When we met for coffee, he was excited
to tell us of his daughter, the recent
high school grad, who had just finished
top of her basic training class.
He glowed as he described that military
graduation and especially the heart warming,
inspiring Protestant worship service. They
filed in, straight-backed, disciplined kids
marching to the beat of the only drummer
in town, sat, stood and sang hymns and
when the “Individual Salvation in Jesus
Christ” chaplain made the earnest, somber
altar call, “Every-head-bowed-every-eye-
closed-just-as-I-am-time” in the service,
the wet behind the ears, impressionable
kids so full of themselves but reverent and
humble and emotional in the moment hit
the sawdust trail. When the call was over
and they had committed to Jesus as they
had just previously committed to Caesar,
they marched back to their seats to shouts
of “Ooowaah” from their previously sanctified
comrades and awkward, muted cheers from
some obstinate, hold-out comrades. Dad said
he was really, really touched. I thought to my-
self, now they can go off to war to kill Muslims
in confidence of eternity and perhaps be blown
to bits by an I.E.D. with the reward for their
efforts on behalf of Caesar, the Christian version
of paradise, that being for ever and ever with sweet
Jesus. The radical fringe jihadists, on the other hand,
promised seventy-two really great looking virgins
to keep their gullible kids occupied forever and ever.
I don’t know about his daughter, but for the nineteen-
year-old, gung-ho guys that might be a tough call.
I wanted to ask if the recessional hymn was “Onward
Christian Soldiers,” but my wife gave me the look
and I just sat there and kept quiet.