When word began to spread that the army was seeking recruits with skills in the areas of drawing, painting, stage craft, theatrical lighting, sound production, and the like, several people were interested. It was the height of World War II. Many who wanted to serve had been rejected on various grounds, usually for failing the entrance physical. Upon discovering they might be allowed to serve in a newly created unit, while doing the very things they were already skilled at, sounded almost too good to be true.
And maybe it was.
Admission was strictly at the option of the Army. Applicants had to write a letter explaining why they wanted to serve in the unit. Once admitted, they could tell no one what they were assigned to do ... and that injunction lasted for over forty years after the war (some parts are still top secret).
But that’s only the beginning of the strangeness. Several people, already serving in combat roles, received mysterious visitors who told them they were being reassigned to this new unit, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. To the consternation of these soldiers and their immediate supervisors, these visitors refused to answer any questions about their new duties.
Eventually, over 1,100 able-bodied soldiers, people who were otherwise capable of combat roles, were transferred into the 23rd, a non-combat unit.
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"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
Sun Tzu
The Art of War
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During the last year and a half of that war, the 23rd had one of the strangest jobs in the military: they had to pretend to be an army. Their job was to bring to life Sun Tzu's precept on deception.
They became a Ghost Army.
Using sound trucks with loud-speakers, fictional radio scripts, and deceptive visuals (like inflatable rubber tanks & jeeps), these men delivered a false understanding to the enemy. At times, command needed the enemy to believe invasion forces were massing a hundred miles south of the actual location: the 23rd took care of that. At other times, command needed the enemy to think the army was closer than it actually was. The 23rd took care of that.
By playing specially made recordings, at night over loud speakers, the enemy could "hear" entire battalions entering an area, the sounds of pontoon bridge construction along with cursing sergeants, even the sounds of tanks clanking over those bridges: all of it nothing more than sound. Using scripts, the men would engage in radio chatter, exactly like that used by actual combat units, to mislead the enemy into thinking deployments were moving in one direction, toward one objective, when something completely different was being executed elsewhere.
The enemy was listening ... and acting on what they heard. But the pinnacle was what they did with fake vehicles. Rubber tanks, weighing less than 100 pounds when inflated, and could easily be moved about by four men. Tanks, jeeps, gun emplacements, and "motor pools" were just a few of the magicks in their bag of tricks. They were incredibly successful.
Our enemy uses deception on us, too.
The enemy sometimes makes us believe God is further away than He actually is. Our enemy wants us to believe: “God cannot possibly love me!” And he employs deception to convince us of it. He "shows" us the big guns pointed at us and makes us worry about the impact such things will have on our lives. It is all designed to look and sound like assaults we cannot survive, to distract us from our true ally, God, and to defeat us by any means.
In this week's Lectionary selection from Psalm 51, there are many negatives. Satan would be very pleased if we became dispirited by such things as being sinners, God's judgment, and us having done evil. Instead, we need to recall that Satan wages a war for our souls, that he wishes to mislead us and distract us from truth, and specifically this truth: even then, even under the Law, the Psalmist knew that God possessed steadfast love, could have mercy, could forgive, and could "blot out my transgressions."
In a system where the Law taught that the nation’s sins could only be rolled forward each year (and never completely eliminated), the idea that sins could be "blotted out" was radical.
The Psalmist uses his sin to emphasize God's boundless love. The Psalmist somehow knows that, should God choose to do so, He could actually create a clean heart in a living human, place a new and right spirit within that person, actually restore a person to the joy of salvation.
It has, of course, always been true: God can forgive our sins.
God can make us new and whole, can completely ignore what we've done. And then on top of that, continually energize our newly installed spirit, teaching us wisdom in our most secret inner being, so we grow to be willing to continue in a state of grace-filled forgiveness.
Oh, Satan would never want us to know that ... and he will use his ghost army to try to keep us from remembering that God is greater than our failings, draws near to us when we seek Him, and loves us more than we can even love ourselves.
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A somewhat different version of this reflection appeared during Lent 2015
GHOST ARMY PHOTO and story: http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/14/the-ghost-army-of-wwii-that-duped-hitler/
MORE ABOUT THE GHOST ARMY (a PBS Special, a book, and a possible movie): http://www.ghostarmy.org/
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fifth Sunday in Lent (March 18, 2018)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-12 or Psalm 119:9-16
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33
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Join us if you can on Friday morning for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We always start at 8:00-ish, sharp. And we wind things up right on the dot of 9:00-ish. Come for the food, the prayer, the scriptures, and the provocative discussions that flow. But stay for the laughter.
Blessings,
Steve
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