Thanks to Sergeant O'Bryan

This morning, I met the parents of a young soldier who last month was killed in action. Sergeant Israel “Izzy” O’Bryan, of Newbern in Dyer County, also left behind a young widow and a one-year-old son.

 

As I talked with Sergeant O’Bryan’s parents, I thought about how he was barely older than Nancy’s and my twin sons, John and Rick. And he was close to the age I was when I also first went overseas. 

 

Years ago, I studied New Testament and ethics in Scotland. At the end of that year, another ministerial student and I joined my brother and traveled into Eastern Europe. In Czechoslovakia we met a university student whose English was better than our own.

 

After we got to know each other a bit, I asked the Czechoslovakian, “Was it better before 1968 or is it better now?”

 

Although he had understood my Tennessee twang until then, suddenly he did not seem to understand. I posed the question again in more detail:

 

“Was it better before 1968 when the Russians with their troops and tanks crushed the Dubcek government, or is it better now?”

 

Our friend again said he did not understand, but I noticed he kept glancing over his shoulder at two men leaning against a wall. The two were gazing at the sky, saying nothing.

           

Suddenly our friend got up and said he would walk us toward our campsite. Though we were not ready to go, we followed him. Two hundred yards away, he explained: “I could not talk there. They were listening.”

 

“Would you get in trouble,” I asked, “if you criticized your government or the Soviet Union?”

 

Our friend nodded. Though he lacked only a year to complete his academic program, he explained that for such an offense he could be expelled from the university. Forever. He also would be banned from holding many jobs, especially the good-paying ones.

 

I then went through a mental checklist of First Amendment freedoms. So much for freedom of speech.

 

What about freedom of assembly?

 

Our friend explained that he secretly met with a group of students who criticized the government and talked about changes that needed to be made. If the government knew of their meetings, harsh measures would have been taken. He said they did not even tell one another their names, for fear that anyone caught and pressured would reveal the others’ names.

 

I did not think it necessary to ask about the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

 

Freedom of the press?

 

My friend shook his head. Before the Russians came in 1968, the press was not so restricted. But now, he told us, the media prints and broadcasts what the government orders. And the government, unlike before, strictly follows the orders of the Soviet Union.

 

Freedom of religion?

 

Our friend said he knew a Christian. One. No, not someone at the university, since Christians were not allowed to attend universities. But he did know a Christian.

 

Later, we met a few of these rare people ourselves.

 

My hometown of Dresden, Tennessee is named after Dresden, Germany, so we visited my hometown’s namesake. In Dresden we discovered a prayer meeting of thirty college-age Christians who were students at a technical school. These young women and men said they were permitted to learn trade skills, but the government would not let them attend a university.

 

We asked, “Why not?” They replied, “Because we are Christians.”

 

Later I learned that others of deep faith, including Jews and Muslims, also found their opportunities limited, their faith a disqualifier in those Communist-ruled countries.

 

And yet, my Eastern European friends hoped and dreamed—and believed—that freedom for them might yet be possible.

 

Their hearts longed for freedom.

Their prayers cried for freedom.

Many died for freedom.

 

And like the walls at Jericho, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

 

Too many people in too many countries today still do not know the freedoms made possible by the Revolution we celebrate this July 4th.

 

And today, even in this country, governments, corporations and institutions grow larger and more powerful. Greater power and influence is concentrated in fewer hands. Technology, with its potential for violating our privacy and helping the few control the many, mutates in exponential leaps into more aspects of our lives. Threats of terrorism multiply with increasingly tragic consequences. With each of these changes, our freedoms are imperiled.

 

This July 4th, may we rededicate ourselves to the freedoms the early Americans sought.  The freedoms that so many Americans and other lovers of freedom have fought for and for which so many have suffered and died. Like Dyer County’s Sergeant O’Bryan.

 

God bless them, their loved ones, and all those who have suffered and sacrificed that we may enjoy this July 4^th and freedom. 

 

Your friend,

 

Roy