Trees
As the C-47 neared the drop zone it was bouncing furiously. Turbulent air and flak were giving the paratroopers a rough ride. Malcolm Brannon was number 15 in a stick of eighteen jumpers, and, with all his gear, weighed about three hundred pounds. To stand up and hook up to the static line were not easy tasks, and to remain standing was almost impossible as the aircraft rose and fell violently. As the light flashed green and the jumpmaster shouted, “Go!” he pushed those in front as he was pushed from behind, out the door into the darkness.
Within seconds Brannon felt the sharp and reassuring jolt of his opening canopy. Enemy tracers were lacing the air around him, and he began praying for his friends and for himself. As he neared the ground he became aware that he was drifting backwards. Fearing a bad landing with his heavy equipment, he tried unsuccessfully to maneuver his parachute so that he could hit the ground facing forward. As time ran out, he tensed for the worst. Suddenly there was a swish as he passed through the limbs of a tree and a slow deceleration as he came to a stop one foot from the ground. He said later, “I was under HIS guidance I knew and I said, ‘Thanks.’”421 Amazingly, he was also reminded in that moment of an old poem expressing reverence for the same thing that had saved him:
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.422
Only God can make a tree, and only God can give a frightened soldier the faith that a greater power is with him in the midst of danger.
And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
—Genesis 2:9