A Retired Marine Talks About Christian America

Blogging here at Holger Awakens will be a bit spotty the next couple of days as I celebrate the birth of the Christ but wanted to be sure to get this article up, written by a retired Marine. As I read this, I saw the love of his Saviour coming through so loud and clear and his mention of the Christian founding of this country is absolutely spot on.

From the article at Family Security Matters:

I Thank God for Christmas!


Col. Bob Pappas (USMC, ret.)


In their continuing effort to marginalize or more correctly, eradicate Christianity many businesses, conglomerates, and government entities have eschewed the word “Christmas” in their advertising or other expressions for which the Holiday exists. This is ostensibly done to avoid offending those who hold other religious beliefs, or claim none (which is impossible). It is an indication of success that the political left is having in its efforts to restrict or quash Christian religious freedom of expression.

Let’s get it straight, this nation was founded by Christian men on Christian principles clearly enunciated in both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Were they perfect? Hardly! But to date they are the best founding documents ever devised by humans and where the Constitution was flawed, it has been revised through the Amendment process and no doubt might be in the future. In recent decades the political left has assailed that foundation; and, Obama has made no bones about his disdain for the Constitution notwithstanding his oath to support and defend it. But that is not the purpose of this essay.

I love the Christmas season. I love everything about it, but mostly I love what it represents. I am a Christian, not because my parents were Christians, nor that I was brought up in a Christian home or that I attended a Christian institution of higher learning. I am a Christian because deep within my being there was and is a yearning for things eternal. I was blessed to have been brought up in an environment that made it possible for me to learn about that yearning and seek its satisfaction.

When they say that “preachers’ kids are the worst” it was certainly true of me. Oh, to be sure, I was a “good boy,” right, sure. But the worst part was that I struggled for too many years to have it both ways, one foot firmly planted in what I wanted of the world and which tore me away from the more important, that eternal part of me and in every human that knew and wanted personal peace, contentment and unity with God.

When my dear friend, my F-4 teammate from Vietnam was killed in a crop dusting accident in which we were business partners, I was confronted with what some psychologists refer to as a “significant emotional event.” Life as I had carefully constructed it of a mix of good and evil, coated with lies that rivaled the best of Bill Clinton began to collapse and although like many in various other walks of life, while my military vocation was moving along well, my spiritual and personal life was a train wreck.

It came to a head one day after I had put one lady friend (now my wife of thirty one years) on an airplane, then after a brief meeting with my deceased teammate’s wife was on my way back to Camp Pendleton from Los Angeles when I stopped (in the days before cell phones), to call the one I had put on the airplane to ascertain that she had arrived home safe. The conversation was brief but changed my life. She asked me where I was and in typical fashion I gave her a cover story, just one more in the construct of lies that I lived by. But she saw right through it and said, “Robert, you are lying to me.” After whispering sweet nothings into the mouthpiece, I got in my Datsun pickup truck and headed for Camp Pendleton.

As I drove along in the after mid-night freeway traffic that single statement hit me between the eyes like nothing else ever had. It laid bare my soul to the naked reality that I had descended of my own volition beyond anything from which I could possibly recover. I was totally undone, it was impossible to lie my way through life any longer and I came face to face with the reality that absent God’s grace and forgiveness I stood zero, repeat, zero chance of eternal life. I was miserably and abysmally lost. Then and there, driving down the Los Angeles freeway, as one more prodigal son, empty and in full recognition of the hypocritical, evil life I was living I asked God to forgive me, and He did! He figuratively and quite literally welcomed me with open arms, He “killed the fatted calf for a feast, put a ring on my finger, embraced me, and welcomed me to the fold.” I thank Him, love, adore and worship Him for it; and have never looked back.

There are many who do not know, nor want to know the truths contained in the Gospels. They believe that if they read, or are otherwise exposed to them that somehow they will forfeit their identity, lose their freedom, or miss out on something. Well, I knew the Gospels, read them, studied them and absorbed them for many years, but held tight to the world. Like most, I believed I would miss out on having a “good time;” and only by God’s grace dodged many “bullets” both figuratively and literally. Having a “good time” means different things to different people, but to most as the “60s” generation put it, “if it feels good, do it.” That phrase translated into reality was and is: “eat, drink, be merry, have sex, smoke pot and make love not war;” succinctly put, pursuit of the lust of the flesh with complete abandon.

In the Gospel of John, the tenth chapter and tenth verse Jesus states: “The thief (ed. Satan) cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” How true! Given my experience I can state a number of things with certainty: First, I wasted too much, too many years, caused too much hurt, damaged myself and too many other people, even the closest ones to me in selfish pursuits. Second, I have not missed the former life. Third, I know what I was and now know new life. Succinctly put, I’ve been born again!

And, liberals and other leftists want to eradicate Christmas? Oh, that they would find what I have found! They can, you know, and if they would, they would celebrate Christmas as never before!

Are Christians perfect? No! But, there’s a song that states: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” One should never abuse that fact, but be humbled by it. Now, when I hear and sing along with the Halleluiah Chorus it has meaning beyond the words and lyrics, it is eternal in its majesty, praise God forever and ever!

Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Semper Fidelis