Excerpt from a recent article on Blue River Press.
Wars have many universal qualities. Recently, a friend of ours who is an army chaplain shared a story. His cell phone rang at 2:30 in the morning. He was told by his commanding officer to begin preparing to inform a family that their son had died in an army training accident. “I was picked up by a captain and we proceeded to drive several miles to the family’s home. As we traveled through the night, he and I went over the army protocol for informing civilians of a family member’s death. As we neared the house, my stomach tightened, and I felt sick. Then we arrived. I realized no protocol would ever suffice to completely help us or the people we were about to speak to deal with the crushing news we carried. Through a window, we caught a glimpse of the couple, going about their lives, unaware that in the next few seconds they would receive devastating information that would forever change their lives. The captain drew himself up, cleared his throat, and knocked firmly on the plain white wooden door.”