Principle: Shoulder to Shoulder

Context: It was news that we all hate: suicide. We’ve had a spate of suicides across Guard Nation lately. I’m not special, of course, but as a chaplain, suicides grieve me like few other things. We try to minister to the families and friends of the Soldiers that took their lives. We try to minister to the peers of the fallen Soldiers. We try to give wisdom to the command teams about indicators, cultural trends, and more. But the reality is that there is now a hole, a space, a void where once there was a Soldier.

Text:  In Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Eccl 4:9-12, ESV).

Encouragement & Application: I have to be careful here. I cannot force my worldview as a Christian upon Soldiers. We are free to believe as we will. But I do think it is quite worth asking, “How is secularism working out?” It seems that we’re more technologically connected than ever but yet more isolated than ever, at least at the levels it most counts—spiritually and theogically. I learn best via narratives and stories, so let me share a very short illustration:

This week on post, I am blessed to be able to watch some of the finest Soldiers do things that I could never do physically. They run almost non-stop; they set up mortar tubes; they fire them; they break them back down; they go on almost no rest; they land nav; they eat cold MREs; they ruck, and ruck, and ruck some more; they fast-rope from UH-60s; they work as teams in sniper competitions; they simulate MEDEVAC SOPs; they run, ruck, run, and ruck some more. And on and on it goes, and it’s fascinating to behold—to see what they can do together.

But that’s the key thing: they do it as teams. They’re literally shoulder to shoulder. That’s what Solomon is driving at in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.