of me was the rock singer Bret Michael.  He was probably in my dream because on my way to work I pass a billboard about him coming for a concert in Grand Rapids.  Mr. Michael is standing by something like a keyboard or a desk and he declares to everyone that things are not going to be the same as before.  We wouldn't recognize Christian bookstores or Christian radio anymore.  Things are going to change.

After hearing this all the people started to leave the beach.  Many to the right, many to the left, a few inland.  Something rose within me and I stood up and yelled for everyone to come back and listen.  I told them the Lord says that if a big wave came and every grain of sand was removed from the beach, two miles to the right or two miles to the left or out to the depths of the water, was not God able to replace every grain of sand, put in grass and shrubs and make it even better than before?

I went on to tell the people that the Lord says there is nothing impossible for Him, either with material things or with the things of the human heart.  Over and over God was saying through me to those people on the beach, 'cannot I do this?' or 'cannot I do that?'.   Finally the anointing left and I was laying awake, feeling that this was probably a word from God for the coming year.

This morning I had another dream.  Waking up at 8 am and realizing that this was New Year's Day and that I really didn't have to get up I fell asleep for another two hours.  During that time I dreamed that I was sitting in a chair in the living room of a certain house and there was going to be a prayer meeting there.  There were people that had just arrived, milling about, a few of them not wanting to come inside but they were going to watch through the windows, and the hostess was bringing in more chairs.  Sitting next to me was someone I had been praying for quite awhile to get really turned on to the Lord.  I was pleased because he looked anxious to get the meeting started. 

Standing across the room was a woman minister who pastors a very large church with her husband.  Wanting to strike up a conversation I say to her that there must be so many things to do to run a big church like theirs.  Does she just cover a few areas herself and then delegate the rest?   She replies that before their church started growing her husband would go from putting out one fire to another.  Finally they decided to change their focus.  "What is the big picture?  What does God really want to accomplish through us?"  They refocused the purpose of their ministry and the church started to rapidly grow.

So what is the big picture?  How can I get a breakthrough in the burden I have for those family and friends of mine who are living in spiritual darkness?  What does God really want to accomplish through me?

I am declaring, in prayer and in praise, that this will be the year of new hearts.  I don't know how God is going to do it.  I can't make a person want to love Jesus.  I can't make them want to be free from physical and emotional and spiritual burdens.  I can't make the decision to believe for them.  And God will never force Himself on anyone.

Yet I believe this.  Things that are impossible with people are possible with God.