Seaman Young

I took a day off from my blog, but it was not by choice. I had a very busy day yesterday. It was one of those days where you run from one task to the next, and at the end of the day realize that you actually accomplished nothing. Have you ever had a day like that? Yes, we all have. But enough about that – let’s get on with the blog…

It was August of 1985 and circumstances happened to place me in Cape May, New Jersey. It was during those sweltering months of summer that I had chosen to join the U.S. Coast Guard, and in hindsight I should have joined in the more agreeable weather months of spring or early fall. It was a rough time, but a learning time for me, and it shaped a lot of things in my life and set me on a path that I still find myself on today.

The particular day I am remembering this morning was one of the early days of boot camp on The Cape. The young men of Kilo Company 121 were green. We could not seem to do anything right. There was no teamwork or discipline; just a disjointed group of fellows from different walks of life that had been thrown together for a couple of months in order to become official members of a branch of the service. I remember watching the sunrise over the Atlantic that morning (from a push-up position) and wondering just exactly what I was doing there as everything appeared to have delved into utter madness. I was probably not the only one that morning to reflect in such a manner.

At some point during those early morning hours, and I don’t remember the exact details, our drill instructor had had enough. When a drill instructor reaches that point, it is never a good thing. With veins bulging from his forehead, he literally blew his top becoming almost incoherent in the process. Incoherent due to the spittle flying onto our faces and the new and creative uses of profanity he had apparently discovered during his latest epiphany. But what he did next shocked me, and remains with me still today, almost twenty-five years later.

‘Seaman-recruit Young’ was a top-notch sailor. He was athletic, intelligent, and well-liked and well-respected by everyone in our company. If you recall advertisements from back in the 1950’s showing the ‘All-American’ boy, he would be what you would envision when you did so. By unanimous vote, he had been chosen by us, his peers to be our company leader and he did an excellent job in the position. He served as our go-between with the drill instructor, always seeming to be able to pull our fat out of the fire when we messed up.

On this morning, immediately following the melt-down spoken of earlier, the drill instructor called Young to the front and center of the formation. He made all of us get up from our prone positions and relax, because he said he had something he wanted us to see. Screaming and cursing, he forced Young down into the prone position and ordered him to begin doing pushups for the company; one for every one of our mistakes over the previous week and he assured us that there were millions of them. At first we were relieved, and I say that with not a little chagrin – it was a lot easier on us and besides, Young was an All-State Athlete from Texas and could handle it. As time went on, however, we could see that this wasn’t a going to be a simple example and the drill instructor had an obvious axe he wanted to grind. Seconds dragged into minutes, each punctuated by a curse from the drill instructor and a ‘yessir’ from Young as he cranked out ‘our’ pushups.

Before too much time had passed, we could see that he was getting tired, yet he refused to stop or give in. This had the apparent effect of angering the drill instructor even more so than he was already, if that was possible. We, as a group, began feeling uncomfortable because we knew this wasn’t right - he was taking the punishment for all of us. In the early morning light, I saw Young’s face, and he had tears flowing down his cheeks. It was enough, and several of us dropped to the pushup position to join Young in his labor, and it was the right thing to do. That’s what happens in the movies, right?

When the drill instructor saw what we were doing, he would have no part of it. He advised us that we had mere moments to reconsider and get back up on our feet or he was going to, well, I can’t put it down in a G-rated blog entry what he actually said he was going to do to us. But I can let you know that what he was talking about doing to us was physically and anatomically impossible. The morning took a turn for the surreal as we realized the drill instructor was going to get his pound of flesh, that Young would have to go it alone, and we would only be spectators for the ongoing punishment exercise. I can no longer recall how long this sadistic behavior continued, but it did end eventually. I’d like to say that it shaped us and made us better sailors, and maybe it did. But to this day I am still not sure that it couldn’t have been accomplished in another manner.

John writes in his first epistle about Jesus, “And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” I found the following definition for the word ‘propitiation’ on-line this morning, and I like it:

Propitiation is that priestly work of Christ wherein He removed God's anger and wrath by the covering over of our sins through the substitutionary sacrifice of Himself to God, thus securing our acceptance before God.

Young’s sacrifice for our squad on the parade ground that morning long ago to pay for our mistakes as a group was probably demented, and there should have been an alternative method to use to get our attention. But with the sin-debt we owe in our lives, there is no other way to pay for it than through the death on the cross of Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus not only cleanses us from the sin, it atones for our sin. We can never pay it on our own, we can’t justify it in our hearts otherwise, and we can’t simply choose to ignore it. We can’t compare ourselves to others by rationalizing that ‘at least we are not as bad as they are.’ Salvation comes when we accept Jesus into our hearts and choose His completed work of grace that only He alone can provide for us.

I wish I could remember Young’s first name – he deserves that from me.