Our Life Together Vol 3 Nr 13 April 1, 1975

This was another of those issues that elicited a lot of discussion on Facebook. It all started when I mentioned that the thing I noticed about this issue was that in the section entitled "In the Family", it stated that I would be returning from my Westpac deployment and that I would be leaving the Navy. This was a very important time for me.

Linda and I had joined the church in 1967. At the time I really thought that we would stay here for a couple of years and then go wherever the Navy sent me. This almost took place as I actually had orders to Hawaii in late 1968, but the good people in the Bureau of Naval Personnel changed my orders. Of course, looking back, I believe that God played a hand in keeping us here. As the years went on Linda and I began to change. I became an Elder in the church; my Navy career wasn't the most important part of my life. We both wanted to serve the Lord. It became very clear to us in 1974 that we were to move into a community household. This would be quite awkward if I was to remain a Naval Officer; my first loyalty could never be to the community, my first loyalty was to the Navy. I wrestled with this decision, but late in 74, with the concurrence of the eldership, I resigned my commission in the Navy. The Navy granted my request with the provision that I make one more tour to the Western Pacific before I left the Navy.

Linda, Rick, Robin and I moved into Westby Household (Ken Pagaard was the head) in October, 1974. About a week after we moved in, I deployed to Westpac. I was the Logistics officer for Commander Amphibious Squadron One at the time. My boss was responsible for several ships (my memory fails, but I believe that we had two LSTs, two LSDs, one LPH and one Communications Ship). The exact composition doesn't matter at this date -- and it occasionally changed. My only reason for mentioning this was because the composition of ships in this squadron, of course, determined our mission. At the time of this article, I (along with the rest of the staff) had just completed the planning for the evacuation on Pnom Penh, Cambodia (I should check my spelling on the city -- just bear with me). I didn't take part in the evacuation as this happened just after I left the squadron -- and of course that evacuation was quickly followed by the evacuation of Saigon, VN. I missed all of that. I won't rehearse the dialogue here, you can find it on my profile page on Facebook.

The more important discussion revolved around the articles by Ken and Clay. The issue discussed was the nature of the Gospel. There came a time in community where we did seem to feel that community was the gospel. I know that Ken used to say that one could not understand the New Testament unless they lived in community. Most of the ones commenting (I include myself) believe that community was a means of living out the gospel, but not the end. In any case this is an interesting issue. Both the article by Ken and the one by Clay are well worth reading.