This wrestler isn’t ready yet for college,
instead he’s shaved his head for the Marines.
It isn’t that he has no taste for knowledge
but hungers to divine what freedom means.
A grandfather was crippled in Korea,
shelled in an LSI, the Inchon landing.
He’s had enough of poets’ logorrhea,
What do they know? His dad, the lone man standing,
saved a patrol bushwhacked in Viet Nam.
Inked on his helmet as he goes to war
are lines from David’s 27th Psalm,
words to be said when A-10 Warthogs roar:
Though an army encamp against me,
I shall not be dismayed.
Though war be declared against me,
I shall be unafraid.
This is our day for honoring the dead.
Mourners gathered just down the street from me
for a young captain, and his pastor said
the entire psalm by way of elegy:
I believe I shall see
the good of the Lord
in the land of the living,
by which King David meant eternity.
—Timothy Murphy
You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.
