Soldiers of Our Savior
The paratroopers knew the time had come when they were given live ammunition. The days had been long in the crowded airfield hangars with endless briefings, calisthenics, chow lines, and waiting. There had already been one twenty-four-hour postponement and everyone’s nerves were on edge. Pvt. 1st Class Leslie Cruise realized the long wait was almost over. To his load of k-rations, canteens, first-aid pack, extra clothing, M-1 rifle, and bayonet, he added a belt full of 30-caliber ammunition and two extra bandoliers, plus fragmentation and smoke grenades, and a 9-inch anti-tank mine.
(Eisenhower Presidential Library)
As he checked his gear he patted his left breast pocket where he kept his most important item: a small New Testament that his mother had given him. Thinking of his Bible, he said a quiet prayer to himself: “God help me to commit myself to the task ahead and help me to be a good soldier, and save me from harm.”417 He knew that he and his fellow soldiers would need the power of God in the night and days ahead.
Early in the evening of June 5 Cruise attended to one final preparation before donning his equipment. He gathered with others for a chapel service led by his chaplain, Capt. George “Chappie” Wood. During the service the chaplain said a prayer for the paratroopers that Leslie never forgot:
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father: Who art above us and beneath us, within and around us, drive from the minds of our paratroopers any fear of the space in which thou art ever present. Give them the confidence in the strength of thine everlasting arms, endue with clear minds and pure hearts that they may participate in the victory which this nation must achieve in thy name and through thy will. Make them hardy soldiers of our country as well as thy son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.418
Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.
—Ephesians 6:19