SOLDIERS FOR PEACE

"endure hardness, as a good soldier" (2 Timothy 2:3).

"Champions aren't made in the gyms, they are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have last-minute stamina. They have to be a little faster, and they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill." - World champion boxer Mohammad Ali -

Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things losers don't like to do.  -Albert Gray-

Endure - (v) to hold out against; sustain without impairment or yielding; undergo:
                        to continue to exist:
                        to outlast adverse force or influence of any kind; suffer without yielding: to suffer patiently:
Origin:
1275–1325; ME enduren < AF, OF endurer < L indūrāre to harden, make lasting, equiv. to in- in- 2 + dūrāre to last, be or become hard, deriv. of dūrus hard

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Will is no good without skill...  Skill is no good without will...  Endurance needs both!!!

Many of the people of the world around us hold little, lasting valuable opinion of the Peace Keeper.  I read news bulletins weekly that convey the intentional acts of attempted injury, attempted destruction of property and outright acts of murder initiated against Peace Keepers here at home...  I get news bulletins giving the details of how they have been ambushed and attacked on foreign fields...  I receive letters from Peace Keepers who are home from the field but long to return to the field and the friends they had there, whether at home or abroad.  They are not at home anymore when they are away from the field.  I understand because I became irritable and restless when away from the field for very long and family could not understand why.

The world you and I live in would have little tolerance for the men who established this nation if suddenly they were to appear on today's scene ready and willing to act to solve the problems and correct the wrongs that are prevalent in our society.  The Revolutionaries and Peace Keepers of our past would be too much for them to tolerate and work with... Many of the citizens of our world either detest or are afraid of those who sacrifice to keep the peace or restore the peace.

Soldiers are Peace Keepers who usually act out their duty in groups.  Law officers are Peace Keepers who usually carry out their duty acting alone.  Both groups are the soldiers of the war between peace and destruction.  No one outside the family of Peace Keepers and their loved ones understands the cost to the individual Peace Keeper in turmoil and discomfort when so much of personal life must be sacrificed in order to perform duty and keep our oath.

Yesterday I witnessed the ceremony of retiring 7 dedicated Peace Keepers and promoting 7 to positions of  higher rank and greater responsibility.  The retirees present for the ceremony plus those who were not in attendance, represented 500+ years of service and experience that will no longer be an available resource for my city and my department.  I will deeply miss one of the retirees because he was my supervisor two different times as he passed through the ranks from Patrol to Captain.  He was truly one of my best supervisors.  His place will be difficult to fill.  All of the ones retiring have about the same time in my department as I have, thirty two to thirty four years, and each ceremony makes me powerfully aware that one day someone else will have to fill my duties and position as well...  And all of them were younger than me...  But at lest they were career successful and survived the profession long enough to retire and see what else they might like to do.

That was my first time in uniform in over four months and I had to stop and think about how to dress myself in my dress uniform.  All of this started me to thinking about what it has cost me to journey from March 1962, when I started the process,  to yesterday...  The tally is too mindboggling to think on so I changed my thoughts to the ones who must carry on the job when us old Peace Keeper/Warriors cannot go out to the field anymore.  I do not like that thought and I do not dwell upon it much but I do look at and evaluate the ones who are coming along behind us to fill those places where we have been. 

Of the younger ones that I know, most of them will do an even better job than we were able to accomplish because they are better trained and better equipped.  When I see that to be the case I relax somewhat and get on with what is still mine to do...  Assured that I have no need to be too deeply concerned...  Because filling my place in the line is not my job and someone who can do it will be called into that slot when I am no longer there.

Sometime soon I expect to be released to get back to doing all that is mine to do.  My daughter is scheduled for the major surgery of removing the mesh from her abdomen on January 20th.  It will be a lengthly, tedious operation requiring opening the abdominal cavity from sternum to pubic bone and scraping the old mesh from the inside abdominal wall all the way around plus inspecting all the organs to make sure they are damage free and infection free before they are returned to their places in her abdomen.  I will be as close as I can be in the surgical waiting room.  That is one place that I do not like to spend time because I have been there too many times with loved ones, Peace Keeper's families and citizens in crisis.  Since I am now more or less 2/3 of the way through my earthly journey I know I will see a lot less of that place than I have seen in the past.

When someone asks how I am, I usually respond with, "Surviving well. thank you!"  Those who have not been where I have been usually respond with surprise and ask why I respond in that manner.  To me, Survival and Endurance are two sides of the same coin.  I am called to endure...  In order to endure I must survive...  So to say, "Surviving well, thank you!", means I have been successful at enduring and I am here to report the good results.

When I look back over the landscape traversed and evaluate how I arrived here, I must proclaim that miracles still happen.  It is miraculous that I am here.  It took a miraculous discovery on my part to bring me into acceptance to begin the career...  My visual acuity would not pass...  I was told it could never be improved...  I discovered how to improve it...  Endured the process necessary...  And was hired! 

Many of those I have known and loved are no longer here.  Many of those no longer here were younger than me.  Very few of my friends are older than me because many of my contemporaries simply have not survived.  They are not here.  Even the one I cherished more than life itself is no longer here...  But my Journey is far from finished...
I still have too much that I know that I must yet do. 

I am amazed how much more there is that I know that I must accomplish.  Life and all of my assignments have always held a grand fascination for me.  I have always seen life as an adventure.  I always sought to soak in as much useful knowledge as I could in my circumstances.  I have, all of my life, been inspired by certain people that I met and other people that I read and studied.  Sometimes I was distracted for a time by affairs of the heart but no affair of the heart ever deterred me for long.  Not even a broken heart could deter me for long. 

My attitude was always, learn what is wrong...  Learn if I was capable to fix it...  If there was something I could do, do it...  If there was nothing I could do but endure it, then endure it...  Outlast the heartbreak or the disappointment if you cannot change it, but change it if you can.  I learned much that I could do that no one else believed could be done and I did those things even when others said they could not be done...  And I have outlasted most of the critics.  I have had an amazing life and I can see how the Hand of my Creator was always there to cause me to make the discoveries and apply the solutions.  Books, sources of knowledge, opportunities, people...  These simply appeared in my life from somewhere and became part of me and my experience.  Alive when I should have been dead several times over...  Living where I said I never wanted to live and been here 40 years...  Been what and who I would never have dreamed about when I first began...  Seen things and events that still astonish me...  Called to do things that were mine alone to do...

I see now that even the worst things I have experienced have turned out to be for my good and betterment as I continue on this Journey from here to the Holy City.  I have a planner (my Commander-In-Chief), a Pilot (my Eternal Captain) and a Navigator (The Holy Spirit of God) who sees to all of the details that I cannot see...  And together they give me the guidance, direction, knowledge, power and ability to accomplish the things that are mine to do...  Such as reaching out to Peace Keepers and giving you the good news that someone else has been where you are now and can help you get from where you are to where you need to be because others have already made the Journey and can tell you that it is possible.  When all seems lost, there is still a way available to you if you will endure.

Thank you for paying the cost that has been yours to pay.  Because you have paid that cost, I can sit here today and beat this message out on this keyboard.  Because you have paid that cost, I can sit here in my home and office in peace and rest, eat, sleep or do anything else that is mine to do.  To every Peace Keeper of every generation of my present and my past... THANK YOU...  THANK YOU...  THANK YOU...  Eternally, THANK YOU!!!  You have made it all possible for me and others just I have been instrumental as a Peace Keeper in making it all possible for you.