Gavin Dickson, SASRA Army Scripture Reader with some thoughts for Remembrance Sunday
There is a saying in the army when someone dies: ‘We’ll see him at the Re-Org’.
Re-Org stands for re-organisation. For the soldier it is a short time after a battle, when ammunition is counted and redistributed and casualties are numbered and dealt with. It is a time to catch breath and get ready for the next battle, which might come at any moment.
Finding peace?
However, when a soldier dies and his colleagues declare ‘We’ll see you at the Re-Org’, it speaks of a full rest, a time when there are no more battles to be fought, no need for the mundane things that normally happen in a Re-Org, but rather ‘It is finally over, it is finished’.
Being a man who trusts in the Lord Jesus to get me to this final ‘Re-Org’, I am usually surprised by those who use the term. The hardened atheist will use it and mean it. I have had many conversations with members from my former Battalion, the Scots Guards, where my friends have berated me that ‘there is no God’ or that ‘your God must be very evil’. Many think I am stupid for believing in the afterlife. ‘We are but dust’, they say, or ‘Science has disproved God’.
Yet the heartfelt utterance: ‘I’ll see you at the Re-Org, big man,’ shows that, at that moment in time, they really do believe in this unreal ‘Re-Org’!
Iraq and Afghanistan
I served in the army, completing 13 years in an infantry battalion. I spent much of my time away from the UK, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and travelling widely. I loved the army life, loved the bond of brotherhood and the adventure that the army brought me is something I shall cherish.
It is also true to say that it was not easy. There were hard times in the army, and that is why on 11 November each year we gather to remember those who have given their lives for our nation.
List of dead friends
Sadly, during my service I saw many of my friends die. Last year I wrote a list of them; it was longer than I had expected. One name in particular escaped me and I had to call an old colleague to remind me. This made me sad as it was coming up for Remembrance Day and I had failed to remember the sacrifice this young man had made for others. I felt as I added him to my ever-growing list that I had failed to remember that his life mattered. It is important that we remember those who have given their lives in service as it reminds us of all those that still serve and of what we ask them to do for us today.
‘Where will I be?’
This year marked 100 years since the Battle of the Somme, and in Catterick Garrison we marked it by rising at 0500hrs (5am) to attend the Remembrance Service, standing in the Infantry Training Centre drill square with 3000 soldiers. The whistles blew and the machine gun let rip. Bang, Bang, Bang! went the mortars, and all this so that we too might feel something of what those who went ‘over the top’ felt.
Then followed the reading of letters from those who were going into battle, letters to those back home waiting for their return. These men, ‘our boys’, did not end with ‘see you soon’, but with grim realism they wrote ‘goodbye’. One letter-writer asked the question: ‘Where will I be; my body will be lying over there, but where will I be?’ I was moved by the whole service, which made sure each and every man and women asked that question of themselves: ‘Where will I be in the end?’
Truth of the resurrection
The young men and women recruits joining the army today are met straightaway with ‘This is how it is: this is how you dress, wash, polish your boots, this is the right way, and you will be on the right side of the rules’.
In the same way they need to know objective, spiritual truth. They need to know that there is a God in heaven, a just and merciful God. They need to know that the final ‘Re-Org’ they hear of is reached only through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. We as a nation ask them to be ready to give their lives for us, so it is only right that they should hear the glorious good news of Jesus Christ.
As an Army Scripture Reader I am able to present the claims of Jesus to our military. I speak with soldiers and airmen where they are, in the barracks on their own turf. I don’t tell them what I think, but rather what the Bible makes clear to us; not what I would like to be true, but the reality that the final Re-Org is only attainable through Jesus Christ. I am so thankful to God that such a ministry as SASRA exists, whose mission is ‘personal evangelism among the forces’ – we are deeply concerned for the spiritual welfare of our soldiers and airmen.
Today’s troops
‘We will remember them’ applies not just to those who fought and died in World War I, Iraq or Afghanistan, but continues for our troops in all that they face today. We who are called, beloved and kept for Christ (Jude 1) long to see our soldiers brought safe into the final ‘Re-Org’ of heaven by the proclamation of the good news of Christ.
