“Ten Thousand bullets flew by me and my brother and none of them had our names on them,” said the late Marine Staff Sergeant Doug Barnett of San Diego who fought for 36 days on one of the most chilling battles in the Pacific theater in World War II.
I sat in Doug’s shadow at my book signing in LaJolla. He sat proudly across from the bookstore’s check out counter wearing his bold Iwo Jima jacket. But what amazed me more than his presence was how nonchalantly (an understatement) book-buyers walked by this vet. Some bordered on being disrespectful. Perhaps they thought of him as a living relic.
The disconnect between taxing your imagination to re-create the havoc and horror of that invasion and actually wondering if this second or that second would be your last is as wide as the distance between La Jolla’s shores and the beaches of Iwo Jima.
Time has played a dangerous trick on any of us who have begun to think, “That was then and today is now.” There is a war over realities and judging from that book store, the Pacific tide has turned against reason.
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: There is often a disconnect between what we think of the cross and bludgeoning reality of Heaven’s Veteran who stretched out his hands wider than the Pacific Ocean.
Just as there were many who were appalled at him -- his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness…Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’
Isaiah 52:14 NIV, Matthew 23:34
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