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
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
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