I was selected to pass through the Army’s “Signal School” and be trained as a 31E20, a “field radio mechanic.” We in the business called ourselves “Tube Jockeys.” In my service time, wireless communication radios transitioned from vacuum tubes to circuit board radios.
“First Sargent” is more of a position than a rank. In a company of soldiers, the First Sargent is the lead enlisted person in the company. In the U.S. Army, there are two kinds of soldiers, commissioned and non-commissioned. The first is the officers, and the second is everyone else.
The position of “First Sargent” is held by the highest authority of noncommissioned officers enlisted in the company of army personnel. His or her job is to ensure that all the desires of the commanding officers are carried out.
At Fort Gordon, GA, where the Army’s Signal School endured me, we had a First Sargent who used to say, “There are three ways to do everything, the right way, the wrong way, and my way.” I have heard those words but never from someone who carried Armageddon in their right hand and the abomination of desolation in their left.
At one-afternoon mail call, he announced with army adjectives and pronouns, “If one or two of you don’t desert every week, I feel like I’m not doing my job.”
Only the emotional encounter with this Army hero remains in my brain. He may have had a family, but I couldn’t imagine how any lifeform could endure his “ways.” I heard he used barbed wire for dental floss. He must have shaved several times daily because his face was always shiny and flushed. Perhaps he intimidated his whiskers into not growing, to stay out of his way. I did the same.
After being under his leadership, reenlistment in the Army was never an option I considered.
I want to add that my First Sargent while in Alaska was, thankfully, nothing like him. Sargent Ashley was more of an athletic, caring father figure. However, he did stir a nano thought of reenlistment.
In Downton Abbi, there is a character who very much acts as a first Sargent, Mr. Charles Carson. He is the family’s butler and is in charge of the pantry, wine cellar, and dining room. In addition, all the male staff report to him. He is a strong-willed stern man with a heart that is sensitive to those under his watch. He started serving the family as a young man in the lowly position of a junior footman. He worked his way up to the top non-family position. But he never lost the idea of his place; he remained a servant. He was a giver of service, not a receiver of service.
It would be good to look at the word “Sargent.” It comes from an old Latin word that means “to perform duties for (a master) in the capacity of a slave.” We may be the master of our ships, but we are not captains of our fleet. We mistake our freedom of choice and opinion as masters of our destinies. Jesus and the Holy Spirit do not serve us; they care for us but are not present in this bungled world to assist us. We are here to aid them in doing the Father’s will. If they intervene in our suffering or needs, it is not for our pleasure or progress; it is to accomplish the Father’s will.
Every human will finally demonstrate the wonderous righteousness of Yahweh, His glory. That will happen in one of two ways. Either in complete submission to servitude in His Kingdom or by being consumed in the righteousness of His Being.
What I am about to say has been my perceived experience, my appraisal of working in a local church. But it may not be your experience. And, it just could be that mine is a flawed observation.
I believe that a significant part of the church today either has not been told clearly, or they have refused to accept their role as Kingdom servants. However, once this identity is accepted and respected, the whole of life looks different; joy and peace come to our days that can come in no other way.
Matthew 20:26-28
26 It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Philippians 2:5-11 CSV
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
6 who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.
7 Instead, he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man,
8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
9 For this reason, God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
11 and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Photo – A Tennessee front porch near Leiper’s Fork.
Baldwin Heirlooms 