07Jun16

John 14:1-2
"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?"

72 years ago today, on the fateful morning of the D-Day invasion, Chaplain (LTC) George Russell Barber, went over the side of his ship on a rope ladder into a flat-bottomed landing craft that held 30 soldiers.

"When we hit the shore they let down the ramp I stood in front and led my men off," Chaplain Barber recalled. "They were shooting at us all around."

To the right, Barber witnessed a horrible sight. "Just before we landed I saw a landing ship hit a mine," he said. "It blew up and killed all 30 men. They were floating in the water and on the beach."

Without hesitation, Barber rushed to the sides of the wounded. "I talked to as many as I could and prayed with them. I said, 'Trust in God.'" As men died in his arms he recited John 14: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions..."

If they survived the barrage of hostile fire, the next challenge for Barber and his men was to climb over steep cliffs just beyond the shore. "I couldn't get over the 100 foot cliff so I had to dig my own foxhole that night on the beach," he noted. "I prayed as if everything depended on the Lord, and I dug as if everything depended on me."
"The Lord and me got that foxhole pretty deep."