The young Specialist stood in front of me awaiting my decision. He’d stood there before, and unless he changed, he would stand there again. He constantly lied, about small things and large. In the Army, we depend upon truth, more so than in any other profession that I’ve pursued. All of the minor punishments, extra duty, forfeiture of pay, and loss of privileges had not got his attention. So, I administered a loss of rank, reducing him to PFC. As a young married man with a child, this mattered as a PFC did not make nearly as much money as a SPC. He slunk out of my office lighter of rank and heavier of heart. A couple of weeks later, my First Sergeant came in with a stack of paperwork.
“Hey sir, did you realize that when you busted SPC Franklin you pushed him past his RCP (retention control point)?”
“I had not, not that it would have changed my decision.” At this time if a soldier passed his RCP without promotion, they were forced out of the Army.
“Well, he’s on orders for Germany. What will you do,” my First Sergeant wondered?
At this time the Army still largely functioned on manually entered paperwork. So, the part of the Army that moved soldiers around had not communicated with the part of the Army that controlled promotions and demotions. In other words, the movement folks did not realize that now, PFC Franklin was not eligible to move overseas. I sat there a while considering as a plan slowly formed in my mind. “First Sergeant, please find PFC Franklin and send him to me.”
“Sure Sir.”
Soon PFC Franklin was standing in front of my desk. After he rendered the appropriate greeting of the day, I share with him his options. First, I explained that he was past his RCP, a concept he well understood. Next, I showed him his orders for Germany. Crestfallen, he bemoaned his fate. I gave him an option. He could take the orders and hustle to get off post. I would put his RCP paperwork at the bottom of my stack. If he could get off post and to Germany before I got to the bottom, with good performance, he could quite possibly regain his rank and avoid discharge. You’ve never seen a soldier clear post so quickly. PFC Franklin and his family moved to Germany and out of my life. Years later when I was a Lieutenant Colonel, I got a phone call from Chief Warrant Officer 2 Franklin. He’d learned his lesson. His act cleaned up; promotions soon followed. Eventually, he applied for and was admitted to the Warrant Officer Training course. What had seemed an act of retribution turned out to be an act of love.
We often misunderstand love. A component of love involves letting people choose. Every parent should intuitively understand this concept. We let our children make choices and then they deal with the consequences. We hope and pray that they learn from little mistakes. But, to deny them the right of choosing would not be an act of love.
In Deuteronomy chapters 29 and 30, the Lord, through Moses, tells the children of Israel that He has set before them life and good, death and evil and that they should choose wisely. Part of love involves allowing choice. Christy, for reasons unknown, choose to love me. That decision set in motion a series of actions and consequences. Had she chosen differently; things would have turned out quite differently. In a similar fashion, God extends to you and me choice and the responsibility of living with those choices. It is the act of a loving father.
Currently, we focus on the soft easy side of love, but love comes with some difficulty. Love endures all things, even the pain of watching a loved one choose poorly. There is a component of love that requires strength and resolve. God’s love led Him to offer His only son as a sacrifice for my sins. He also disciplines those whom He loves, Hebrews 12. True love requires strength and resolve. Paul reminds husbands to love their lives by laying down their lives for their spouses, Ephesians 5. When we reduce love to something soft, warm, and fuzzy, we degrade love. There are times when love is comforting when love does not have hard edges; however, there are also times when love does not give way and must say things difficult to hear. And sadly, there are times when love stands and watches a loved one walk down the path of their choosing. To say that allowing people to choose hell violates love does not take the strength and courage of love into account. Love is not about torture and coercion. But it does allow for choice, even choices with tragic consequences.
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