Iwo Jima Veteran Paul George - A Vessel Of Service

  • Friday, July 3, 2015
  • Hamilton Barber
Paul George
Paul George
photo by Jared Callais

July 4th, 2015, is an important day in this part of the nation - it is the day that Paul George will turn 93.

Allow me to explain.

 Many of us ask each other, How are you? in an impersonal, small-talk greeting sort of way, but Paul uses it as a means to get a conversation going. He takes the question as a cue to produce a small piece of paper from inside a small fold of documents in the pocket protector of his patriotic bowling shirt.

 On this piece of paper is written exactly how hes getting on: Hes a veteran of WWII, hes a disciple of Jesus Christ, and he is not as anxious as he once was to reunite with Martha, his wife, who beat him to his Lords side in on June 16, 2013eight days shy of their 70-year anniversary.

I still have ways I can serve until my time is up, he said to me behind the BXs front desk, where he volunteers two days a week. The BX is the community center that is an extension of Brainerd Baptist Church.

 But unlike the way some of our How-are-yous end up, when you begin a conversation with Paul George, you find yourself drawn in, not looking to get out of it.

 If hes sitting down, which he does a little bit more often than he used to since hes recovering from a two-month old injury, he might produce from that fold of documents in his pocket a creased piece of paper with photos from his years in the Coast Guard. A monochrome photo of a large tugboat at sea, a handsome man in uniform (yes, thats  me, he said softly, sheepishly), the iconic picture of a scramble of gray men raising a triumphant flag over Mt. Suribachi at Iwo Jima.

 He pointed to the picture of the boat, which is where he was stationed during a large chunk of his service. This is the LST 764, he said. LST stands for Landing Ship Tug, though they referred to it as the Large, Slow Target. I was an officer. An observer, mostly, he said in an attempt to downplay his role - with humility, but not an air of it; the genuine thing - in the key American victory at Iwo Jima, which helped secure the Allied victory in the Pacific theater of war in 1945. It was his job to oversee the men on his ship, and a part of his duty was to read every letter that left the ship to ensure that no sensitive information was leaked, and which started paving the way for something he would find years later at Brainerd Baptist.

 That was hard, he said, because what the guys wrote and what they were doing were not the same thing. What he said the ship sorely lacked was the accountability that comes through discipleship - something he wishes he could have discovered long ago.

 The Conversion of a Makeshift Chaplain

Paul was quick to tell of the way that he found salvation in the person of Jesus Christ. I was a church member from the time that I was eleven. I went through the service and served as a chaplain on the LST 764, but I was not saved at the time. I was saved when I got back at age 24, 13 years after I joined the church. 

Here are the particulars of that story, because it is crucial to understand if you are to understand Paul: he noticed that there was a discrepancy between the things his men were doing and the things they told people they were doing. Having been in church, he had learned enough to know that something had to be done. We did not have a chaplain on board, and I was so strong a Christian you might say (he made air quotes with his fingers) that I figured we needed to have Sunday services. So I wrote to my church and got a Sunday School quarterly, which I used to lead the little service.

He was emphatic that if I were to write this story I had to share this detail, because he wanted to communicate something crucial: There is no place that is going to save you. Brainerd Baptist is not going to save you. Here was a man doing good things - acting with integrity, responsibly overseeing his ship, and leading Sunday services aboard a service vessel  - but it wasn't until he returned home at 24 that something changed inside of him.

 This needs to be said: Paul wasnt doing heinous things in his spare time, like lying to his wife and going ashore to indulge in a culture that catered to everything a soldier on leave would desire, but still he knew that something was missing. I had never been baptized, he said, and wondered why that was. He had been to church long enough to know the particulars of it, the process: salvation through Jesus Christ alone, then a public profession of faith through baptism.

 He took stock of all of the things that he was doing, good things mostly - actions people look at admirably, but he was doing them because he felt like he had to. It was compulsory, a sort of working for Gods good graces. Standing in a church service in the small brick building off of Tunnel Boulevard and Shallowford, Paul made a decision: he was going to make Jesus Christ the Lord of his life. When he walked down to the front of the service, he did so only because he heard the Lord say to him, "Go ahead, Paul. I am with you."

From that moment on, he noticed something remarkable. He didn't quit a drug habit, return home after running from it, or walk away from destructive friendships; he continued serving, but now because he wanted to. It was an overflow of his love the One who had saved him, not a list of requirements to fulfill, no matter how faithfully he checked them off. That has made all of the difference.

 It is safe to say that from the time he was 24 to today, when he is ninety-two, that spark has not died quietly like it likely would have if he were doing it under his own power. His love for Jesus has grown explosively, and all it takes is thirty seconds with the man to see it. Many years later, when Brainerds pastor Robby Gallaty came to Chattanooga and established a church-wide discipleship push, he found out just how important it was - and said that if it were something he'd had aboard the LST 764, things would have changed differently.

 He currently leads a group that has been meeting for a year and a half. We have four or five fellows and if one has a problem and he tells the others, maybe only in telling that he can solve his problem. And otherwise, what they tell him can make a difference.

 He admitted that they have been meeting longer than the standard year, but he has good reason. I have not been able to get them to branch out, he said, but when you have one thats almost 93, another one is 92, another one is 87 [] its just not that easy.

 What is key here is the fact that Paul understands something that is so crucialthat service is not just a catchphrase or something you do from compulsion, it is an action you do out love for your Savior.

 A Vessel of Service

He illustrated what love is beautifully when he told about his wife battling Alzheimers. She didnt speak to me for 14 months, he said, but I was able to keep her at home. She did not want to go to a nursing home, she [had] told me. He sat with her, he served her, he played music for her - the old 1940s kind, which he had taken from records to put on tapes, and then from those tapes onto CDs. The kind with words. And music. Not like what we have nowadays, he said with a sly grin that bespoke a man of 50, not 92.

 But Paul communicated something that we take for granted: love is an action.

 He loves by coming to the BX and handing out bulletins even though the loud music and flashy lights arent his style. He loves by returning the next morning to serve in the Sanctuary during the 8:30 service, and then staying to take up the collection plate at 11:15 (only if they need me, though. Otherwise Ill just go home, he chuckles). He loves by going on visitation every Monday and Wednesday evening. He loves by doing prison ministry on Tuesdays. He loved by volunteering for Habitat for Humanity for twelve years, using his Engineering background to fix any mistakes that might have been made by the other workers.  He loves by attending four fitness classes a week - the Silver Sneakers on Monday and Wednesday and Fit for Seniors on Tuesday and Thursday - for the exercise, sure, but mostly so that he can show that love to the others who come.

 What you learn in even a short conversation with Paul is that every moment matters. He is a picture of peace and deliberateness; he delivers his words with care and thought, devoid of flippancy or waste. I asked him how I could better serve and love my neighbors, and he quoted the Apostle who shared his name: Whatever you do, do it like youre doing it for God.

 If that were to come from almost anybody else, it would have been a cliché. But when those words slip from underneath the smile of somebody three hours away from donating his evening to knocking on doors to share the love of Christ, their gravity increases. Paul has clothed himself in the Word, and it speaks louder than even his America-emblazoned shirt could.

 Perhaps love is service, and service love. It is selfless. It is humble. It is accepting the things you have been given with gratitude to those who gave it to you. Sometimes it looks like risking your personal future, safety, and rights to protect the future, safety, and rights of somebody else who may not even thank you for it, who may hate you for it. Sometimes it looks like handing out bulletins with a smile in a setting you wouldnt choose for yourself.

 Rarely, like with Paul George - who risked his life in service on a vessel and was converted to a vessel who serves - does it look like both.

 

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