A Helpful Soldier
Lorin Peters
2007 June 20
Due to a powerful storm, we finally landed in Washington about 11 pm, five hours late. After waiting in the customer service line well over an hour, there were no available flights the next day, and no available hotel rooms. The representative said only, “Try stand-by at 6 pm tomorrow or the next day.”
A young man nearby suggested I try calling the international booking desk. “I just finished doing it. Here, I’ll stay here and help you. Where are you going to?”
“My flight was to Zurich. But I’m actually trying to get to Palestine.”
“Why Palestine?”
“I’m part of Christian Peacemaker Teams.”
“What is that?”
“We are a group of Christians who don’t believe in violence, not even to fight evil. But we do believe in fighting evil with love and good.”
“Thank you. I‘m a Christian. I was a soldier in Iraq. We need more Christians like you.”
“I myself work in Hebron. We also had a team in Baghdad. They tried to help Iraqis locate men in their families who had been taken away by coalition forces.”
“Thank you very much. I’m a Christian, too. But we did some things in Iraq that I’m not proud of. We had to do them, to save lives of men in my unit. My buddy was killed there. But some of the things we did were not right.”
“In 2005, four of my CPT mates were taken hostage. Tom Fox was eventually killed, probably because he forgot to leave his Marine Corps ID card home that day. But the other three, after two more weeks, were released.”
“Oh. I think I heard about that.”
He shook my hand. “Thank you very, very much. I’m a Christian, too. But it’s really good to know there are Christians like you, trying to do what is right. I am still haunted by the things we did. I suffer a lot from post-traumatic stress disorder. In fact, I am receiving substantial payments for my disability. I would give anything to be able to go back and undo some of things we did. But I can’t. But at least I can thank you with all my heart for doing what you do.”
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