5/15/2023 0 Comments Duty honor country speechI was going to serve in America’s army before God called me into His army. In fact, before God called me into Christian ministry in 1963, my plan was to follow in General MacArthur’s footsteps, attend West Point, and become a career Army officer. Why? I was a great admirer of the general. That picture and that speech hung on the bedroom wall of my boyhood home in Houston from a month or so after it was delivered until I graduated from college and entered seminary in 1969. Over the Memorial Day Weekend, I was going through some boxes of memorabilia from offices past from college and seminary onward, trying to decide which ones to keep, which ones to dispatch to the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, which ones my three children might want, and which ones I should jettison to the recycling bin.Īs I was in the midst of this emotionally painful process I was confronted with an icon from my youth and adolescence - a framed picture of General Douglas MacArthur in uniform, along with a copy of the text of his “Duty, Honor, Country” speech delivered 60 years ago at West Point, May 12, 1962. Circa 1943: American general Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964), in uniform, holds a pipe while standing on balcony with an American flag in background during World War II.
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