Mom and Dad were both members of the Church of Christ. My earliest memories of going to Bible study and worship services was in Bristol, Tennessee. We lived there until I was about around 9 and then we moved back to Kentucky, and I have memories of attending Bible study and worship services there. You might say that I was raised in the church (not really the best way to phrase it). From what I remember, things were going well.
Then when I was 11 years old, my dad died during open heart surgery. My world crashed and crashed hard. My mom was left to raise two kids, with another one on the way. I don't remember mom working before that (she didn't even have a driver's license at the time). She went out and got a pretty good job with a big insurance company and provided for her family, and very well, I must add. And she continued to go to church, never missing a Bible study or worship service. I, on the other hand, was a different story. I began blaming God for what had happened and eventually stopped attending the services.
In August of 1971, I joined the Kentucky Army National Guard. The Vietnam war was still going on and my lottery number was 64. Then in December, I married the love of my life, Phyllis Shofner, with whom I am still married today. Her religious background was Baptist (this will come more into play a little bit later in the story) and we were married in the Baptist church. Shortly after we got married, it would soon be time to go off to basic and then advanced infantry training and I would be away from home for a little over 4 months. My wife held a going away party in the half mobile home that we had moved into at the time. It was scheduled on a Wednesday night, but we wouldn't change it to another night for my mother. But she did come. She gave me a small New Testament (about 4-3/4" by 3") to take with me. I was absolutely furious. I threw it against the wall of the trailer. I wasn't a very good son.
I was trained as a Combat Surveillance Target Crewman (17A10). Our job was to operate a large searchlight, shining it onto the target area as the artillery unit would fire (over our heads) their projectiles onto the target. The searchlight was pulled behind one vehicle, and the generator was pulled behind another vehicle. The searchlight was the size that you would sometimes see at shopping centers when they were having a grand opening. Well, these searchlights soon became obsolete (actually they didn't even have any of them at Fort Hood when I took my Advanced Infantry Training there). My unit was soon disbanded, and several of us transferred to a new unit, the 438th MP Company, and my MOS was changed to 95B20 Military Policeman. That changed things a bit. When I carried a weapon in my former unit, the weapon would be loaded with blanks, if it was loaded at all. In my new unit, if I carried a weapon, either 45 or M-16, it would be loaded with live ammo. On our weekend drills, we would be riding along with the MPs at Fort Knox. And during out summer camps, we would be the post MPs. During the Louisville busing riots in September of 1975, my unit was called out. We rode in jeeps at night with our M-16's in areas where rioters were gathering. During the day I would be dressed in my khakis with a loaded 45 strapped to my waist and riding on a school bus with those children that were being bused to another school.
This new change added an extra level of danger to my military service. My wife had become worried about me as I had never been baptized (we would have different views about baptism) and started looking for a church to join. She found one that had a bowling alley and some others with various amenities. She also was trying to get us a meeting with a Baptist preacher.
Mom caught wind of this and started giving my wife passages to read, and she would be reading them. I'm not sure exactly why, but I picked up that little New Testament that my mom had given me (yes, I still had it) and started reading at Matthew 1:1 and continued through it. Mom had always asked us to join her for services, but we always refused, having something "more important" to do. But this time, we agreed and went with her to church. I can't remember how many services we attended, but on May 5, 1975, both Phyllis and I responded to the invitation and were baptized into Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins.
I have some more to add to this, but for now, I'll leave it right here.
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