Veterans Day, 2010 This article was written by my brother, Mike Bennett, editor of the Legionnaire , Post and Unit 72 of the American Legion, New Albany, Mississippi. This is a poignant—even uncanny—story about yet another American war hero... very special to our family for several generations. October 12, 2010 No. LXVI MISSING NO MORE! My wife, Gloria, and I are genealogy buffs and thus far have amassed 5,876 names into our family history beginning before the American Revolution and all the way up to the present. There are many of our family members who served our country during the course of history. We listed one such name several years ago from the lineage of my grandmother, Vallie Georgia Clark Smith. Her sister, Lillie Roane Clark Hellums and her husband had nine children, one of which was a son named Judge Clayton Hellums, who is my second cousin.   On October 9, 1944, Clayton gave his life for his country while fighting the Germans in the Forest de Parroy, Lor

Isaac Payne rode with the last of his company to Appomattox on April 10 with no inkling of what to expect. He waited outside the perimeter. Enlisted men were not allowed to be present on the streets of the Courthouse area. Only commanding officers. Isaac was emaciated, just like all the other southern patriots who leaned hard against the white picket fence that surrounded the township. Tired, empty, and disheartened, they waited to know the end of the story. One man could scarcely be identified from the next. They all looked the same. Withered and wasted. Isaac dismounted and patted Glory. She was his only earthly possession besides his weapons. His only connection to home. He gripped the bridle and pressed his face to her thin neck, unconsciously rubbing his hand over her protruding bones. If he looked up in the distance he might see his father and brother riding the dusty road to Appomattox to join him, but how could that be? They were dead. The thought of their absence and

He loved how the sweet gums, tall and straight, caught the morning sun, painting the landscape crimson and yellow, the seed balls swinging festively on every twig,  and how the dew  glimmered on the first light, and the rays slashed across the porch of a morning.  Soon the green would vanish except for the cedars and the pines and the magnolias. That was not unsettling to Isaac, for it would then be possible for him to see through the canebrake to the creek beyond. The blue skies over Slate Springs would stay the same and the dew would continue to glisten like gold and silver on the dried leaves and pine needles. And if winter allowed an inch of snow to fall, his world would sparkle like slithers of diamonds. Every season had its splendid advantage and from front porch or back or from the myriad panes on every side or even from the dogtrot he would sit and bask in the blessings of each, calling them by name—winter, spring, summer and best of all—autumn. From Isaac's House Jane B.

Isaac slalomed through the bustling crowd. He pulled his scarf tight around his neck and adjusted his hat. It was cold, the wind blowing off the Mississippi River chilling him to the bone. He passed boutique shops with ladies' clothing displayed in the windows in fine fashion, cafes filled to overflowing, the aroma of hot coffee and pastries lingering on the cold air. And butcher shops with Christmas turkeys and chickens and ducks and an occasional goose, clean-plucked and hanging naked in the windows. Isaac couldn't help but laugh. When his mother wanted chickens for supper, he just went to the barnyard and called two or three up with a handful of corn and wrung their necks on the spot. If it was turkey she wanted, Jonathan could always bring one in from the woods, shot through with his squirrel rifle, never disturbing the meat.

--> T oday, July 13, 2010, my brother  received the Malcolm Hickey Award  for Lifetime Achievement in the  American Legion. My sister, Grace, arranged for all the local family  to surprise him at the presentation. Some of us were too far away to attend.  I wrote him this letter. _____________________________________________ Dear Mike, You have been our hero for so many years,  in both war and peace. You not only served our  country well, but you have continued serving  the veterans as a constant reminder to all of us  that freedom is not free. It costs somebody  something whether it is a mother her son,  a father his sanity as he waits by the television  or radio to hear word from the battlefield.  Distorted or not, it’s something to cling to.   A maybe. A perhaps. Or that daily trek to  the paper box to see for himself a bit of a map  so he can say, “Here, right here! His last letter  said he was on this road!”—always grateful for t

A thousand images of Daddy raced through my mind. He was a giant of a man. A prince, loving, caring. A hard worker, but never a slave to anything or anyone but the Lord and his family.  He had no enemies. His presence filled a room. His laughter was contagious. His compassion, unsurpassed. The sting of death did not touch him, though it left us aching inside. Without Ray, I would have crashed. He was holding me, praying for me. I watched my mother by the casket. She and my father had always been inseparable. Married over sixty years. She sat there smiling as hundreds of people filed through to pay their respects. Ray assisted with the funeral, and I played my mother's favorite song, Great is Thy Faithfulness . The service was a celebration of my father's life, and all his children took part. Great peace fell over me as I experienced the grace I had asked of the Lord two years before when I knew my father would soon be going home. That evening after Dad's funeral,

I was just thinking… If we say that salvation is progressive— I loathe the word progressive these days—and that there is not that moment when we are set free from the law of sin and death, then we obviously are still under the law, trying by our own feeble efforts to save ourselves. How debilitating. Besides, that’s not going to happen. We don’t have what it takes. Or maybe we’re waiting for God to perform some random act of kindness toward us that will take us out of the misery of not knowing whether we’re saved or not, because it is a progressive thing, and if it is a progressive thing, then whenever will God do whatever it is He wants to do to make  it happen? See how outrageous it sounds? There is an answer, you know. Romans 8:2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life In Christ Jesus hath made me FREE from the law of sin and death.” We never had to work for it in the first place. The freedom Christ gives is—let’s see— FREE ! Paid for in pr

Why must we always be speaking? Speaking nothing of importance. Lips moving at all times. The act of aloneness with God escapes us. We seem not to need solitude in which to allow Him to sift through our thoughts and bring us to sensibilities. I think sometimes the noise and cares of life overpower, literally shut down, our desire to think things through. It's called the way of least resistance. Simply because we think our lips must be flapping at all times. What we have to say, in our humble opinion, is far better than what He would like to say to us. Those inspired pithy sayings that King Solomon compiled into the book called Proverbs are for our benefit. I love this one: Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace,  is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips  is esteemed a man of understanding (17:28). Isn't that priceless? Such words of wisdom from— let's see, the wisest man who ever lived. My husband (of fifty-two years) and I talk incessantl

My secret place— not really a secret. It's where I long to be. When the world around me moves too fast, to this place I often flee. Or when I deny myself access to a throne of His grace simply by virtue of my neglect I return—I hasten to the place where mercy drops 'round me fall. Just me—myself. But there—well, I'm never alone. I have set the Lord always before me: Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved (Psalm 16:8). Fascinating. And He's there in this trysting place. Neither will he move, for he has already said he would never leave nor forsake me . Psalm 39:4-5; 7; 13 Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Thou hast made my days as a handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence,