By Marvin A. McMickle
Psalm 130
I want to take you on a journey this morning to an island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during World War II. The island is a strategic location for the United States Navy as they fight their way toward Japan, and as a part of that effort the navy is off-loading bombs and ammunition to be stored there for future use. You may not know this, because very few movies made in Hollywood would tell you this part of the story, but much of the handling of live ammunition was done by African American soldiers. They would load the weapons onto ships somewhere along the California coastline, and then other black soldiers would unload the weapons onto one of these Pacific islands. My friend belonged to one such unit.
Advertisement
After working all day and well into the night the ship was unloaded and a virtual mountain of bombs, rockets and other forms of ammunition was now sitting on the beach. There was one problem of great concern to the officers in charge, and that was the possibility that there might be a few Japanese soldiers remaining on that island who might attempt an act of sabotage and try to blow up all of those weapons before they could be used. After all, it was the middle of the night and the only light available was the light of the moon. How could they ensure the safety and security of that mountain of munitions?
It was discussed and decided that the best place to put a lookout was on the very top of that mountain of weapons. From that position a person could look across much of the island in every direction, and could even see by the moonlight if someone was approaching out of the jungle just 30-40 yards away. The person who would be selected would have to sit on the very top of that pile of explosives until morning came, and then the weapons could be moved to a secure location. The question was who could you assign to such hazardous duty? Nobody volunteered for the job, so somebody had to be selected.
It was my friend who was given that assignment, and he told me over 30 years later that it was the longest and loneliest night of his life. Suppose some Japanese soldier did fire a rocket into that mountain of weapons; he would have been blown to pieces. Suppose one of the rockets became unstable and exploded, setting off the whole mountain of ammunition; he would have died instantly. With all of those thoughts racing through his mind there was only one thing he was watching for even more intently than he was watching for enemy snipers and saboteurs; he was watching and waiting for the sunrise. He kept one eye on the jungle in front of him and another eye on the horizon stretched out before him. It was his prayer that the sun would emerge on the horizon before a soldier emerged out of the jungle. Finally, from high up on his perch on the island in the Pacific my friend made this announcement; “Here comes the sun.”