| | My friend, Jessica Saul has a brother named Joel who is the exact same age as me. Born August 9th 1980. He's a Marine in a special sniper squad. Joel's been in the service for three years now. This summer he was itching to put his training to use, maybe get shipped out to Iraq, but instead he got locked into a desk job, which was driving him crazy. A few months ago he came back up here to Rochester to visit. Everybody was together at a friend's house. My buddy Mike Turiano was in the kitchen talking to Joel and another man who is a professional carpenter. Mike looked at this guy's huge, rugged hands, and made a remark about how our profession realy shapes our hands. "Sometimes I wish I had carpenter's hands like yours, but I've got artist's hands" Mike said. Joel held up his palms. "These are killing hands."
Joel went back to base after that and continued working at his desk job. Then last month I got an email from Mike T asking everyone to pray for Joel Saul because he just got orders to ship out and would be entering a possible combat situation. I bet everyone was thinking Iraq, but I knew in my heart it was Haiti. Well I was right. Do you remember reading in the news about a car that tried to run a roadblock in Port-au-Prince? The driver refused to stop, so a Marine Sniper had to shoot him. Guess who fired the shot. Joel Saul.
I know there are never any easy answers in life. Did that man realy need to die? I don't know. Joel was just doing what he was trained to do. Who knows what would have happened if they didn't stop that car? But I remember how he stood there in that kitchen and looked at his hands and said "These are killing hands." Joel knew what he was trained to do. He had no confusion about what his purpose was. Yet there he was, stuck at a desk job, wondering if he would ever have the chance to put his training to use. Then all of a sudden he was placed in a position where he had to make a decision and react in a split second. All of that training which seemed wasted came right back to him. He made the national news. I'm not saying that we are all killers. Some of us are healers, and encouragers. But I think about Joel and how he KNEW what he was inside. Now I remember to look at my hands and remember who God made me to be. It may not seem like I am doing anything with my hands that I want to right now, but I know that someday I will.
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| | Posted 3/25/2004 5:37 PM - 16 Views - 18 eProps - 9 comments
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Take it easy brutha, miss ya.