Someone was praying

This Memorial Day we watched a World War II documentary that worked some "deja vu" on me.  The story was about four service chaplains who served aboard a troop transport that was torpedoed and sank early in 1943.  After I finished radio school in Alabama in the fall of that year some of us in that class were sent to a "Com Pool" School up in Connecticut not far from New York City.  It was a six weeks course on ship-to-ship communications in convoy duty using walkie-walkie radio, semaphore flags and signal lights..  After "graduation" we were sent to the Armed Guard Center in Brooklyn, NY, to await further assignment to duty aboard merchant and troop transport ships sailing to either the European or Pacific war theaters.  Armed Guard units consisted of gunners manning 3- and 5-inch and 20 millimeter cannons and, of course, providing radio- and signalmen to bolster the merchant crew.  We did not talk much about which ocean which preferred to serve in, but it sure was not the North Atlantic as the German subs were destroying thousands of tons of shi pping with their prowling "wolf packs" of deadly U-boats.  What a relief it was to learn that our group was being divided alphabetically and all in A to K were being shipped to New Orleans for duty in the Pacitic.  This was not a "piece of cake," however, as my first ship was loaded with bombs, other ammunition and war equipment and headed for New Guinea...and traveling alone without escort or convoy!  I knew about the Lord at that time, but did not know Him personally, and I did have loved ones and friends praying for me back home.  We had some scares on that trip and more later, but the Lord kept me and brought me to faith in Him after the war, for which I praise Him,  I was ready for duty, but not ready for eternity until later.  But, after the war in the Pacific ended in August 1945 I completed my three-year enlistment in the Naval Reserve by serving aboard the USAT President Jackson (a converted cruise liner on the pre-war President Line) and helping to return our troops from the Far East.
The accommodations were similar to those aboard the USAT Dorchester that went down with over six hundred men and with only two hundred being rescued, some of those because four selfless chaplains gave them their own life-jackets!  We don't understand how God works in events like this, but we do know that He gave the victory in World War II, and since.  On this special day we are grateful to Him for those who have served and those who have given their lives to keep America strong and free.  Let all who know Christ as Saviour and Lord "pray for all that are in authority...Who will have all men to be saved..." - I Timothy 2:1-6.