Blog: A Memorial Day Reflection

“Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of God”

-LTC Page, Wake Forest University Army ROTC Battalion Commander

The halls of the Wake Forest Army ROTC battalion reverberated at least weekly with this timeless adage from our Commander.  While the origin of these words was unknown to us, the repetition of them caused the future officers  to attribute this adage to our evangelical Lieutenant Colonel.  These words best highlight the many dimensions of my reflections of service and gratitude this Memorial Day of the 250th year of the United States.

Prayers for Families Who Lost Loved Ones In Military Service:  In regards to the families whose loved ones paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country while in military service, join me in praying this prayer on Memorial Day:

With the Christ-like sacrifice of your loved ones on our heart, we pray that the God of peace would bring hope, assurance and an abundance of love as your family grieves and celebrates the legacy of the lost loved one to military service. May the presence of God heal you as you face the unthinkable grief for any family and press into God’s redemptive heart.

At the top of my prayer list on memorial day are the following families whose loved one served in my unit in Operation Iraqi Freedom:

Operation Iraqi Freedom III Tikrit and Samarra – 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Inf Div

  • SPC Lex Nelson 12 Dec, 2005
  • 1LT Louis Allen – 8 June, 2005
  • SPC Ray Fuhrmann II 18 Aug, 2005
  • CPL Aleina Ramirez 15 Apr, 2005

Operation Iraqi Freedom V – Ramadi and Al Anbar – 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Inf Div

  • SPC Alan McPeek 2 Feb, 2007
  • PVT Matthew Zeimer 2 Feb, 2007
  • PVT Kelly Youngblood 18 Feb, 2007
  • SSG Joshua Hager 22 Feb, 2007
  • PFC Travis Buford 22 Feb, 2007
  • PFC Rowan Walter 22 Feb, 2007
  • SSG Forrest Waterbury 14 Mar 2007
  • SSG Steve Butcher 22 May 2007
  • PFC Daniel Cagle 23 May 2007

Vietnam – 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

  • Russell A. Steindam – Feb 1st, 1970 – posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for falling on a grenade to save his unit – he is the father of the St Paul Christian Academy Armed security officer, Russ Steindam, who would be born fatherless within months of his father’s heroic death.

Personal Reflections on Faith and War:  In regards to my personal service, the words of my Battalion Commander offered hope in the storm of Operation Iraqi Freedom III and V. The invasion of Iraq occurred in March 2003 of my senior year at Wake Forest and would dictate the dynamics of my tenure in the Army. After accepting Jesus as my savior in high school, my faith as I entered military service was very much in my head as I had limited life experience to test my young faith.  The long 18 inch journey of faith from my head into my heart was accelerated by the challenges that 13 months in Tikrit and 15 month deployments in Ramadi would bring to a young Lieutenant who would be married, commissioned in the Army, and graduate from college all in one weekend to commence this unique season of the United States.

Young and idealistic in our faith, my wife, Heather and I leaned forward into the foxhole of Operation Iraqi Freedom and found a deepening in our faith and marriage that would open new reservoirs of the presence of God.  The birth of our oldest son Wills, while I was deployed in Ramadi on my second deployment, and Heather raising him for over a year before I would return, demanded a further deepened reservoir of God’s strength as the pain, fear and loneliness that life’s circumstances often brings set into our lives in a dramatic way.

Psalm 91 and Ephesians 6 were the verses that anchored me each day in Iraq, and I prayed Psalm 91 before leaving the Ramadi base each day to advance the Police Transition Team for the transformation of a broken and battered city and the eventual eradication of the insurgency in Ramadi.  God had set Psalm 91 in my heart as I sat while in high school with my grandfather at his deathbed.  As he graduated to heaven, he shared more than he ever had before about his invasion as Marine at Iwo Jima and his survival in the face of the highest percentage of casualties in American history.  As he ascended to heaven, we prayed Psalm 91 in his hospital room. As it did in that moment, this psalm would continue to anchor me during my deployments.

Education: My Antidote to PTSD: As I transitioned from the Army, Heather and I reflect in hindsight that it took us six years to really settle in our marriage after the disorienting season of the deployments.  The deep reservoirs of faith and the presence of God were needed to heal and settle.

Educating the next generation became a significant conduit for my healing and recovery.  One of the officers with whom I walked closely through both deployments did not make it six months before dropping out of graduate school as a victim of PTSD.  Revealing the deep need of humans for continued purpose, the collateral damage of the war continued beyond the Middle East in many respects through PTSD. In my experience, the greater disparity of purpose from the missions in Iraq to the sense of purpose and work in the civilian world, the greater the struggle of PTSD seemed to occur in the transition.  If a service member went from high purpose and significant trauma and challenges in Iraq, and then returned to “normal” life where purpose was less clear, then that service member could be susceptible to the mental challenges of PTSD in my anecdotal observations of those closest to me.

In what would become a godsend for my life, the “mission” continued for me through education where I found incredible purpose and meaning within the civilian realm.  Working as the Dean of the High School at an all boys school in Nashville, TN called Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA) was the continued purpose that I needed to settle after the intensity and the complexities of the deployments.  The absence of a call to “lay down my life, to find my life” would have left a void in my transition back from the deployments.  Although the demands of the job made my wife sometimes feel as if I was deployed, I regularly reflect in gratitude for how God mutually blessed my life through the time of service at MBA.

Christian Education Reflections: Our work as Christian educators invests into the essence of what Jesus says is our greatest existence: to love God in a deep way and to love each other as Jesus loved us. While our society calls us towards the “more”, God makes it clear through the life of Jesus that our calling is downwardly mobile.  Jesus calls us to lay down our lives, let go of the world, abide in God and love others in the broken and sinful existence, which we all know too well.  The platform of education to accomplish these commandments within Christian community gets at the very heart of how God has wired us, and this calling has provided a clarity of purpose that I find to be unsurpassed in any realm in life.

I thank God for calling me to education, and I thank God for the CESA schools who are beautifully unified in discipling students to understand the most important facets of the way, the truth and the life in Jesus.  In making these basics clear to the next generation, educators are equipping the next generation of students to find the deeper purpose of their lives where the presence of God will be available to them.  As the technological revolution continues and seems to pull humans further from what they are wired to be,  the peace of Christ will be even more critical in the generation and culture wars to come.   To prepare students to lay down their lives for God and each other  will require an even more robust understanding of how to abide daily and be connected to God’s vine.  Central within the vine is the fruit of peace.

My son attended St Paul Christian Academy where I currently work, and he graduates from Montgomery Bell Academy this week.  As he accepts his ROTC scholarship to Auburn, I remain hopeful and prayerful for the next generation to find the peace of God within the war of life as they lay their lives down for the call of their generation.

“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall because it had it’s foundation on the rock.”  Matthew 7:24-25

This memorial day, as we reflect in gratitude and remembrance for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in support of our freedom, it is truly an honor to disciple the next generation in Christian education with you.  I could not be more grateful to lock arms in battle with CESA educators for the presence of God in the midst of the ever-present darkness.

Will Norton has been the Head of School at St. Paul Christian Academy in Nashville, Tennessee for the past five years.  Will joined St. Paul after serving as Dean of High School at Montgomery Bell Academy from 2008-2019.  He is a graduate of Wake Forest University where he studied history, and he holds a master’s degree in educational leadership from Lipscomb University. A former U.S. Army officer, he also served in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III and V where he was awarded the Bronze Star for his service. Will is actively involved in community and student well-being initiatives in Nashville, including being on the board of Wired Human (National non-profit in online health and safety), JH Outback Nashville (para-church ministry for parents and teens), and Parent from Peace (support ministry for Teen parents).  Will and Heather have three boys: Wills (19), Charlie (16) and Kingsley (11).  West End Community Church is the church home for the family.