What Lieutenant Thomas V. Kelly Jr.'s Story Teaches Us about Freedom and Unity in a Divided Nation

Second Lieutenant Thomas V. Kelly Jr. was one of eleven crew members on the B-24 bomber nicknamed Heaven Can Wait. On March 11, 1944, Lt. Kelly’s plane was shot down by Japanese antiaircraft gunners off the coast of the Pacific island of New Guinea. All eleven crew members died. Last spring, a team of elite Navy divers and archaeologists found the crash site and recovered the remains of three men. Last Friday, the Defense Department announced that Lt. Kelly’s remains had been positively identified through dental and anthropological analysis. Divers also found his Army Air Forces ring and two of his dog tags.

In one of his last letters home to his parents, Lt. Kelly wrote:

I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m just telling you to appreciate what you have. Even if you don’t think it is much. It is so much. The men fighting here for everyone, they’re doing it for your freedom.

When I read the story over the weekend, it moved me deeply. I became emotional again typing these words just now.

“A Dying Empire Led by Bad People”

These days, Americans are disparaging each other more than at any time in my memory.

One woman is canceling Thanksgiving and Christmas at her home since her husband and his family voted for Donald Trump. A father is refusing to pay his Trump-supporting sons’ college tuition.

On the other side, rural areas in Illinois, a state with vast swaths of red counties and a few blue cities, are seeking to “leave Illinois without moving.” Their goal is to redraw state lines to constitute themselves as “New Illinois.” Conservatives in California, Idaho, and Oregon would like to do something similar.

According to a recent poll, young voters overwhelmingly believe that almost all politicians on both sides are corrupt and that the US will end up worse off than when they were born. The lead pollster said, “Young voters do not look at our politics and see good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad people.”

I will always remember meeting a veteran whose face and hands were scarred by fire and other wounds sustained in battle. When I thanked him for his sacrifice, he said, “Just make America a country worth dying for.”

How can we be the nation Lt. Kelly was fighting to defend?

The “Greatest Speech in American History”

When my wife and I visited Gettysburg National Military Park, we could feel the ominous and historic weight of the fields surrounding us. We could imagine the cannons as they roared and the soldiers as they fought and died in the Civil War’s deadliest battle.

On this day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spoke at a ceremony to dedicate the Soldiers’ National Cemetery on this sacred ground. His brief address has been called the “greatest speech in American history.”

In honoring “those who here gave their lives that [our] nation might live,” he called Americans to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion” so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

More than seven thousand men were killed at Gettysburg. More than 1.1 million men and women have died in the service of our country across our history. Now it falls to us, in Mr. Lincoln’s words, to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

Mark Twain’s Definition of Patriotism

Yesterday, I noted that if Americans cannot get along, America cannot get along. In a democracy where we vote for each other, hold each other accountable through our elections and legal systems, do commerce with each other, and live in community with each other, divisiveness and divisions threaten our collective future and common good.

But disparaging America and Americans does even more: It threatens the cause for which so many Americans have sacrificed so much.

Mark Twain observed, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.” The bitterness of our political environment transcends appropriate criticism of the government—many claim that the American project itself is racist and discriminatory to its core. And many see the “other side,” whoever they are, as evil and dangerous to democracy.

This is one place where Christians can—and must—take the lead.

“Whatever Disunites Man from God”

Agape is the Greek word for unconditional love that enables us to love those who hate us and to forgive those who harm us. It is the only kind of love that can heal divisions such as those we face today.

And it is uniquely the “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). When we make Christ our Lord, and his Spirit comes to dwell in us (1 Corinthians 3:16), he can then manifest this fruit in our relationship with our Lord, our neighbors, and ourselves (Matthew 22:37–39). And when we love others as sacrificially and fully as we are loved (Romans 8:35–39), hearts are healed, families are mended, and societies are transformed.

Edmund Burke was right:

“Whatever disunites man from God also disunites man from man.”

However, the converse is also true: Whatever unites man to God unites man to man.

Imagine a room whose walls are lined with people. Put a chair in the middle of the room. The closer those in the room draw to the chair, the closer you draw to each other.

And when that chair is a throne, and when the King of kings is reigning there, all of creation will bow and “every tongue [will] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).

How will you hasten that day today?

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the Day:

“In the twilight of our life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved.” —St. John of the Cross

Published Date: November 19, 2024

Jim Denison, PhD, is a cultural theologian and the founder and CEO of Denison Ministries. Denison Ministries includes DenisonForum.org, First15.org, ChristianParenting.org, and FoundationsWithJanet.org. Jim speaks biblically into significant cultural issues at Denison Forum. He is the chief author of The Daily Article and has written more than 30 books, including The Coming Tsunami, the Biblical Insight to Tough Questions series, and The Fifth Great Awakening.