15 April 2007

NEEL MEMORIAL--14 APR 2007

FAITHFUL KNIGHT of GOD
MEMORIAL MESSAGE
for
1LT PHILLIP ISAAC NEEL

14APR07


SCRIPTURE
Psalm 121 (NASB)
The Lord the Keeper of Israel.
A Song of Ascents.

1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
8 The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.


INTRODUCTION
Why Does This Happen to the Good Guys?

Easter morning. The birds greeted the sunrise like they always do: with praise and thanksgiving at the arrival of another dawn. But somehow, despite the light that crept over the horizon, our hearts did not feel like rejoicing.

How do we begin to face with hope a sunrise that seems to linger but cannot light the darkness that took a fellow soldier, a friend, a brother, and a son? How does one grasp hope on a morning that seems unreal, waiting for a platoon to arrive in from a mission that does not know the terrible news that awaits it?

The answer is that I could not, nor could anyone speak a word of comfort to that broken-hearted band of brothers. It was a difficult time, a time of disbelief that he was gone, a time of self-examination, a time of denial as we waited for the LT to show up at a rehearsal, in the A Company CP, or in chapel. As we tried to understand 1LT Neel’s death, we would always come back to the question, "Why does it seem that the good guys are the first ones to fall?"

And 1LT Phillip Neel was a good guy. During a conversation we had before he went on leave, Phillip wept for his soldiers and some of the struggles they had faced. When he went to visit his squad at the CASH after they had been hit by an IED, SGT Matschke remembered 1LT Neel standing in the background, tears running down his cheeks, blaming himself for what had happened. Everything about soldiering and being with his soldiers for 1LT Neel was personal. It was personal because he genuinely cared for the well-being of those around him, no matter what the platoon, company, or unit.



OUR FIRST REACTION
Vengeance, Anger, Hate

Now it is natural, when we cannot find the answer to why this happened, to begin to take our anger and our pain out on the enemy. As soldiers, we are supposed to be lethal to those who do evil, but we must be careful not to let our thirst for vengeance allow us to become just as evil. One of 2nd Platoon’s soldiers remarked that one of the things he admired about 1LT Neel was his ability to show restraint, to talk some sense into those around him, and to de-escalate the emotions that only those on the battlefield can understand. He would not want us to be weak, militarily or morally.

1LT Neel had faith in two things: God and you, his fellow soldiers. This is what grounded him and gave him the strength to form the ethical foundation for all of us. The last thing 1LT Neel would have wanted was for his death to sow a crop of cynicism and bitterness. The last thing he would have wanted would be for us to lose faith in God or in one another. Any darkness of Spirit resulting from his death would render his sacrifice in vain.

Why, we could ask, why would this be so?

If we worship the gods of anger and vengeance, we can seek to take our pain out on the enemy, hoping that enough death and destruction will take away the memory of a lost friend. But it cannot, and we risk losing our own souls to the quenchless thirst of the beast that soon changes from righteousness to bitterness, that changes from the focused professionalism of soldiering to the mindless rage of the vigilante. Or we could stop caring about others, especially each other, protecting ourselves from having to endure further suffering because of wounds and death, but soon we could become numb to everything about which we should care, slowly and gradually becoming ghost-men, with haunted eyes that no longer see with compassion the humanity of another. These are two routes, two courses of action that may temporarily treat our suffering and our pain but will eventually kill us by exterminating all that is good about who God created us to be. The third way is this: 1LT Neel’s way. It does not mean backing down from evil, but instead overcoming evil with good.



HIS RESPONSE
Compassion, Faith, and Love

We heard in the Psalm that God will protect us from all evil, that He will keep our soul. As those who grieve, it is understandable that we ask God why, why would You let this happen. But perhaps we should ask God how could someone like Phillip have been so good? Instead of asking why, maybe we should be asking what we can learn from the witness of his life?

We can see the answers to these questions on the faces of those in this room, in the relationships he had with all of us. SFC Rice and 1LT Neel were the odd couple. Who would have put these two men with such different personalities together? Yet when I asked Phillip who he had to talk to, to confide in, the first person he mentioned was SFC Rice. To those in his platoon I ask this, "Have you ever known a kinder man, a gentler man, who, although he was still a warrior, listened with his heart and always seemed to give the correct words of comfort or advice? Did being around 1LT Neel make you want to be a better person? Did following his example make you a better man?"

As we continue to struggle with the question of why, allow me to suggest that we should also be giving a word of thanks to God, not for what happened, but for sharing with us the gift that was the life of 1LT Neel, by showing us what unconditional love, otherwise known as grace, looks like.



WHO ARE THE GOOD GUYS?

We live in a world saturated by empty promises and shallow dreams. We have so cheapened our words--words like duty, honor, country--that many people no longer know what they mean. As one who knew Phillip personally and as a friend, I know the shortcomings of anything that I could possibly say to assuage your grief. So allow me to suggest this instead. Let us take one concluding look at 1LT Phillip Neel’s life:


  • While on leave, he continued to pray for his soldiers every day.
  • He never spoke a word about himself or his many accomplishments. He only spoke about you.
  • He was just and fair and honest in all his dealings with other men.
  • He was a man of faith, who proclaimed what he believed not with words of judgment or condemnation but with acts of compassion and love.
  • And finally, how would he have answered the question, "Why does it seem that the good guys are the ones to fall? Why is faithfulness worth it?"
    He never asked whether his soldiers were good guys, were squared away, or were always perfect. He loved you, he was faithful to you, he led you, and he served you.

Like a good leader, he was technically and tactically proficient, but great leaders must be more than that. The great ones serve by placing the ones whom God has entrusted in their care—first. A Company, as infantrymen, you can sometimes be a little rough around the edges, but do not ever question whether you are the good guys. To 1LT Neel, you are all good. You are worth his tears, worth his sacrifice, and ultimately worth his life. And let us dare not leave here today thinking that God’s love for Philip is any more or less than God's love for you. For to do so would, in the LT’s heart, render all that he lived and died for, all that he sacrificed, in vain.



A KNIGHT of GOD

Let us close with one final image of 1LT Phillip Isaac Neel. In the legends surrounding King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, only one knight was good enough to achieve the ultimate goal of finding that sacred artifact: the Holy Grail. To go after this elusive prize without a pure heart would ensure one’s death. The only knight deemed worthy to find and hold the grail was Sir Galahad.

Today, instead of riding into battle clad in steel armor and on great steeds, we ride iron horses called Bradley or Abrams wearing OTVs and Kevlar helmets. Technology has improved what carries us into battle and protects our bodies, but the hearts of men--your hearts of courage, strength, and goodness--have not changed. Like knights of old, we still fight evil on the side of good, and we still have need for men of purity and goodness to show us what we should be, what we can be, what we shall be. 1LT Neel was just such a person. Let us listen to the final words of the poem Sir Galahad by Alfred, Lord Tennyson as we reflect on the witness of a fellow soldier, friend, and brother-in-arms.

Sir Galahad
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
A maiden knight—to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.
I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,
Whose odors haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armor that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls
A rolling organ-harmony
Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
"O just and faithful knight of God!
Ride on! the prize is near."

1LT Philip Neel, O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on! Ride on to your prize, and as the waters of that River Jordan part before your treading step, look up unto to the hills and see, pure love waiting to embrace you there. Hallelujah, Amen.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I indirectly knew the Lieutenant, and although I never took the time to get to know him better, the general air I felt when I was around him was strength, knowledge, and sense of unnatural humanity and God-liness about him. He was a blessing to those who knew him, he was a faithful servant to his God and a wonderful soldier to his country.

God Bless Lieutenant Neel for his sacrifice, and may God comfort his family for their loss.