Peace and the Giving Out of Awards For It

Many Americans are disturbed in the wake of the Nobel Peace prize announcement today.  Guest blogger Clay Bowlin has an interesting perspective that is unique among those that I have read today.  I thought my readers would be interested in hearing it. 

When I was a little guy, there were three things that really disturbed me and stirred my thinking. There was Vietnam, which was over when I was in 9th grade; there was the hippie culture, which was really puzzling; and the cold war with Russia and the whole nuclear thing. Seeds of what we are seeing now in Washington politics and cultural forces in our world were being laid back then. Or they were being cultivated, they were laid in the Renaissance, with Darwin, or farther back, to the Garden of Eden, but those are subjects for a different day, back to Clay Bowlin, age 9.

I am the son of a veteran, I was named for my Uncle Clay who was a POW in the Philippines for five years and died of suffocation in the hold of a Japanese ship in 1944. Grandma was a Gold Star Mom. I bleed red, white and blue, my friends. We went to Santa Cruz, CA in that year and saw and smelled a whole herd of hippies. This part was just weird, that was their thing, but these guys spit on soldiers and I cannot describe the rage in my 9 year old heart. I did not know much about Vietnam or why we were there, but we are AMERICANS and they spit on soldiers. I wanted so badly to volunteer and show those people that you have an obligation to serve your country. I was disappointed with Nixon in 1974. I had a bad motorcycle accident, was medically ineligible for six years after I was 18, then something went wrong on 4 attempts to join the service and finally I gave up on enlisting, the greatest regret of my life. But I vowed in my heart to always love soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and to honor them every way I can.

The hippies did not work, all they did was debauch. And I don’t mean those who looked that way or dressed that way, those are just styles and every generation has its way to be stupid looking. I mean the ones who lived it and sought to shape our nation that way. I mean the ones who are primarily in power in DC now, but they are not wearing tie-dye and long hair these days. Their lifestyle brought us the drug wars of today by creating the demand for it. Their lifestyle brought us the killing of unborn babies. Their lifestyle took the public shame out of fornication, it wasn’t that people hadn’t done it before, they knew it was wrong, and there was more restraint. Their lifestyle brought us people shacking up, which I consider one of the most damaging trends of evil in this culture. It minimized marriage, which is something God made. These were all over the street in Santa Cruz that year. And they spit on soldiers. They still do, only they do it with policy, not spit.

And then there was the Cold War, which brings us to the casual way that Nobel Prizes are handed out these days. I think of the sacrifices that our military, particularly our Air Force went through, the long hours to provide military deterrent to win the Cold War. Yes, WIN! We did NOT have a nuclear holocaust, did we? I remember asking my Dad what the hippies were protesting about one day. He said they want to get rid of nuclear weapons. I pointed out that was a good thing, wasn’t it? He said it was, but they wanted us to just get rid of ours, and then the other countries like the USSR (who in those days forced atheism on their people) would see our example and lay theirs down too. The hippies declared that it is only bad for US to have those weapons. And our Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines quietly kept up our defense. And this in spite of being spit on, by spit or by hippies in suits minimizing them. And hippies in suits were always running down the best nation on earth, always apologizing for US, when absolute ATROCITIES were committed by our enemies. And they won the Cold War. And along came one president that understood them and exalted them, and took down the Berlin Wall. Ronald Reagan. Put him on Mt. Rushmore in my book.

And our hippies in suits are in power in Washington now. They have a younger man, carefully groomed and highly articulate, who apologizes for us now. None of them could be elected, so they groomed a man for it. Not a year in office, and he has a Nobel prize. We have done more to help the poor, the hungry, and the nations who cannot defend themselves all over the world and we apologize for ourselves. We have bought most of the oil that has made for Saudi tyrants and we bow to these people. We are getting ready to go into hock to fix probably non-existent climate problems that we probably didn’t cause, and are apologizing to the ones who cause it. And we are sitting down and talking with middle eastern thugs who want to have nuclear bombs and kill others by their own admission, and apologizing to them, too. Is that what makes for peace? If so, give him a prize for it.

I know there are so many nuances to this, but the 9 year old is 50. And we are still the greatest nation on earth. Even if hippies in suits still spit on soldiers.

Pastor Clay Bowlin serves the Northwest Bible Church in Kansas City MO