Mike Heath -- Chesty Men

CHESTY MEN

By Mike Heath

May 24, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

My youngest son ships for Marine boot camp on June 19th. He and I are reading a book about the only Marine in history to win five Navy Crosses. Chesty Puller wouldn't take the time to argue about "tone and style." He would view that as a distraction. In battle you deal with the enemy. You act.

During WW II Puller was approached by a whining Protestant chaplain on New Guinea. The minister was troubled by his Roman Catholic colleagues who were more successful with the men. Puller told the protestant chaplain to work harder instead of coming to him seeking favors.

A while later Puller was greeted by this same Protestant chaplain as he returned from battle. The book reports:

As Puller jumped from a truck he was confronted by an outstretched hand -- it was his acquaintance, the Protestant chaplain who had complained of Catholic inroads on New Guinea. Puller was in no mood to befriend him.

"Where've you been all this time?"

"Why, I've been here doing my best to help out."

"You weren't up where the fighting was. I think I'll prefer charges against you for being absent from your regiment."

"Colonel, I was with the medical battalion, aiding the wounded. We worked around the clock."

"They've got a chaplain of their own. Your place was with the fighting men -- your own battalion. You remember our little talk about Protestant boys joining the Catholics? Well, conduct like yours is one reason for it. They see those priests doing their duty and see you evading it. I can't work up much sympathy for you."

Puller told his officers: "In all our fighting I've known only a few Protestant chaplains worth their rations." Years afterward, when he was home from the wars, Puller bearded his Episcopal bishop in Virginia: "I can't understand why our Church sends such poorly prepared men as chaplains when fighting breaks out -- they look to me like men who can't get churches, for the most part. The Catholics pick the very best, young, virile, active and patriotic. The troops look up to them."

The Bishop replied that the work of the Church must go on at home in wartime. Puller retored indignantly: "How can they do that work better than with the troops who are fighting to keep the country safe? What difference does it really make, so far as the survival of America goes, about the people who stay at home, and shirk their duty?"

An exception to this charge against Episcopal chaplains, Puller always added, was Rev. Robert Olton, of All Saints Church in Richmond, a brave man in the war zones, and an exemplary Christian.

There is so much here I hardly know where to begin. This is the most accurate representation of modern protestantism and evangelicalism I've ever read. A new friend of mine, Coach David Daubenmire, calls us "evangjellyfish." Amen.

It is instructive to remember that it was protestantism that provided the moral and intellectual muscle that both nourished the American Revolution, and saved us from the excesses of the French Revolution. Now look at us. We can't even agree that sodomy and baby killing are sinful. Pathetic.

Protestantism is completely irrelevant today because all it can do now is "help the wounded." Our churches are full of whiners who are always crying for the pastor to heal them. We keep ourselves so busy comforting our every hurt that we don't have time to organize and speak righteousness to a fallen and increasingly pagan West.

I don't blame people for not going to church, especially men. There is no integrity there. The Bible is full of righteousness, truth, judgment and strength. Yet, all we hear from our pastors is how important it is to adopt the right "tone and style" with our enemies. Jesus said that we should love our enemies. He didn't say we shouldn't have any.

We love our enemies when we fight their unrighteousness, when we call sin ... well ... sin. That is love. It IS loving to get mad about homosexuality in the schools. It is loving to fight legalized abortion. It is loving to preach PUBLICALLY against drinking. It is loving and Christian for a nation to ban gambling.

Make no mistake. When a lesbian activist in charge is telling a father in Lexington, Massachusetts that the elementary school can promote the idea of homosexual households to his seven year old son in the name of the law it is clear that we are engaged in a culture war the likes of which this country has never seen. Folks, we are up to our eyeballs in a culture war.

Either the forces that wish to go the whole way and emasculate our children will win, or we will. There is no middle ground. Decent people everywhere are going to have to unplug the fake Madonna who now crucifies herself on a mirrored cross for money. Good people must renew their interest in the real Madonna.

If they don't, then the nation is truly lost. America will be dead.

The America of Chesty men may be gone forever. The America of youthful, virile and patriotic pastors may be gone. But I don't think so.

I meet courageous Christians every day in my work. They are everywhere. And there are people who have common sense in every village, city and hamlet in this once great free nation. They are waking up to the call being issued by brave leaders all over this land.

They don't want to be among the wounded binding up hurts, as important as that task is. They want to do their duty, no matter the cost. They want to be on the front line fighting for what is right. They don't mind being called "hater," "homophobe," "bigot." They know they are not any of these things.

They remember the adage they learned at their mother's knee, "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you." They are not going to let America die, at least not without a fight. They won't allow purity, virtue and modesty to become a thing of the past.

They are going to stand up and be counted for future generations. And I am proud to be among them. God bless America, and God call forth more Chesty Men!!

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Michael completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in religion/philosophy at Roberts Wesleyan College in 1985. In 1989 he became Executive Director at The Christian Civic League of Maine.

In 1992 Michael was the Republican nominee for Maine's House of Representatives in District 85. He's participated in dozens of candidate and issue campaigns since 1990.

Mike speaks each week all over Maine in churches, civic groups and on college campuses. Mike is often quoted in Maine's daily newspapers and frequently offers the League's perspective on national, statewide and local radio and television news programs. He produces a daily two minute radio commentary program called "Faith Matters in Maine." It airs statewide and can be heard online at www.celmaine.org

In addition to having been published in many of Maine's newspapers, Heath maintains a popular blog called www.mikeheath.net. He makes his home in South China with Paulie (www.paulieheath.com), his wife of 23 years.

E-mail:�mike@cclmaine.org

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The America of Chesty men may be gone forever. The America of youthful, virile and patriotic pastors may be gone. But I don't think so.