Like you, I’ve spent years turning invisible as I walked past holiday Salvation Army kettles that you see outside stores. My understanding of what it is that the Salvation Army is or does is tenuous at best. I know they do a lot of work with people fighting addiction. I know that the American ballplayer Ted Williams’ mother neglected him for it and he had to raise himself.
And he had a beautiful swing, so that trumps everything, as they say.
But then a few years back I read a newspaper column about a bell ringer standing by a kettle. The columnist, a chatty sort, chatted the woman up. She told the reporter that she was ringing the bell by the kettle at Christmastime in honor of her father, who had done it for decades before he passed away. Was he a member of the Salvation Army? the columnist asked. Was he a lover of Christmas? No. He was a nice, elderly Jewish man, a leader in his temple. What was the connection? the columnist pressed.
The bell ringer’s father had served in the army in WWII. He put in some memorable months in a trench at the Battle of the Bulge, a grisly affair of snowy forest fighting right up against the also-entrenched German army in the coldest European winter in a hundred years. The Allies were ill-equipped and under-clothed. It was Hitler’s last important chess move, and if it succeeded, a new life would be breathed into the war. Several of the Allied army’s best and most courageous hit the wall at the Bulge, because the conditions were so relentless and dispiriting.
So? So, when they were rotated away from the front for a bit of sanity leave now and then, these young soldiers (who were fighting in appalling conditions for the actual survival of the free world) met the support organizations that still exist today, who had food, coffee, entertainment, and so on. The catch? They had to pay. THEY HAD TO PAY!
The bell ringer’s father found this galling. Here he was, getting shot at, freezing half to death, watching people die, killing people, and the USO was charging him for a cup of coffee. He couldn’t believe it. He walked away.
But then he walked into the Salvation Army canteen. The Salvation Army didn’t charge a penny for their hot coffee, and they had donuts too. They were the only ones who didn’t charge. He never stopped being grateful for their great good sense & generosity and, since I read that column, neither will I. I always put money in the kettle now.
Thank you, Salvation Army.
