8 Things Christians Can Do for Veterans All Year Long

Bruce Ashford : Nov 11, 2019
BillyGraham.org

...It is not enough for us merely to remember veterans and military personnel once a year on Veterans Day. It is incumbent on us to minister to veterans and other military personnel.

[BillyGraham.org] This post was originally published in November 2016. It is appropriate to read this month as the United States observes Veterans Day. (Image: via BillyGraham.org)

On November 11, 1918, the world celebrated the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty signaled the end of World War 1, a war in which "civilized" Westerners had remained in trench warfare firing guns at one another for four solid years.

Soon after, the United States instituted a national holiday—Armistice Day—to remember the sacrifices of our WW1 soldiers. In 1954, Congress changed the holiday's name to Veterans Day so that Americans could remember the sacrifices of all our soldiers.

In a moment, I will mention eight things Christians can do to honor and minister to Veterans. But before I do so, I want to mention two moments in my life that caused me to appreciate our veterans in a way I would not otherwise.

The first moment occurred when I was in my early twenties working as a journalist, and was able to feature my grandfather—Col. John T. Ashford, Jr.—in the Sunday edition of the paper. Grandfather was a WWII bomber pilot and had flown 25 combat missions and been shot down over the European theater. As we interviewed, he stopped several times to mention friends of his who were shot down or otherwise killed during the war.

The second moment occurred last week, as I was preparing the "war and democracy" portion of my lecture notes for a course at The College at Southeastern. As I wrote about the sacrifices made by so many of our nation's veterans, I reflected on what the United States would be like if they had not made those sacrifices. What would it be like for Americans to live under the iron-clad and oppressive rule of fascists such as Hitler or Mussolini?

Or, to switch the analogy, how would we like to live in certain Middle Eastern or Central Asian nations where women are beaten for appearing in public with a man who is not a relative? To live in Yemen, where citizens are kidnapped and tortured because of their profession of faith in Christ? To live in Zimbabwe, where a totalitarian ruler has stolen everything from his people for decades on end?

These question are hypothetical for us because we, in fact, live in a nation that provides us great freedom. And we have that freedom because the men and women in our armed forces secure it for us, at great cost to their families and sometimes sadly at the cost of their own life.

For this reason, it is not enough for us merely to remember veterans and military personnel once a year on Veterans Day. It is incumbent on us to minister to veterans and other military personnel. Here are eight ways we can do so:

1. Thank them. Make it a point to find veterans, look them in the eye, and thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

2. Support their spouses and families. If they are active personnel, find ways to support their spouses and families while they are deployed for months at a time... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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