Band of Brothers
Sitting here watching the snow fall makes me think of the series "Band of Brothers" that my small group has been watching. We've been watching two episodes at a time (each Tuesday night at 9:00), and there are ten or eleven episodes all together. The last one we watched was called "Bastogne", and the setting is that the Allies are dug in outside of that town in Belgium, with heavy snow on the ground and more falling. The movie follows the activity of Easy Company, which was the 501st Airborne Division. The story starts with their training at Fort Toccoa, Georgia in 1942, and later we see them in France on D-Day (if you'll remember from Saving Private Ryan, paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day to take out enemy installations - Easy Company was part of that drop), in Holland during the unsuccessful Market Garden campaign, and now in Belgium.
At this point, the German effort is bending and diminished to much less of its former stength of position. It appears clear that they are destined for defeat, but in the areas where they still have a position, they are very strong. Such is the case at Bastogne, located in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. So Easy Company is dug in, with their foxholes built into the snow-covered ground. This episode follows a medic as he scampers between the various foxholes to check on men, encourage good health habits to prevent trench foot, gather morphine, and listen to the men. As attacks come or patrols go out, he also has to run into the battle and deliver morphine, apply bandages, get men out. The German Panzer tanks roll through, providing a devastating force against the Allied troops. The line is weak, but the men are under strict orders to hold it against the Germans. And the aid station where the medic has to continually run to and back from is surrounded. At the end, we see the aid station blown apart by enemy artillery. The medic had been developing a relationship with a nurse at the station, one that seemed to lighten a very desperate situation. He fingers her bandanna at the end, having to say goodbye to even this one pleasing thing amidst all the bad.
The whole feel of the episode and the series is that terrible sacrifices had to be made and that these were the men doing it. In a previous epsidode, we had heard testimony from a soldier that his leader had always stepped up to the plate and done the assignment, taken the bad with the good, and we had seen the leader of Easy Company heroically doing that very thing. So the whole feel is that these were the ones doing it. They accepted their duty in a very manly way. One of the powerful images to me was a man running into a foxhole to extract the medic to help a wounded comrade. Time and time again it was repeated. He was sitting in a foxhole with a shocked look on his face, and a man, different each time, would come and say, "Come on. You've got to get going." They never insulted, never complained. And he would work up the will to run out into the line of fire and do his job. That was brilliantly set against a former episode where a solider cannot bring up the resolve to do that.
It's amazing that men had to do it. It's amazing that they had to deal with the awful results of doing it. For example, the captain who is so brave and takes on the tough assignments without sending someone else to do them can't get the image of shooting a baby-faced German out of his mind. In Paris, where he is sent to get to enjoy himself, all he can do is sit in silence and contemplate his wartime horrific experiences. He is heroic and his reward is . . ? And it's amazing that the men kept doing it. This was well along into the war, Christmastime 1944, and victory was coming. How painful to have had to throw yourself into battle at that time. If you have been scraped up in a place, you are extremely sensitive to getting hit in that same area. Your body naturally recoils from it. It's even more so psychologically. And these men, veterans of the hurts of war, are being ordered to go right back in. Wow. Also think of this. Your enemy was headed for defeat, but was still going to fight. And it was going to be hard. No time to enjoy the fruits of past victories, because you had little ammo, you were freezing, you were facing a superiorly armed foe at that place. And they kept doing it. How they must have been longing for it to end! And yet it could not end until they had done their duty.
In the coming days (from the point of the view of the soldiers), weapons would be released that would bring the enemy to its knees and achieve that ending. Dresden was to be firebombed, not by an army fighting an army but by annihilation. And Japan was to be bombed with nuclear weapons. This time, however, in Europe - this was the time of tension. They didn't know all those things. I find this interesting and relevant to me personally now. What do you hope for when under duress and you have been called to take on a duty of darkness that might end in your personal defeat, all the while knowing that the overall victory is certain? How do you plunge in?
Or think about the medic. He had found a space to pursue a relationship that was something reassuring and pleasurable and a million miles from what he was seeing back in battle. And yet every moment that he was enjoying her company, seeking more of that connection and feeling, he was leaving behind a band of brothers who may have been screaming out for his help and companionship at that very time. What do you do in such a situation? Such amazingly difficult circumstances. "I'm just one man. What do I matter in all this? We're going to lose this battle anyways. Might as well pursue something good, rather than all this darkness." These thoughts must have come in. Are they true? What is called for? What is required? What is good? How to decide? Do you begin to start your life while the battle is going on? Start preparing for what will be afterwards? That is why, incidentally, that I began to warm up to this series in this particular episode. When the war was a duel, and the particular invasion you were apart of was going to be the determinant of its outcome, the decision is pretty clear. Difficult, certainly, but still clear. What about now? The enemy is going to lose. The war will end with the good guys winning. But what do you, you personally, do?
I feel so powerfully pulled to the direction of the woman. It's so easy to think that "Here's this person. I like her, and she likes me. I see her need, and she needs me to be there with her. Otherwise she'll be too alone and have to face this darkness all by herself." But what about those brothers out on the battlefield? What do you do about them? I don't have the answers to this. And regret is simply not a choice. Picking one direction while your heart is still going the other direction is not the right thing. It's unresolved, uncommitted. How do you throw yourself in and say, "This is the choice I've made. This is where my heart is. I want nothing else than to be here." Sometimes it's hard to know.
One of the interesting things about grace is that it doesn't always make your choice less painful, it just makes it possible. I see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his death, and I see that grace is that He was able to complete His mission of sacrifice, not to be spared from it.
What do you think about all of that? Isn't that terrible? I really don't see how this is possible, for people to have to undergo these kinds of things, not as punishment but as something else. I am amazed at the comment of the early apostles of Christ, that they were "rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name" (Acts 5:40, NIV). Did something change in them that they actually got pleasure in the agony? Hmm, that sounds like masochism. But how then? Certainly it was a choice that was made, against significant internal opposition. I just don't know how. This can't be dismissed as something else. It had to have come from a divine source. How else could they so powerfully go against seemingly all the fiber of human nature and do this?
If Satan is telling you that men are just sell-outs, that they don't have any character, you just look at him and say, "Satan you are a liar. In Christ, I am like my Savior." You see, Satan's got this stupid thing that he thinks that because he got Adam to sin and give up his life to get some comfort that you have to do the same thing. He's stuck in his pride on that first "victory" that he had and can't possibly see that his grip on you has been lost. He is and will continue to be angry because you don't fall into his trap. He's going to say, "That's impossible". Good. This is really the classic example of a loser calling a winner a loser because he's one. Satan's the loser, not someone who is in Christ. They can't be more of a winner than they already are.
So I believe that the power of these types of movies to a believer who is in Christ is that they show something of what is true about us. And the more we are seeing those images and believing the truth of who we really are, the more victory we are going to experience.
In Christ,
David
At this point, the German effort is bending and diminished to much less of its former stength of position. It appears clear that they are destined for defeat, but in the areas where they still have a position, they are very strong. Such is the case at Bastogne, located in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. So Easy Company is dug in, with their foxholes built into the snow-covered ground. This episode follows a medic as he scampers between the various foxholes to check on men, encourage good health habits to prevent trench foot, gather morphine, and listen to the men. As attacks come or patrols go out, he also has to run into the battle and deliver morphine, apply bandages, get men out. The German Panzer tanks roll through, providing a devastating force against the Allied troops. The line is weak, but the men are under strict orders to hold it against the Germans. And the aid station where the medic has to continually run to and back from is surrounded. At the end, we see the aid station blown apart by enemy artillery. The medic had been developing a relationship with a nurse at the station, one that seemed to lighten a very desperate situation. He fingers her bandanna at the end, having to say goodbye to even this one pleasing thing amidst all the bad.
The whole feel of the episode and the series is that terrible sacrifices had to be made and that these were the men doing it. In a previous epsidode, we had heard testimony from a soldier that his leader had always stepped up to the plate and done the assignment, taken the bad with the good, and we had seen the leader of Easy Company heroically doing that very thing. So the whole feel is that these were the ones doing it. They accepted their duty in a very manly way. One of the powerful images to me was a man running into a foxhole to extract the medic to help a wounded comrade. Time and time again it was repeated. He was sitting in a foxhole with a shocked look on his face, and a man, different each time, would come and say, "Come on. You've got to get going." They never insulted, never complained. And he would work up the will to run out into the line of fire and do his job. That was brilliantly set against a former episode where a solider cannot bring up the resolve to do that.
It's amazing that men had to do it. It's amazing that they had to deal with the awful results of doing it. For example, the captain who is so brave and takes on the tough assignments without sending someone else to do them can't get the image of shooting a baby-faced German out of his mind. In Paris, where he is sent to get to enjoy himself, all he can do is sit in silence and contemplate his wartime horrific experiences. He is heroic and his reward is . . ? And it's amazing that the men kept doing it. This was well along into the war, Christmastime 1944, and victory was coming. How painful to have had to throw yourself into battle at that time. If you have been scraped up in a place, you are extremely sensitive to getting hit in that same area. Your body naturally recoils from it. It's even more so psychologically. And these men, veterans of the hurts of war, are being ordered to go right back in. Wow. Also think of this. Your enemy was headed for defeat, but was still going to fight. And it was going to be hard. No time to enjoy the fruits of past victories, because you had little ammo, you were freezing, you were facing a superiorly armed foe at that place. And they kept doing it. How they must have been longing for it to end! And yet it could not end until they had done their duty.
In the coming days (from the point of the view of the soldiers), weapons would be released that would bring the enemy to its knees and achieve that ending. Dresden was to be firebombed, not by an army fighting an army but by annihilation. And Japan was to be bombed with nuclear weapons. This time, however, in Europe - this was the time of tension. They didn't know all those things. I find this interesting and relevant to me personally now. What do you hope for when under duress and you have been called to take on a duty of darkness that might end in your personal defeat, all the while knowing that the overall victory is certain? How do you plunge in?
Or think about the medic. He had found a space to pursue a relationship that was something reassuring and pleasurable and a million miles from what he was seeing back in battle. And yet every moment that he was enjoying her company, seeking more of that connection and feeling, he was leaving behind a band of brothers who may have been screaming out for his help and companionship at that very time. What do you do in such a situation? Such amazingly difficult circumstances. "I'm just one man. What do I matter in all this? We're going to lose this battle anyways. Might as well pursue something good, rather than all this darkness." These thoughts must have come in. Are they true? What is called for? What is required? What is good? How to decide? Do you begin to start your life while the battle is going on? Start preparing for what will be afterwards? That is why, incidentally, that I began to warm up to this series in this particular episode. When the war was a duel, and the particular invasion you were apart of was going to be the determinant of its outcome, the decision is pretty clear. Difficult, certainly, but still clear. What about now? The enemy is going to lose. The war will end with the good guys winning. But what do you, you personally, do?
I feel so powerfully pulled to the direction of the woman. It's so easy to think that "Here's this person. I like her, and she likes me. I see her need, and she needs me to be there with her. Otherwise she'll be too alone and have to face this darkness all by herself." But what about those brothers out on the battlefield? What do you do about them? I don't have the answers to this. And regret is simply not a choice. Picking one direction while your heart is still going the other direction is not the right thing. It's unresolved, uncommitted. How do you throw yourself in and say, "This is the choice I've made. This is where my heart is. I want nothing else than to be here." Sometimes it's hard to know.
One of the interesting things about grace is that it doesn't always make your choice less painful, it just makes it possible. I see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his death, and I see that grace is that He was able to complete His mission of sacrifice, not to be spared from it.
What do you think about all of that? Isn't that terrible? I really don't see how this is possible, for people to have to undergo these kinds of things, not as punishment but as something else. I am amazed at the comment of the early apostles of Christ, that they were "rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name" (Acts 5:40, NIV). Did something change in them that they actually got pleasure in the agony? Hmm, that sounds like masochism. But how then? Certainly it was a choice that was made, against significant internal opposition. I just don't know how. This can't be dismissed as something else. It had to have come from a divine source. How else could they so powerfully go against seemingly all the fiber of human nature and do this?
If Satan is telling you that men are just sell-outs, that they don't have any character, you just look at him and say, "Satan you are a liar. In Christ, I am like my Savior." You see, Satan's got this stupid thing that he thinks that because he got Adam to sin and give up his life to get some comfort that you have to do the same thing. He's stuck in his pride on that first "victory" that he had and can't possibly see that his grip on you has been lost. He is and will continue to be angry because you don't fall into his trap. He's going to say, "That's impossible". Good. This is really the classic example of a loser calling a winner a loser because he's one. Satan's the loser, not someone who is in Christ. They can't be more of a winner than they already are.
So I believe that the power of these types of movies to a believer who is in Christ is that they show something of what is true about us. And the more we are seeing those images and believing the truth of who we really are, the more victory we are going to experience.
In Christ,
David
posted by David at 11:51 AM
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