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Supporting our troops coming home from war

By Rev Chris Shreeve, Superintendent Methodist Minister of the East Norfolk Methodist Circuit, serving 21 churches in the area.

Men and women serving with our local Royal Anglican Regiment recently returned from harsh battle conditions in Alfghanistan.  Some come home injured and maimed.  Some did not return.  These casualties demand we face the full cost of violence in our world.  These young men and women have been in a foreign country doing everything they can to lower the amount of violence in the world.

It is to our beneift.  What began as reconstruction has degraded into a fire fight between good and evil.  It's sad  that the religion their opponents claim makes the same call as do all the major world religions - to resit evil.

The problem is that this is much easier said than done.  No sane person would allow a threat to the elderly or the childeren in their family.

Nations will neither disband their armed forces nor sell their weapons and rely solely on diplomacy or on its ability to buy off its enemies with food, medicine, and technology.  Any civilised society wants to stop evil however it is seen - substance abuse, knife or gun crime, domestic violence and terrorism.  Combating evil demands risk, and risk demands courage.

In the middle of the debates are our forces - these days all volunteers.  They go on our behalf.  We expect them to protect us.  Surely it is essential that they go with our support - and continue to have it when they return.  Notabley, we should be willing to support them and those close to them as they learn to live with the results of their experiences.

Consider the unfathomable amounts of money we are spending now in a war on terror.  Surely part of that cost must be in caring for thoose who need our help afterwards?  Join with groups and congregations across the country this weekend and remember those who have gone and not returned, along with those who have returned needing help. 

Support with your money, too - and be greateful for each one who has given of themselves for us to live lives where evil is opposed in all its forms.  That's all I want.  What about you?