In his role as Co-ordinator of Latter-day Saint Men in the Services, Hugh B. Brown addressed LDS servicemen of all nations regarding their personal lives. In this piece, he addressed young women in war-time on their duties and privileges and futures.
To the Girls Behind the Men Behind the Guns
In times of war, life’s smelting process is accelerated by the concentrated – heat to which all are subjected in varying degrees of intensity. In this fire much dross is consumed, but there are refined such precious metals as courage, constancy, fidelity, loyalty, valor, and heroism. We appreciate these virtues when they appear on the battlefield, where the individual is supported by the group, “with soldiers to shout and praise,” but when they emerge under less conspicuous circumstances, without the heat of battle or the bellows of music or cheers or clangor of war, then they are nuggets indeed.
Some young women feel that their part in the program is so insignificant as to leave little opportunity to develop these Qualities which we applaud in our fighting men. They, too, wish to serve, to help, to do more than merely cheer on the sidelines. They do not agree that ” men must fight and women must weep.”
In this world conflict the front lines are often “behind the lines.” Civilians are playing a larger part than in any war in history. It is a war against the individual, where truth and error are locked in conflict, right opposed to wrong, good opposed to evil, Christ opposed to anti-Christ. The first and most important duty of every soldier is to choose whom he will serve. You, young women, also must decide which side you are on, and then you will have ample opportunity to prove your quality.
In spite of, or because of, our highly mechanized methods of warfare, manpower is the chief factor in determining the strength of an army. The total manpower of an army is the sum of the strength of the individuals. The fighting strength of a soldier is not a matter of physical fitness alone. Now, as never before, do stamina, morale, and character count in the struggle. Despite all our scientific progress and our modern methods, there is more opportunity for individual initiative and skill than ever before With the coming of tanks and airplanes we turn again to the kind of fighting where man meets man in terms of quick decisions, co-ordination, and split-second timing.
Anything, then. which will sustain and strengthen the individual service man will aid the cause of the United Nations. Any act or influence which lowers his morale or impairs his physical fitness is an act of sabotage. You can make your greatest contribution by making sure that every service. man you contact is strengthened by your influence, made better by your presence, that when he leaves you he will respect you and retain his own self-respect, which is indispensable to high morale.
These Latter-day Saint men with whom you associate have high ideals, great hopes and ambitions, limitless possibilities, all predicated upon the observance of certain rules of conduct. Anyone who encourages one of them to forsake his ideals and yield to the temptations so prevalent in all armies, thereby weakens his armor, makes him vulnerable to the enemy, contributes to the downfall of one of our fighting men.
Remember, the days of chivalry are not over. Men still go into the joust with their “ladies’ colors fastened to their lances,” and they do their best to live up to what those ladies expect of them. These men want to feel as they go out to fight that there is something in the world that has not gone to pieces. Their thoughts of home, family, and the verities of life include you, the girl friend, the fiancee. They want to believe that there is still something sweet and clean and pure in the world. To them you symbolize an ideal.
Imagine, then, the awful letdown if you have become a victim of the fiendish folly that passions and appetites must be ministered to, and that you are guilty of whimpering ” We can’t say ‘ no’ to a soldier.” He may put you to the test, but all the time he prays you will prove true. If he is weak, he will thank God that you are strong.
These men, finding themselves in a new and strange environment, surrounded by influences which challenge their concepts of right and wrong, may sometimes waver in their determination to come out clean. Some of their companions make light of what they have always held sacred. In cities, towns, and villages alcoholic beverages are available to them, and certain of your sex who dishonor the name of woman prey on their loneliness. These and many other temptations they must meet and conquer, but imagine how their world will fall apart if, when on leave, they find that you too are yielding to the down-drag of these devil-dominated days.
You also, perhaps with less vehemence, are engaged in the conflict, battling against the animal appetites that ” claw at the soul.” You too must struggle against the suction of war’s whirlpool and not strike your colors and surrender to the enemy, for to surrender is to ” rob existence of its value and personality of its sanctity.” You must win this battle with yourself if you would be ready for the great opportunity to strike a blow at the enemy when you are with a man in uniform. You can restore his faith in himself and in his ideals and send him back a better soldier, or you can take away the last remaining prop which sustains his character and send him back the most pitiful of casualties, one wounded by his friends, betrayed by those he loves.
When they visit you while on leave, you must be strong and give the^m of your strength. Renew their faith in the right by your own unwavering loyalty. Raise high the standards which perhaps they have allowed to droop.
Send them back recharged with faith and hope and courage and self-esteem, knowing there is something fine to fight for, to live for, to come home to. Send them back stronger men for their contact with you. Every man you touch must be better for that touch, or you should be in quarantine as an enemy of the state.
Someone spoke an eternal truth when he said, “Honest love is the most powerful influence for good that can enter into a man’s life; so love’s counterfeit is the most disintegrating.”
We must remember that this war, too, will pass, will end, and there will be a return to such normalcy as is possible. Then life must be lived and must endure the acid test of reality. Uniforms with their fading glamour will go into the discard, the boys will be civilians again. You and they must take up the business of living in a world which will seem to be out of focus. Your world and theirs will endure the ordeal if you and they refuse to surrender to mediocrity. Bombed cities may be, rebuilt, devastated areas may be reclaimed, bodily scars of honorable battle may be healed, but the stains of ruined character are the most lasting of the terrors of war.
We who remember the aftermath of the last war have not forgotten the wreckage and devastation everywhere to be seen – colossal waste on every hand, and yet in the intervening years we were able to repair, rebuild, and reclaim much of that loss – but time has not effaced the havoc of wrecked homes and disillusioned lives where Satan had convinced some that love could spring from the ashes of lust. Here the armistice did not stop the process of disintegration.
You must say “no” to a soldier if he proposes anything which will help the enemy. You would say “no” and stop him with your life if he should propose an act of treason, and treason is giving help and comfort to the enemy. What, then, if he proposes that you join him in an act which un-mans him? If you yield, have you not been untrue to your country, to your womanhood, and to him? Have you not thereby helped the enemy? If in his delirium he calls for that which is harmful, you must have the courage and the good sense to deny him, even as a nurse would refuse a harmful drug to her patient in the hospital. What would you think of a nurse who, instead of courageously doing her duty, and saving her weakened patient from his folly, should add contagion to his wounds and then whimper, “I thought he wanted me to, and I tried to make him happy.” Do you know what the soldiers call those foolish girls who give themselves under the false banner of patriotism? They are known as ” patriotic prostitutes.”
We want our men to come out of this war with faith in God and in themselves, faith in the good way of life and a determination to preserve and improve it, faith in the future and courage to face it. Yours is the opportunity to hold up to them the hope and assurance that when this is over there will still be much to live for, provided they themselves are true to their ideals.
Will you young women help to stem this avalanche which threatens to engulf the future homes of our country and wreck and destroy the pillars of our society? The old cry of Cain, the murderer, “I am not my brother’s keeper” cannot apply to you who are the keeper of some other girl’s brother. That other girl may be with your brother now. What would you have her do for him? Then apply the golden rule.
You girls behind the men behind the guns form a line of defense which must not weaken. While I that line holds, the front lines will remain impregnable. There must be no compromise, no going over to the enemy, no lowering of standards – no traitors in this line. This is not a line to be defended with ships and tanks and guns and airplanes; it will not be assaulted by troops with fixed bayonets; but it is a line constantly under fire, being attacked from all directions, a line where it is sometimes difficult to tell friend from foe. From these lines there must come reserves for the front – not armed recruits, but the very essence of the fighting man’s strength, namely, courage and faith and that “ten-fold strength “of the pure in heart.
There must come up from these lines an atmosphere of home, of love, of fidelity and purity, an atmosphere free from contamination, free from nicotine and alcohol and lust.
From this line there will come an unseen companion to march at his side, ride with him in his tank or plane, be with him on his battleship. The memory of that last sweet time together will give him strength and fortitude and renew his faith in God.
Yes, girls, you are called to serve, and when the war is over the heroines will be as numerous and entitled to as great credit as the heroes of the war. Your medal of honor may not be pinned on a uniform, but it will be the highest honor won on life’s battlefield – a clean, courageous heart. God Himself will reward your valor.