The Men Were Noble
The routine started at 2:30 a.m. The B-17 crewmen stumbled out of bed, dressed in the cold, and plodded through the rain and mud to breakfast. Then they began assembling in the briefing room. Someone yelled, “Attention!” as the commanding officer walked down the center aisle and mounted the stage. Everyone finally came awake as the mission for the day was announced.
Jon Schueler paid close attention to every detail. As navigator for the Bad Check(named in hope that she would always come back) he carried a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. After the pre-mission briefing he and the rest of his crew climbed aboard their aircraft.
As long as the momentum of activity was going, everything would be OK. I felt the excitement, the blood coursing through my veins. I felt the intensity of it. We would start the engines reving and I’d lay out my charts and have everything ready, oxygen mask, parachute. Check all the dials. Computer, pencils, Weems plotter. Milt Conver would be making wisecracks. We could feel the plane being readied, we could feel the vibration of readiness of men moving back and forth at their dials, controls and guns. Everything was OK. We were a team and we knew each other and loved each other. The men were truly noble.294
These feelings are not uncommon in combat. You grow very close to others when you share an important mission and some degree of hardship or danger.
Twenty-five years after having such an experience, I rediscovered the same kind of intense feeling for others in the body of Christ. There is no mission that brings men and women closer together than working to bring others into the family of God. Everyone contributes unique gifts to the task, and every gift is prized by all. The key ingredient that holds this great and noble family together is the love of Jesus Christ for every member, which all the members share freely with each other.
But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
—1 Corinthians 12:18–20