A national prayer when it is needed

Halt the tyrannists

A national prayer when it is needed

A reminder from the Victors

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            I turned the news off.

            I am so sick of hearing the reign of incompetence updates that the words no longer matter. Eric Holder, Fast and Furious, Lois Lerner, Hillary Clinton, IRS, James Clapper, Benghazi, global warming, the national debt, national monuments by orgasm, backroom bargaining for endangered species, VA, Susan Rice, ISIS, Valerie Jarrett, John Podesta, headless press secretaries, ebola, the American gigolo (he with the newest face lift), and the fellow at the helm who seems to have to read about the majority of new scandals in the press are giving hourly reasons why we live in an insane asylum of differentiated reality.

            It all came to a head when the Martianesque Cajun, James Carville, told Bill O’Reilly we just need to give the investigation process time to work things out.

No, it doesn’t matter which scandal he was referencing.  Just change the names of the pretentious bit players and the rogue agencies they oversee, and … it is all the same.

            To the Victors

            I have to admit I am reading Dugard and O’Reilly’s Killing Patton.           

It is not my first foray into the life of General George S. Patton. I have long been fascinated with my own selection of the Big Three battlefield geniuses of our history. I won’t array them cardinally, but Daniel Morgan, Thomas Jackson, and George Patton fill the bill.

Morgan had the least to work with. He demonstrated the American propensity of dealing with being outnumbered. He attacked.

Jackson may have been the most dangerous because, never seeking earthly recognition, he didn’t care. He was beholding only to his Lord God for strength and reassurance. When he left the fire overlooking what would become the killing fields of Fredericksburg after his cup of coffee with General Lee on the morning of the battle, his vision was clearly focused.

“Kill them all,” was his full intention, and he believed he could.

Patton was shielded similarly through his faith and devotion to God. His diary excerpts are most revealing. His major obstacle was he was fighting with a crew of generals that were all seized with varying amounts of the same differentiated reality that threatens to destroy our world as we know it today. Personal ambition and the unleashed patriot warrior were still too threatening in their eyes for full nomination of trust.

Patton was right far more times than he was wrong. Furthermore, the biggest threats to our modern world were incubated because his views of victory by the western world were deemed too offensive to civilized man. As a result, power was ceded to the continuing forces of evil that didn’t care a hoot about what the western world deemed was civilized.

We see the results today.

The prayers

The prayer that Patton ordered the Third Army Chaplain, Colonel James H. O’Neill, to write and distribute in the sodden days following the failure at Ft. Driant was not what Christians would associate with the proper bounds of reverence.

“Chaplain, how much preying is being done in the Third Army?” Patton barked.

“I’m afraid to admit it,” O’Neill said. “But, I do not believe that much praying is going on.”

Patton sat looking out the window of his office at the foul weather that continued to hamper their advance. Finally, the General made the decision and ordered the chaplain to craft a prayer that the Almighty would accept from the men of the Third Army.

 “We must ask God to stop these rains,” Patton ordered. “These rains are the margin that holds defeat or victory.”

The order was obeyed. A quarter million copies were printed on three by five cards and distributed to every man for his personal invocation.

The prayer asked:

Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.

In his diary a week later, Patton noted that it had rained less since his prayer. History would demonstrate he advanced from victory to victory including pulling Bradley, Hodges, and Eisenhower’s fat out of the fire in the leadership and intelligence debacle of the Battle of the Bulge. The Christian warrior orchestrated the key victory that broke the back of the Third Reich in the West. It was a superhuman feat.

Dugard revealed a lengthier and personally consecrated prayer from the general days later on the horrific march to reach the 101^st Airborne Division surrounded at Bastogne. Patton again determined he had no recourse other than to seek divine intervention to accomplish his promise of reaching those men by Christmas Day, 1944.

He entered the Catholic chapel alone. In the small narthex he took his helmet off followed by the removal of his gloves. He walked into the darkened sanctuary and knelt. He put his reading glasses on and unfolded a prayer he has crafted for this very solemn occasion. He bowed his head …

“SIR, this is Patton talking,” he convened the discussion with the Lord.

“The past fourteen days have been straight hell. Rain, snow, more rain, more snow … and I am beginning to wonder what’s going on in Your headquarters. Whose side are You on anyway?”

Patton believed that faith was vital when confronted with something that appeared impossible. The prayer continued in straight talk that matched the intensity of the horrors he and his American boys witnessed daily. He concluded the plea with at least these words:

“I don’t like to complain unreasonably, but my soldiers from Meuse to Echternach are suffering tortures of the damned. Today, I visited several hospitals, all full of frostbit cases, and the wounded are dying in the fields because they cannot be brought back for medical care.”

When he finished, he left the chapel and got in his vehicle. He knew exactly what he had to do and where he had to go. He went to his troops and encouraged them. He had to demonstrate his commitment to them and to the cause that made them unique in the world. His prayer was answered and it was manifested in his actions and the actions of those men. It was given to them in the context of straight talk within themselves, and … their relationship with their Savior.

Our prayer

Are we any different?

Yes, we are. We don’t have a single leader that unites us in the cause that made us unique in the world of our fathers. So, let’s approach this issue in the manner that its seriousness implores. With unvarnished talk, we must ask God to stop this storm of destruction.

“Sir … our Lord God … this is the America citizenry with duties, responsibilities and system sustaining investments talking.”

“These days reflect straight hell. The haze of educated incapacity and progressive secularism surrounds everything we do, and … we are beginning to wonder what’s going on in our line of communication with you. We want You on our side.”

“Too often, our chaplains aren’t standing unbending in the faith of our fathers, of Abraham. Few recognize the time of the Crusades has commenced again, and, indeed, we will be riding tanks instead of chargers in our ultimate defense … if there is to be a successful defense.

Up until now, we have gone along with our leaders, but, for too long, we have witnessed their incapacity to affect any change that honors you and the foundational gifts of our Judeo-Christian union.

Sir, we can’t help but feel that we have offended You in many ways, and You have lost sympathy for our cause.

We don’t want to complain unreasonably, but our nation is following the path of the damned. Grant us fair conditions for the resurrection of the ideals of our biblical foundation. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee, that, armed with Thy Power, we may advance from darkness again into the light of your love, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, both internal and external, and establish Thy justice among men and nations.

Amen.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Imbecilic career politicians and professional bureaucrats are sinking OUR boat.”