Why I celebrate Veterans Day
Jonah and His Friends
By Roy Haney
Being that it was my first church it
was special. It wasn’t much as churches go, but it was in the country where I
wanted to be. The church was painted white and sat under some 100-year-old oak
trees.
I was not from this area, but I was
ready to go guide my flock. It was in the fall.
My first Sunday actually landed on November 11, “Veterans Day”. I had
contemplated about talking about Veterans, but since I wasn’t one I decided to
stay safe.
The church itself was painted white and
had been built by the parishioners in the 1890s. The outside walls were
clapboard siding cut from poplar trees from the site. The double doors - that
many churches had at that time - opened wide for the congregations. The pews sat about 125 people if they were
all filled. I don’t honestly think I had ever spoke to 125 people at one time,
but I was looking forward to helping, being a service, following the Lord. I
had faith, shaking knees and all. So, with the faith of the young and hope of
the faithful, I was ready.
As people filed in I
couldn’t help thinking that I was in a Norman Rockwell picture. The
congregation tended to be elderly, but there were babies and small children acting
as God meant kids to be. I took a seat in what is called the Deacon pews as
most of the people came in. I watched as different people took seats that they
had occupied most of their lives. There were embroidered pillows that were not to
be moved because they held a place that had been held for many, many years. I
will have to say that I was disappointed when only 35 parishioners sat down. I
have been warned that it would take time, but youth doesn’t always want to obey
that.
I walked up to the altar and stood. I needed to remind myself to breathe. I sat
my grandfather’s bible down and was not surprised to have it open up where I
planned to preach from. What I was surprised by was that when I wrapped my
fingers around the edges of the altar my fingers found well-worn groves from
many people that had been where I was today. This for some reason this calmed
me and as I looked down at my grandfathers Bible and started to speak when the
rear door opened. It seemed that the
whole church turned at once to see a grizzled man walk in. He walked with authority
and walked to a space that had been left open. There were two places there and
one of them had an embroidered pillow. He sat down beside the pillow with a
grizzled hand reached down and gently rubbed it.
This man did not scare me, but it
seemed that the air had completely change in the church. It was obvious that
the congregation revered this man. I did not have to be introduced to him, I
had been told of Mr. Branson, I had also been told that he came to church maybe
three times a year, but November 11 was one of them. He did not smile, he did
not talk, but he walked down the aisle turned took his seat. He then slowly
turned to me with blue eyes that seem to be a roadmap to somewhere I had never
been.
I
looked down at the Bible that I had brought today. This Bible was older than I
was by a good margin, and in fact it had traveled more. This was my grandfather’s
Bible. The pages were worn. The cover had
tears which had been carefully mended.
My grandfather was a preacher who went
to war, but didn’t come home. When I was ordained, my mother gave me her
father’s Bible. I decided that to start my life as a new ordained preacher
there would not be a better way to start that to preach from the Word that my
grandfather had read so many times. I had to smile, how many times had the
people before me came probably was as nervous as I am but still stood here with
their fingers wrapped and pouring out the word from God.
Oh, I was smiling, this was my flock,
and they were smiling back at me.
I decided that I would preach about Jonah. It
was easy to turn to the passage that I had decided to preach from because my
grandfather’s bible automatically opened there. I preached and I gave it my
all. I spoke about Jonah’s trials, I spoke about Jonah’s faith leading him on.
I spoke about that whale, I spoke about the beach he was spit upon. When I was
done, I realized that I had preached my first sermon to my new congregation,
and I had not even got sick doing it. I
was happy; the congregation was happy. The music we added seem to make the
world a little better. I was proud to walk down the aisle to the rear door to
be able to shake the hands of each and every person.
Everybody got up and made their way
to the back as normal except for Mr. Branson. Some of the deacons in the church
stood back talking among their selves trying to decide what to do. Mr. Branson
slowly got up, his age showed as he slowly walks toward me. He stopped just in
front of me and did not hold his hand out, but stood there looking me in the
eyes. One thing I have been taught by my father, who was taught by his father,
is always look a man face-to-face, but this is one time I honestly wanted to
run. He slowly held his hand out. To my
relief, I shook it without shaking too much.
“Son, I want you to come to my house today. 3
o’clock will be fine”. Then, without saying anything more he turned and went
out the door.
The deacons had been standing close
by and were obviously nervous, and I honestly think they would not have been
surprised if Mr. Branson had just eaten me and walked away. I looked at them,
and they looked at me and said, “You should be fine.” I honestly did not feel
very good with the words “should be”.
Mr. Branson was a man that helped the
community. Most never saw him and never knew what he did unless someone
whispered. When a man got hurt in the factory, there would be baskets of
vegetables or maybe even a chicken tied to his front porch. There was always
something being done, but it was never spoken about. Most never even saw him doing
what he did.
From my conversation with the deacons, I
learned that his wife had passed away 10 years before. I also learned that a
long time ago Mr. Branson had been a very harsh person. He had gone to war,
came home, and most figured that he would go away. But a young girl, who had
known him all his life, stood by him and saved him from the darkness. For the
last 10 years very, few people ever talked to him. It wasn’t that he was mad.
It just seemed like he was not there. His body was, his actions were, the good
that he would do in the community was very evident but the happiness that he
had gained after the darkness that he had walked through was now gone.
The deacons did not know what to do,
in the last 10 years he had never invited a preacher or virtually anyone else
to his home. Now on my first day as a new preacher he had not invited, but
commanded me to come. The deacons met and decided that it would be better if I
went alone. That did not make me feel good.
Since it was my first day, I was
invited to dinner by one of the deacons, but for some reason I decided that my
time would be better spent on my knees listening. I have been told that my
grandfather wore out the knees of his overalls without anyone ever seen him
kneel. I waited until everybody had left, and I prayed. I did not know what I
was praying for. This may sound odd but at times I was praying for guidance, often
I was praying for understanding, and a couple of times I was praying to live
throughout the day.
I left the church with a map showing how
to get to Mr. Branson’s farm. I found that the map was good, but my car was
not. The drive up to the house from the road was not passable…unless you had a
four-wheel drive truck.
I’m young. I took off hiking with my grandfather’s Bible
under my arm. It was a beautiful farm - if you would call it that. The trees
came right to the road, at times it was like going through a tunnel. I hiked up
over a small ridge setting between two large hills and stopped. They’re sitting
up against the two hills was a small white farmhouse. It surprised me because
the house was immaculate. I figured that Mr. Branson probably lived in a cave
with a campfire and a deer carcass on a spit over it. I was surprised to see
that the yard was ringed with a board fence freshly painted, flowers planted at
the base and well-manicured. It did not fit the Mr. Branson I have been told
about.
Mr. Branson was sitting on the porch
in a rocker, at his feet was the largest, ugliest, meanest looking dog that I
had ever seen. The dog never barked just raised his massive head to see if
lunch was being served. I had never been this nervous. Mr. Branson just sat in
his chair slowly rocking back and forth. In his lap was what looked like some
type of whip that was made of knotted strings. He slowly looked up at me and
said, “Son, have a seat” and then looked back at his lap and continue to rock.
“Mr. Branson, I want to thank you for
having me to your home and I would like to tell you this being my first day how
much it means to me”.
He only looked down at that strange
whip of knots and continued to rock.
Then with a deliberate voice he spoke.
“Son I wanted to talk to you about what you preached about today”. I looked up
at him perplexed, the story of Jonah and the whale was a very safe and well-known
topic. As I looked at him he seemed to be looking through me at someone else
and it shook me to my core.
“Son it’s time you heard the story of
my friend Jonah”.
I looked at him not comprehending. “What
do you mean your friend Jonah?”
He began to explain.
When you have been swallowed by a
whale everyone that has followed suit is also your friend. You have to
understand that many years ago, I stood with 145 young men just like me with
all the spunk, hope, fear and determination that poor boys on the farm could
have. We were called to fight the Hun. All of us were ready and determined to
get into the fight. We trained. We
learned about weapons we had never heard of.
We figured that the war would be over in a week after we got there. That is when Jonah became my
friend. In training we learned about explosives, that is where this first
shoelace came from.
He fingered the odd knots and
continued his story. Randy, a boy from
Wisconsin who played baseball in the minor leagues, could throw a grenade the
farthest. We were told to throw them high and let them come down, but he threw
his hard like a pitcher straight at the old dummy tank we practiced hitting. He
was accurate but he threw it so hard that when it hit the side of the tank that
grenade bounced back all the way where he was. What we found of him was
basically this shoelace. It had one knot tied into the end. I don’t know why
but I put that bloodied and torn shoelace in my pocket. Before we were ready to
ship out, I had tied four more knots into that shoelace: two were from diseases
we didn’t even know the name of and two were from something they called
‘training accidents’.
By then my life had changed. I wasn’t
worried about killing the Hun, I only wanted to get back home with my friends.
We
were shipped out of a port in New Jersey. I had never been to a town that had more than
300 people. This seems like a new world, but when they told us to march into a
hole on the side of the ship that looked more like a wreck. It shook all of us to the bone. That ship had
pumps pumping out water at four different places that we could see. The rust
was evident everywhere, but we were told to go into the belly of that beast. I
think half of us threw up before we got to what they called our bunks. The
smell inside of what they call the hole, what we referred to as the prison, and
what became the belly smelled worse than anything you could imagine.
Each day that we were there
got even worse from so many people throwing up. It wasn’t dark, but it was not
light. Our bunks were canvass hammocks stacked from
the floor to the ceiling, so that when you were in the tallest one if you did
not jump out you basically fell through three other people. When you laid in
your bunk you were within 18 inches of the next person row after row. At first,
we tried to have spaces where we could play cards or dice or something anything
to take our mind off having been swallowed. There just wasn’t enough room for
this many people. What you ended up doing is you laid in your hammock all day,
and all night. We were brought up in shifts to do calisthenics and breathe air
that had not been breathed 10 times before. This was how it was day after day in
the belly of the beast. By the fifth day, each and every man would have swum to
Europe if it meant that they would not have to return to our Hell on Earth. That
is when I met your grandfather, Jonah. We were almost delirious when a slow
steady voice started to read. Your grandfather chose Jonah 1-4 in that Bible
that you used this morning. He read with a slow deliverance and soon people
stared to settle down. Each night he read the same passages and there weren’t
complaints. That Johan in the Bible seemed more of our comrade than just a
figure.
When you read of Jonah, you left out part of what he went through. You
see in the days that he was there in the belly of that beast he also lived.
That means what he ate was what had been provided him either good nor bad. What
he drank had the stench of the beast. Each sound he heard day and night were
like none he had ever heard of before. He started his journey with the
knowledge and certainty of the sunlight, but during his journey there were
times - I promise you - that he wondered would he ever see the light again.
That was the way it was for all of us. We knew that our life was at the mercy
of an old ship not being worth the torpedo from a U-boat. We knew that our life
was at the mercy of old pumps pumping day and night to keep the water from
claiming us.
The sweat made with each day caused dampness to drip from the ceiling. During
the crossing, I added two more knots to my string.
They chose me to be a scout, I guess
that it was because I came from the woods and could get around quietly. This
also meant that I had to lead, then live with any mistake I made.
We landed on the coast of
what we were told was Ireland. We had honestly thought we had died and gone to
heaven. The people in the small villages where we were spit up to exercise and
get our strength back welcomed us with food.
Since they had already faced bombs, sometimes it was all the food they
had. They made sure that we knew that
they love us being there.
During that time, I was
promoted to squad leader. Now if people died, it was a result of a
decision I made. We left Ireland and went
across the coast and landed at Normandy. For months, we fought each day until
we reached a country called Czechoslovakia. By that time, I had added four more
boot laces to my collection to hold the knots.
So today you preached of Jonah, your
Bible is stained where that verse lies. Those stains came during that time in
the belly of the beast. We did not know your grandfather very well, but as
things got their darkest we begin to hear your grandfather’s voice. Him opening
up his Bible and reading of Jonah’s time in the beast made it possible to
survive.
What you do not know is I
have held that Bible myself.
When I found your grandfather after the Battle
of the Bulge he was holding that Bible in his hands. He had fought and died in
a horrible winter battle dying in the snow alone. His last act on earth was to
take that Bible and hold it to his chest.
The only thing that I could do was to take it and
wrap it in an old curtain that had been shredded by bullets and carry it until
I could ship it back to your family. As you know, your grandfather was also
named Jonah. I was honored to have lived with him in the
belly of the beast. You see your grandfather did not stop reading to us until
God delivered us from the beast. That passage was uttered by each and every one
of us as we departed the belly not knowing where we were going but knowing
where we had been. We knew that we had
been delivered from that beast.
When I returned to where your
grandfather died, I was promoted and given all that was left of our squad - only
seven souls. We fought side-by-side to the end of the war. Some were wounded
but not another died, and I carried these five bootlaces with 143 knots tied in
them. The last shot I took in the war was to kill. With that shot a voice came
from the German lines that the war was now over. Our captain received word that
it was indeed true, I do not know if my last shot killed. For some reason, when I glanced down I saw
the brass of that last round glaring back at me. I picked it up and with my
knife I worked it until I could insert the ends of the five laces into it
making it a handle that I used to carry the death of my friends.
I noticed for the first time how old this man
seemed to be for the first time. I noticed that even the dog seemed to mourn. I
did not know what to do, so I just sat there watching him slowly counting out
the knots. When he got to a particular spot he stopped and looked at me, “This
is the knot that I tied when I lost your grandfather.”
Next year when Veterans Day is here,
and you speak about the belly of the beast understand that there are thousands
of Jonah’s just like your grandfather and many others that were swallowed by
the beast. They did not fight the
command when they were told to enter. I know that the Lord watched out after
us, and I saw the people that were saved. But what I ask of you is to take this
day not honor me with just a hand shake because I am living. Honor the ones
that served, honor the people that walked into the belly of the beast without
being swallowed as Jonah was, but walked to make this world safer.
It has been 10 years since that
fateful day. The only sermon that I have ever given on Veterans Day is Jonah
and the whale. Mr. Branson is no longer here, but there are kids running up and
down his porch
After this first meeting I went to
his house almost every week. In this time, I learned things about my
grandfather I never knew. I learned that in the darkest time when he opened his
Bible and read many scoffed at first, but then many gravitated to where he was
especially during their time in the beast. I grew more appreciative of where
his Bible would naturally turn, and it seemed odd that when I used his Bible on
those special times I could see Mr. Branson’s lips uttering the verses as I
read. I could also see a softening. When
he came home the first time, I learned that he was so wild everyone was afraid
of him, but a young girl with a strong will calmed him down. I wish I could
have met her, but when I went to his house I would see her memories in the
flower garden, in the picket fence, and in the neatness of the small home.
I brought my new wife
to meet Mr. Branson and found - much to my dismay- that the old dog, Sarge,
thought that my new wife was special. It could have been that in my wife’s
pocket magically contained a biscuit. As Mr. Branson would rock, I would see Sarge
walk up and lay his massive head in, my wife, Mandy’s lap. That dog would bark
happily when we came to visit and Mandy honestly looked forward to seeing who she
described as her partner in crime.
There came the time that all of us
will see. One-night Mr. Branson slipped away. Mandy and
I happened to come the next day to hear a sorrowful moan that we had never
heard before. Sarge sat as if a sentinel beside Mr. Branson’s chair, Mr.
Branson was asleep with that nap forevermore.
To this day the hardest thing I ever
did was to say goodbye to a man that was as a father, a grandfather, and a
friend to me. A man who taught me the value of what a true friend as the 143 he
left were. During the funeral, I was
honored to meet three men who came home with Mr. Branson. Each filled in
stories of my grandfather, my grandfather’s Bible, and Mr. Branson. Mr. Branson left a will that gave us the
little cottage, and in that will he asked that there soon be children laughing.
Sarge lasted 10 days after we said
goodbye to Mr. Branson. On a dark night, Mr. Branson’s grave was - as they say -
vandalized. At the foot of his grave a new grave was dug. Sarge was allowed to lay guard forevermore.
So, on Veterans Day I honestly do not care
to shake your hand, but I am proud to shake it. As I shake your hand, I allow
you to understand that if all of us are not willing to be swallowed by the
beast if called upon then we will not survive. I served, but was not in harm’s
way and never was swallowed by the beast. But when I’m shaking your hand, I am
honoring those in service both men and women that were in harm’s way. Yes, we
have a Memorial Day, and that day is to memorialize all that did not come home.
Veterans Day, is the celebration of the fact that we still have both young men
and woman that if called will go into the beast for you. There is no one who
has served whether in peace time or war that has not sat in the darkness
wondering what was going to happen next. So, you see, when I talk of Jonah, I
can relate to not knowing, not understanding, but growing in faith that the
Lord is going to show me the way.
This story is written for those that
did and did not come home. My father was not Mr. Branson, but when he landed at
Normandy he walked to Czechoslovakia on the frontline. During that war, he was
separated from his outfit during the Battle of the Bulge. When he got back to
his outfit after the Battle, he was promoted and put in charge of the seven
that was left. He never complained, he never moaned openly. But as a veteran and
as I matured, I did see the loss that he had borne. When my father, who is now
gone, came home, he also brought the hundreds of men who did not come home with
him. When you see a veteran today, who has been in harm’s way, shake his hand
especially on Veterans Day, but understand you’re not shaking one hand you’re
honoring 1000s more.
What greater message could we teach
out children than to Follow the lord where ever he calls, and what better
example do we have than the Veterans, Police, Firemen and First Responders that
have entered the belly of the beast not knowing what will come. But going when
asked.
