Each day another battle Lord,
I have won so few,
Yet every time I'm by your side,
The battle goes to you.
At times I try to fight by myself,
And begin to lose some ground,
Yet every time I call on You,
You cut my enemies down.
At times I'll try my own weapons,
Only to see my defeat.
Then I'll draw your two edged sword,
and the enemy must retreat.
At times it seems so hopeless Lord,
I've seen dear loved ones fall,
Yet there is always victory
While I obey your Spirit's call.
The battle's nearly over now,
I see the signs each day,
Some have forgotten where victory lies,
O' Lord, open their eyes I pray.
When this battle is over,
A victor's crown will be.
I truly don't deserve it Lord,
I cast my crown to thee.
That is beautiful and so true
ReplyDeleteDexheim had some strategic value to the Romans who set up a watch tower on the hills to overlook the Rhine river which is about 3 miles away. Any attack from the river or surrounding Germanic tribes could easily be spotted in time to be repelled.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end of WWII General Patton saw this as a strategic area and set-up pontoon bridges across the Rhine in between the villages of Oppenheim and Neirstein not to replace bridges that may have been destroyed, but to provide a tactical means of retreat. As part of his tactical retreat plan a Nike surface to surface missile base was built and maintained there from the 1950'5 up until 2008.
No battle had been fought there although there were signs of war all around. Members of the 555th anti-aircraft brigade had come through and set-up for about Two weeks, but the war was just about over then. Occasionally someone would think they heard a plane coming in and all batteries would shoot blindly into the sky, but there was nothing there. On one of the last days there a lone Messerschmidt did come in flying fast and low on recon flight, but there were not troops he could have called in and no one to report to.
Dexheim was nearly abandoned; all boys and men between the ages of 10 and 50 were drafted into the Army and sent to the Eastern front; most didn't return. Naturally the Americans met no resistance there from the near starving women, small children, and a few old men.
I'm sure many on both sides struggled with their conscience and with God
during those tumultuous times. It's quite possible that John stood at the very spot of US armed forces or the remnants of the Roman garrison. John's poetic tome is an historic harbinger to his future and a connection to the past.
In His Service,
Tom