Hungry and Thirsty
Psalm 107:5
"Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them."
I spent yesterday morning in Valley Forge National Park walking and memorializing the Revolutionary War soldiers. It was really hot. I felt bad for the Park Ranger who was wearing full-length wool pants and a hat that looked like it would breathe as much as garbage can lid. She was red with heat.
I know more about the encampment in Valley Forge than most because I grew up close to Valley Forge Park and have taken a personal interest in it since my first visit about 40 years ago...a day not unlike yesterday in that it was at the end of the school year and it was hot. I was the new kid, recently moved from West Virginia, and I didn't know anyone. I remember not having much of a good time.
Despite the popular lore, about the winter encampment in Valley Forge in 1777 -1778 being brutally cold, the winter was relatively mild. What killed most of the soldiers was disease, 2500 in all, and the deadliest month was May because of a flu outbreak (the harshest winter was Monmouth, New Jersey, two years later). In Valley Forge, the troops were destitute, hungry and thirsty beyond our imagination.
George Washington wrote, "Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery." That is carved on the Memorial Arch where we wound up yesterday. When a child, I had a telescope where I could see but not read this script on the Arch because it was too far away and my telescope set up in my neighbor's backyard was just not powerful enough.
Today, let us draw close and read these lines anew. In doing so, we honor the dead and those who sacrificed on our behalf.
"Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them."
I spent yesterday morning in Valley Forge National Park walking and memorializing the Revolutionary War soldiers. It was really hot. I felt bad for the Park Ranger who was wearing full-length wool pants and a hat that looked like it would breathe as much as garbage can lid. She was red with heat.
I know more about the encampment in Valley Forge than most because I grew up close to Valley Forge Park and have taken a personal interest in it since my first visit about 40 years ago...a day not unlike yesterday in that it was at the end of the school year and it was hot. I was the new kid, recently moved from West Virginia, and I didn't know anyone. I remember not having much of a good time.
Despite the popular lore, about the winter encampment in Valley Forge in 1777 -1778 being brutally cold, the winter was relatively mild. What killed most of the soldiers was disease, 2500 in all, and the deadliest month was May because of a flu outbreak (the harshest winter was Monmouth, New Jersey, two years later). In Valley Forge, the troops were destitute, hungry and thirsty beyond our imagination.
George Washington wrote, "Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery." That is carved on the Memorial Arch where we wound up yesterday. When a child, I had a telescope where I could see but not read this script on the Arch because it was too far away and my telescope set up in my neighbor's backyard was just not powerful enough.
Today, let us draw close and read these lines anew. In doing so, we honor the dead and those who sacrificed on our behalf.
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