Moving from Salisbury to Bulawayo was interesting, but I was totally mesmerized by thought that I was about to meet with the Army Chief of Staff. To-date the highest ranking officer I had even seen was Lt Col Wood, my boss. But, he was really just a preacher in uniform.
As I walked in the door to Army HQ, I was totally intimidated. A corporal directed me inside an office. Entering, I found myself facing not one, but two officers. Maj Gen Derry MacIntyre returned my salute and reached out to shake my hand. Then he turned to introduce me to Maj Gen MacClean. They were the joint chiefs of staff reporting to General Walls, the overall Rhodesian commander.
Gen MacIntyre invited me to have a seat. Moments later a corporal entered with tea which the General poured for me! This was crazy! Just a few months ago, I had been a lowly recruit at RLI being ordered to attention by anyone (everyone) who outranked me. Now I was having tea with two generals.
Even today, I am still trying to get my head around this. I am sure, at the time, I had no sense of how unusual this was. I think there was a degree of evangelical overconfidence that this was to be expected. After all, I was a servant of God--loaded with bible doctrine and a divine viewpoint of history--why wouldn’t a general want to talk to me? As I set here at my computer typing this, I regret how my bible doctrine-induced arrogance caused me to miss the value of this event.
I don’t have a record of what was said, but this is how I remember the conversation:
Padre, the reason we have asked you here this morning is to discuss a special assignment that Col Wood believes you are uniquely qualified to undertake. As you know, we have quite a few foreign soldiers serving with us. With the political situation evolving, we really need an ear to the morale of the foreign soldiers.
We would like you to be our ears. We want you to travel periodically and speak with foreign soldiers in RLI, Selous, SAS, Grey’s, and such. Get a sense of their state of mind and report back to us.
The significance of this assignment didn’t sink in immediately. But I was to have another meeting with the two officers a few months later. Then I would understand, but more on a few chapters from now.
For the immediate future, there were a thousand details to prepare for our move to Bulawayo. First up was that trip with Col Wood to Balla Balla.
Pegi and I slid into the back seat of Col Wood’s army green Peugeot 404 sedan. The higher the rank, the better the vehicle. Chaplain captains were issued the tiny Renault R5. As a sergeant, I got a Yamaha motorcycle.
The best part of the trip to that point was the conversation with Col Wood. In the six plus hours we spent in his car, we talked about his life as chaplain general, the war, his experiences as a Baptist pastor, and theology.
As a follower of Thieme, I often would refer to the original Greek of Hebrew of biblical passages. Most people were suitable impressed with my apparent knowledge. Wood, however, had taken several years of Greek in seminary. He made some references to the dative and instrumental cases and I suddenly knew that I was in over my head.
All I knew from my self-study under Thieme was vocabulary and limited grammar/syntax. I knew what a dative case was. I knew its function in a sentence. I didn’t know how to identify a dative case. I had never actually taken any Greek. The only Hebrew beyond what I had learned from Thieme was the alphabet I had learned in a fourth grade Temple class. When he wanted to discuss Greek or even theology more deeply, I realized that I was arrogant in my ignorance. I was totally dependent on Thieme’s knowledge. I could parrot what Thieme said, but I had no firsthand resources from which I could draw.
I had already been wondering about the accuracy of Thieme’s theological applications to everyday life. They clearly did not work “as advertised”! What if the Greek and Hebrew I had learned from him was just as unreliable? “Wandering” to Rhodesia was really causing me to “wonder”!
For the first time, it was my own shallowness that prevented a theological discussion from continuing. And all this time, I had believed Thieme’s teaching that one needed was “the constant intake of bible doctrine.” Of course, by this, Thieme meant listening to him constantly. Here I was on the theological firing line and I didn’t have any of my own ammo! The best I could do would be to resort to the adolescent, “My dad can beat up your dad!” Only in this case, it was “My pastor-teacher is smarter than you.”
I think were all relieved when, after a day of driving, we arrived at Balla Balla. Col Wood had checked us into a small roadside hotel. I really don’t remember it, but Pegi has very vibrant memories that “It was horrible!” I felt the same way about my part of the conversations with Col Wood! It was horrible!
Next: Balla Balla, Bulawayo and Matsheumshlope
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