Thankful: November 11th

Korean Veteran's War Memorial Washington, DC.

My grandpa joined the army and trained in South Carolina.

Later he boarded a ship to take him across the world.  He would get a jacket in honor of this "adventure" for crossing a certain longitudinal/latitudinal parallel.

He was a kid with a helmet, boots, a gun.

He was a kid from a tiny map dot town.  A kid who worked with plants and trees....mainly trees who called Iredell County and Davie County home.

That kid would float on a boat all the way to Asia.  He would be sick as a dog the entire time and ask God to get off that boat.

Eventually he would arrive to a place called Korea.  The people there wouldn't look like him, speak like him, eat like him, live like him.

He would see military battle.  His experience would be the experience that showed him God is real and God is love and God never ever leaves you.

One of his experiences would have him in a rocky field with bullets flying.  He'd belly crawl to a larger boulder in the field to reload his weapon.  He would boldly cry to God for help and to get him out alive  He would do what so many of us have done in times of trail - bargain with the Lord.  If you'll do this for me, I'll do this for you.  Except he said - if God would get him out he'd live his life for Him.

My papaw made it out alive.  He was commissioned to the US Army's office in Tokyo, Japan.  There he would work as a type of secretary until the military shipped his group back.

When Dorman came home he married my Mamaw Nancie.  He had met her, wait no, he had seen her at a church function and ended up going by her house to meet her!  They eventually married and had three children.

Dorman became a lay speaker in the Methodist church.  He then became a Gideon.  I have many memories of his Gideon days.  In the 1990's he helped form a Hispanic Church in our community for the new and growing population.  He also started his prison ministry in the 90's and he still does that today.  He goes into the prisons and talks with some of the most heinous of offenders.  He doesn't see them for what they've done but for what they are - God's.  He tries to show them the love of God and show them that they are wrong when they say nobody ever cared about them.

I guess he wasn't bargaining with God that day in Korea.  He was being prepared for his future.

God bless the veterans of the United States of America.  I am thankful for Papaw Dorman & all of you.