From Bill Bennett's American Patriot's Almanac:
The Marines turned him down. They said he was too small. The Army paratroopers said no too. But Audie Murphy was used to setbacks. The son of Texas sharecroppers, he had helped raise his ten siblings after their father deserted them and their mother died. When the U.S. entered World War II, he was determined to fight. The Army finally accepted him in the infantry a few days after his eighteenth birthday.
He fought in the invasion of Sicily, and then in Italy at Salerno, at Anzio, and in the mountains as the Allies pushed to Rome. On January 26, 1945, in eastern France, 250 Germans and six tanks attacked his unit. Ordering his outnumbered men to fall back, Murphy climbed onto a burning tank destroyer and used its machine gun to hold off the enemy. Then, though wounded, he organized a counterattack. For his courage the military awarded him the Medal of Honor.
It wasn’t the only time he threw himself in harm’s way. Before he turned twenty-one, Murphy had become the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II, earning twenty-four medals from the U.S. government, three from France, and one from Belgium.
After the war, Murphy became an actor, making more than forty movies. He starred in To Hell and Back, based on his autobiography, and in The Red Badge of Courage. Still, his life wasn’t easy. For years he battled post-traumatic stress disorder. He died in a plane crash in 1971 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
“The true meaning of America, you ask?” Murphy once said. “It’s in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman’s badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper. . . . In all these things, and many more, you’ll find America. In all these things, you’ll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world.”
Every day, Bill Bennett provides via email--for free--a reading from his American Patriot's Almanac. You’ll read about heroes, their achievements, and key events that took place “On This Day” in American history. Click here to subscribe.
Welcome to the Intersections Blog, where I try to work out where politics, pop culture, and the Bible meet
So What's This All About?
In case you didn't know, I'm in the multi-year-long process of posting a Christian devotional at the TAWG Blog. The TAWG Blog is, and always will be, mostly apolitical. For the most part, Bible-believing Christians will find little to disagree with there. But I also firmly believe that God's word can--and should--inform everything in life, and this should include politics and popular culture. How should we vote? How should we respond to hot topics such as abortion, capital punishment, taxes, and other issues? Which party, if either, is closer to the Biblical ideal? Tony Campolo and Ron Sider, Evangelicals whose political leanings are on the Left, have made the case in several of their writings that God wants his followers to vote politically on the Left more than on the Right. At times, some of them have gone so far as to equate voting on the Left with obedience to Christ, either subtly or not-so-subtly contending that the converse is true as well: If you vote Republican, you're sinning against the Savior.
I don't agree. I think that to the degree they actually resort to the Bible, they're misinterpreting it. With a whole bunch of caveats, I think politically conservative positions are a lot more compatible with the Scriptures than the Leftist positions.
Just to clarify, I would never accuse people who disagree with me--especially siblings in Christ--of what they accuse me of. I don't judge my own heart, much less anyone else's, and I don't equate political disagreement with theological fidelity to God. I have no reason to doubt their love for the Lord and "for the least of these," but I believe that they're sincerely wrong.
Just to clarify, I would never accuse people who disagree with me--especially siblings in Christ--of what they accuse me of. I don't judge my own heart, much less anyone else's, and I don't equate political disagreement with theological fidelity to God. I have no reason to doubt their love for the Lord and "for the least of these," but I believe that they're sincerely wrong.
So there are two main purposes for this blog. One is to make a case for my political beliefs based on Scripture. The other is a bit more vague, basically to work out my political beliefs and figure out what's based on Scripture and what's based on my own biases. I certainly don't have all the answers. Some of this stuff I'm still figuring out. And I'm certainly open to correction. As long as you make your case civilly and based on Scripture, feel free to make a comment, and I promise I'll post it and consider your arguments thoughtfully and prayerfully. Who knows? Maybe we'll learn a little something from each other.
May God bless our common striving together towards both the "little t" truth and "Big T" Truth. Our watchword here is a line from C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle: "Further up and further in!"
P.S. -- Below on the left is "Topics I've Covered" which lists everything I've posted topically. It's come to my attention that some people would like to see everything just listed for them. If that's you, you can get it here. Thanks to my friend Stephen Young for the tip!
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