What's My Reputation? - Guest Blogger - Mark Partridge (my brother)

For those of you who haven't heard through church or Twitter or Facebook or elsewhere, I lost my Dad this past week.  In the last few days our family shared stories, shed tears and said goodbye.  What follows is a story that all of us heard (with some variations) about Dad's experiences during WWII that my brother Mark shared online. Not only is it one of my favorite stories about my dad, it is deeply insightful and will make you think about who we are when we are out in "the world."  With his permission, I share Mark's story with you.

****************

 Guest post by Mark Partridge)

Mark Partridge

In honor of Dad, one of my favorite stories:

    During WWII, Stanley, from a small family farm in Ohio, left high school early to enlist in the armed services. When his classmates were donning caps and gowns for graduation, Stanley was already in the uniform of the U.S. Navy. Aboard a munitions ship in the South Pacific, the U.S.S Manderson Victory, they tied up to battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, re-arming them with every kind of shell and armament. While he never talked much of the war, he certainly saw it’s horrors up close; seeing their sister ship blow up in an immense fireball when it hit a mine; coming under heavy bombardment during the invasion of Okinawa. But for the crew of the Manderson Victory, perhaps the most perilous time they experienced wasn’t during battle, but during a storm. A storm that pitched the ship around so violently that the racks holding the munitions in the hold began breaking; timbers the size of railroad ties snapping like toothpicks. Shells rolling around, clanking together - they were one spark away from meeting the same fate as their sister ship. Up on the bridge, the Captain muttered something about needing a “man who knows how to pray”. One of the officers heard the comment, went and fetched Stanley, and brought him to the bridge. Stanley said that during the entire war, this was the only time he had ever seen fear on the Captain’s face. The Captain looked at Stanley, said “I understand you’re a man who knows how to pray. I need you to pray us through the storm,” and he handed Stanley the microphone to the ship’s public address. And Stanley prayed.

Dr. Stanley I. Partridge

    We know a lot of stereotypes about sailors. We hear phrases such as “cuss like sailor”, “drink like a sailor”, “a woman in every port”. And if you took a teenager from a small farm in Ohio and dropped him half-a-world away in the middle of a horrific war, you’d probably be willing to cut him some slack if he picked up a few vices. But this young man, far from home, had earned the reputation of “a man who knows how to pray.”

    And so I remain challenged by the legacy of my dad. When I’m at work, with friends, in various groups I socialize with, I always ask myself,

“What’s my reputation?”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To receive email updates to the Crossfusion blog, click here.

Pearl Harbor - A Story of Forgiveness and Salvation?

    Seventy-one years ago today the Japanese navy, led by 36 year-old "top gun" pilot of his day, Mitsuo Fuchida, attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The surprise was nearly total and the destruction was immense both physically as well as to the psyche of the United States.  The Japanese admiralty expected that such devastation would compel the United States to sue for peace and stay out of their plans for expansion in the Pacific.  Instead, our nation was filled with a "terrible resolve."  Our reaction was not to surrender but to get even.  The death and destruction (on all sides) that spread across the Pacific and around the world was nearly incalculable.  Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men and women went to their deaths for reasons that, even now, are difficult to explain.


    For his part, Mitsuo Fuchida, was plagued by the death that he had witnessed and that which he had been a part of and he struggled to find a way to bring a message of peace to the world.  A friend who had been a prisoner of war in the United States, told him an amazing, almost impossible, story that revealed a way toward peace.  Later still he encountered the message of Jacob DeShazer, a B-25 bombardier captured by the Japanese after the Doolittle raid.  DeShazer, despite being treated horrifically during his imprisonment, had learned an amazing lesson as well during his confinement.  He traveled to Japan and spoke in venues across the country telling of the peace that he had found in their POW camp.

    Nathan Naversen has written a great story about this and I used it as a devotion at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting this morning.  It is an amazing story of peace and forgiveness that grew out of ome of history's greatest periods of death and destruction.  How is this possible?  Read the whole story here:

From Pearl Harbor to Golgotha