From an email:
I read your blog regularly. My son is on his second tour of duty in Baghdad this time with the 1st Cav. He wrote me the following tonight that I thought you might like to see. Thanks for your support of the troops and their families.
I asked if I could publish it.
Sure. Did not think it would fit your blog but I would be honored. To be more exact, as I know you have exacting readers, our son Captain Jon Brooks serves currently as the battle captain for 2-12 1st Cav 4th Brigade out of Fort Bliss , Tx . They have been in country since late October. Jon’s first tour of duty was from 2003 to 2004 with 1-37 1st Armored out of Freiberg, Germany . During that tour he was wounded once by an IED. So news like this makes us thankful for prayers for our troops and grateful for the advanced equipment the men of women of America make in places like Dayton , Ohio and others plants across this nation. We believe in the power and protection of prayer and a good M1A1 tank!
So, here is the note from Jon. Perhaps we'll get lucky and hear more from him.
I know there are many people praying for me and for all the troops over here daily. It's been months now, and seems like a lot longer, that I've been here in the command post and in the loop on everything that goes on. The more I've seen of what happens I'm convinced that I'm seeing the concrete results of those prayers every day.
It struck me first on a day when RPG rounds kept hitting our vehicles and not detonating. Maybe it was multiple RPG rounds over a few days but it sort of all blurs together. There are the IEDs that continue to detonate on our patrols with no casualties, small arms fire that continues to miss. In the nuance and chance of war that I oversee I have seen the hand of God protecting our soldiers. Now, there is no event where, in air quotes, all have stood in awe and gawked as the laws of physics were broken by rays of heavenly sunlight, end air quotes. Nothing that would ever get on CNN as a miracle worked by God. But, then that wouldn't be in keeping with the idea of Faith. And, yes, people get hurt. And, yes, my battalion lost a soldier last week. But for the amount of enemy contact we see, the number of events and all the attempts to kill American soldiers made every day a grain of faith is all that is needed to see the hand of God.
What was at first just a feeling I had that all this was because of prayers for us over here I think now is God telling me that this "luck" IS because of prayers for us over here. That every day as righteous people pray for American soldiers in Iraq God IS answering those prayers. This happens all the time. The Lord is providing amazing protection in a bullet just off the mark, an RPG that doesn't detonate, an IED that goes off a moment too late or too soon to do damage, protection that will never be seen by the world as miraculous, but that faith shows to be the Lords protection. Anyway, whoever you know that prays for us over here tell them Thank You. And, oh yeah, please keep it up!
I think I remember now writing you about the same thing the last time I was over here. Not sure, it does all blur together a bit. Anyway, I felt lead to share this with you. Pass it on to a few people if you want to. I think the people who are praying for the troops need to know that their prayers are being answered every single day in amazing ways, miraculous ways, inexplicable ways, mysterious ways, ways I'll never know but don't need to because it's working. The hand of God is protecting American troops. They'll never see it on the news. The news doesn't show things that take faith to see.
Love,
Jon
Mark, Jon, consider the message passed.
5 Comments