What a delight it is to be with you today on this beautiful campus in this idyllic setting! I have been reflecting that it is now more than 47 years since my bride Pat and I first set foot on this campus. Forty-seven years—nearly a half-century! To you students, I must seem like the proverbial “Ancient of Days,” and perhaps I am. But in my mind’s eye, as I look upon this familiar setting and smell again the fragrance of island flowers, it seems but yesterday.
We were newlyweds. Our marriage covenants, solemnized in the Los Angeles Temple, were not a year and a half old. But we came here neither as honeymooners nor as students. I was an Army officer—a lieutenant of infantry. Having only just completed the Army’s Ranger course, I was assigned as a rifle platoon leader in an infantry battalion of the 25th Infantry Division, stationed at Schofield Barracks. We had rented a small duplex apartment on the beach, literally, on the beach, at Waialua.
In those days, there were only four stakes on the island. Our stake was the Oahu Stake, which included all of northern Oahu, and the stake center was just across the street from where we are seated today. The Polynesian Cultural Center was scarcely two years old and decidedly smaller and less imposing in its presentation and stature than it is today. Laie itself was a sleepy community tucked away here on the northeast shore of Oahu and seemed to be in a time warp—light years from the distant “big city” of Honolulu. And the university? Well, there was no “university,” as such. It was a mere “college”—the Church College of Hawaii, as it was then known.
To us, arriving early on a Sunday morning in the Honolulu harbor by ocean liner, courtesy of the U.S. Government, it seemed as though we had arrived in paradise! The balmy, fragrant trade winds, the gently waving palm trees, the glistening ocean and white, sandy beaches, and the languid pace of island life made us feel as if we truly had “died and gone to heaven.” Even Schofield Barracks, where my battalion was based, was picturesque with its broad green parade grounds, palm trees and flowers and stuccoed and tiled quadrangles. It seemed to be a movie set straight out of the film From Here to Eternity, which, of course, it was! Then, finding that North Shore duplex with a sliding glass door that opened out onto the beach made our idyll complete. We anticipated a three-year tour of duty in the Garden of Eden amidst the sun, sand, surf and blue sky.
How wrong we were. My anticipated “three years in Eden” turned out to be much shorter, a charming prelude to a tour of duty in the Inferno. Our battalion shipped out to Vietnam six months after our arrival and my sweetheart was left here by herself. Our dream was shattered, our future fraught with uncertainty. Ten months after that departure I was returned here to Tripler Army Hospital for surgery and convalescence for wounds received in combat. What had begun as a tour of duty in “paradise” became one of the most trying seasons of our lives.
But if it was trying, it was also defining. As I wander my hall of memories today, and when I think of the dark shadows through which we passed in that challenging season of our lives, it is not the beach and the palm trees that come first to mind. It is not the “picture postcard” Hawaii that we thought we would experience when we stepped off the ship a near half-century ago.
Rather, it is the Koolau Mountains, those rugged, volcanic green peaks that run down the spine of Oahu and that are situated a stone’s throw behind this campus, that come to mind. Those steep ridgelines were to become for me a training ground that has profoundly influenced my entire life. It is an experience in the Koolaus that captures the message I wish to leave with you. I have entitled this address, The Parable of the Foxholes.
In October of that year, 1965, just a few months after our arrival, our battalion received a new commander, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas U. Greer– “Tug” Greer, as his peers called him. Tug Greer was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1951. In 1951, the Korean War was raging. Most of the West Point class that year was assigned immediately to the combat zone. Many of Tug Greer’s classmates died on the rugged slopes of that land. But Tug had survived and remained in the Army. And now, 14 years later, he was assigned to command our battalion.
No sooner did he assume command, than Col. Greer took the battalion on a week-long training exercise in the Kahuku Training Area at the northern end of the Koolau Mountains. The Army still maintains a training area there. As many of you know, the Koolaus are made up of steep slopes of volcanic rock with little topsoil and covered with thick, green vegetation. For five days, we struggled up and down those slopes in one infantry maneuver after another. Finally, it was Saturday morning, the last day of the exercise. All of us looked forward to returning early to our battalion headquarters, turning in our equipment and hitting the beach. After all, we were young, and what was the point of being stationed here in Hawaii if you could not go to the beach! You know what I mean! I remember gazing down early that morning from my perch on the side of one of those steep ridgelines at the shimmering sand and sparkling ocean. Below me I could see green pasture land with cows peacefully grazing. Beyond the pasture ran the black ribbon of Kam Highway that circles the island. And beyond the highway lay the white sands of the beach and the ocean gleaming like a sapphire. I could hardly wait!
About that time, my reverie was interrupted as Col. Greer came to our rifle company’s position. To our company commander, Captain Jim Andrus, he said, “As the last exercise of this training, I would like Charlie Company, that was us– “C” Company, to establish defensive positions.” Now, among other things, establishing defensive positions meant digging foxholes. You know what a foxhole is. It is a hole in the ground where a soldier can seek shelter from enemy fire. But this was volcanic rock! And we were only equipped with those little folding shovels which the Army calls “entrenching tools.” So, as Capt. Andrus gathered us platoon leaders around to give us the orders for establishing defensive positions, he said, “Since we want to get this over with quickly, we won’t actually dig foxholes. Instead, we will simply do ‘simulated foxholes’– we will just mark out on the ground where we would put the foxholes.”
So, that is what we did. A little while later, Col. Greer came around to inspect our “defensive positions.” I remember it like it was yesterday! As he came to the first of these “simulated foxholes,” he asked Capt. Andrus, “What are those?” Clearing his throat a little nervously, Capt. Andrus responded, “Well, sir, those are simulated foxholes.” “ Simulated foxholes!!” roared Col. Greer, and then he said a few other things. “I ordered this company to prepare defensive positions, and that means digging foxholes! This company is going to stay out here and dig until it learns how to dig foxholes that look like they came out of the training manual!” And so, as the rest of the battalion packed up weapons and equipment and headed back to the base and an afternoon at the beach, Charlie Company remained out on that hillside. And we dug, and we dug, and we dug. Col. Greer’s name was on everyone’s lips that afternoon, and I can tell you that he was not winning any popularity contests that day! I seem to recall that there was even some speculation on his genealogy! But by evening, we had foxholes that really looked just like they came out of the training manual.
However, you see, there was something that we did not know that beautiful Hawaiian Saturday. When Col. Greer had been given his orders assigning him as our battalion commander, he had also received some other orders that he could not share with us– top secret orders, orders sending our battalion to Vietnam. We did not know it at the time, but this would be our last training exercise. And Col. Tug Greer, with his vivid memories of his fallen classmates on the rugged hillsides of Korea was determined to do all that he could to preserve the lives of those men entrusted to his care. That training exercise up into the rugged Koolaus was the moment, the final moment, for polishing those combat skills that could save our lives—even including something as pedestrian as digging a proper foxhole. Vietnam would be too late.
A few weeks later the battalion deployed to Vietnam. Upon arrival, it reached the spot in the division’s defensive perimeter assigned to us late in an afternoon. Col. Greer’s order again went out: “Establish defensive positions.” Our men dug in because that is what you did in Tug Greer’s battalion. Another battalion next to ours, arriving at the same time, only scooped out some shallow cavities in the ground, not unlike our Hawaiian “simulated foxholes,” planning to dig real foxholes the next day. But that night, the Viet Cong enemy launched a ferocious mortar barrage into the green troops. Our men were safe and secure in their foxholes, but the men of that neighboring battalion were not so fortunate. The next morning Tug Greer’s name was again on everyone’s lips—but this time with reverence and respect. I still regard him as one of the great men I have known. From him I learned one of life’s most powerful lessons: There is indeed a “time for every purpose under heaven”—even a time to learn to dig a foxhole. Thus, is the Parable of the Foxholes.
Like most parables, the “Parable of the Foxholes” has multiple teachings. But today I draw upon it for just one of them. The Parable of the Foxholes teaches the truth of the timeless maxim: “When the time for performance is present, the time for preparation is past.” While that teaching is relevant to us all, it has particular application to you, my young friends, who are in life’s springtime– nature’s season for planting and preparation. And so I would like to ask each of you– rhetorically, but personally– three basic questions about the state of your own preparation, as though you were on the witness stand in a court of law. No one will know your answers except you and the Lord. But then, you are the only ones that matter anyhow. You must answer truthfully for the simple reason that there is no concealing the truth from either of you. So, it behoves you to answer each question with complete candor.
Question #1: What are you doing to develop your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?
The Apostle Paul defined faith as “the substance [or assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). The Prophet Mormon referred to faith as “a firm mind in every form of godliness” (Moroni 7:30). The Fourth Article of Faith declares that the very first principle of the gospel is “ faith in the Lord Jesus Christ” (Article of Faith 1:4).
So, what do you think of Christ? Jesus asked that very question of the Pharisees:
“What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord...If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word...” (Matthew 22:42-46).
These faithless ones could not answer that simple, direct question. But when Jesus asked essentially the same question to his beloved and faith-filled disciples, he got a much different answer:
“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some, Elias, and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:13-17).
So, I ask again, what are you doing to strengthen your faith in the Savior. Are you earnestly striving to keep His commandments and to obtain your witness by the Spirit, as did Peter, or not?
And while we are on the subject, what are you doing to develop your faith in the Prophet Joseph Smith and in the Restoration? Joseph said he did not know which church he should join; so, acting in reliance on the promise of the Apostle James that one lacking wisdom could ask of God with the expectation of an answer, Joseph said that as a fourteen year-old boy he went into a grove of trees to pray and that in response to his prayer God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to him. I ask you, do you believe that really happened? You see, it either did or it didn’t. It didn’t “sort of” happen. The Father and the Son either appeared to the boy Joseph, or They did not. None of us can equivocate in his soul in answering that question.
Neither can we avoid it. Almost the very first thing that the Angel Moroni told Joseph Smith when he visited him in his bedroom on the night of September 21, 1823, was that Joseph’s name “should be had for good and evil among all nations” (Joseph Smith-History 1:33). We are witnessing that phenomenon in our own day. Joseph Smith’s name is honored by some and vilified by others. You and I cannot hide in a corner and pretend that the question does not exist. It does exist, and each of us, like it or not, is compelled by circumstances to answer it.
If Joseph’s declaration is true, it is the most important event since Jesus Himself came into this world to take upon Himself the sins of the world. I testify to you, with all the fervor of my soul, that Joseph’s declaration is true! He did see the Father. He did see the Son. And They did in reality speak to him. And through him They restored the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness. I testify to you that the Book of Mormon is true and that this Church is true and that we are lead by a living prophet in President Thomas S. Monson, who is the rightful successor in prophetic authority to Joseph Smith.
But you cannot merely take my word for it, or anyone else’s word for it. You must obtain your own witness, and for each of us that is a very private matter. If that conviction has yet to be developed in your life, now is the time to do it! In the relative beauty and tranquility of your present circumstances, now is the time to “dig” that “foxhole of faith” before you also find yourself unexpectedly cast into a fiery Inferno that will test your faith.
I testify to you that, just as Peter knew of the divinity of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, so you also can know of the reality of Christ and of the divine appointment of the Prophet Joseph Smith by that same power. You can know it, if you will “dig in” and make the effort.
Now, Question #2: Do you partake worthily and thoughtfully of the sacrament?
I suppose that almost all of us in this devotional congregation have been baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Baptism is intended as an expression of one’s convictions– “the first fruits of repentance” is the way Mormon put it (Moroni 8:25). It is an outward expression of our repentance and represents a covenant with the Lord that we will strive to live according to His commandments. In return, He promises us the remission of sins and the right to the continuing “visitation of the Holy Ghost” (Moroni 8:25-26).
Now, next Sunday you will go to your ward sacrament meeting. There, one holding the priesthood of God will kneel before the emblems of the sacrament and, in exercise of his priesthood authority and as a stand-in for the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Mediator between God and man and our Advocate with the Father, will utter these words:
“O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them...” (D&C 20:77).
Thus that priesthood holder, acting for Jesus Christ, promises on our behalf that we will keep the covenants we made at the time of baptism, to take upon ourselves the name of our Savior and always remember Him and keep his commandments. Then, another priesthood holder, again acting in place and stead of the Savior, presents the emblems of the sacrament to each of us; and as we partake we ratify the covenants made on our behalf by the priest.
Then, speaking for the Lord, the priest makes a promise to each of us so partaking: “that we may always have his Spirit to be with us.” Thus, the sacrament is the most sacred ordinance in which we regularly participate. As each thoughtfully and worthily renews those baptismal covenants in the process of the sacrament service, each receives the Lord’s absolute promise and assurance that no matter what we face His spirit will be with us.
In our infantry battalion of some 500 men, there were three of us who were Latter-day Saints. Sundays in Vietnam usually found us somewhere in the jungle. But we would find a few moments to get together. We would take some canned bread from our C-rations and a cup of warm water from a canteen, one of us would bless these humble emblems and pass them to the rest of us. We would share our testimonies and have a prayer. Then, we would pick up our rifles and return to our duties. My dear brothers and sisters, I testify to you that never in any of our beautiful chapels have I felt the Spirit of the Lord more profoundly than I did in those simple jungle sacrament services. Those words: “that they may always have his Spirit to be with them” took on a literal meaning that they have never lost.
You will recall that it was the Savior Himself who introduced the ordinance of the sacrament, both among His Old World disciples, at the Last Supper, and among His New World disciples when He visited here in His resurrected state. Nephi’s record of the latter event is particularly significant. It says that when His disciples partook of the emblems, “they were filled.” Filled with what, one might ask? The answer, of course, is “filled with the Spirit.”
I ask each of you: When you partake of the sacrament, are you also filled? You can be, provided that you worthily and thoughtfully partake. And the good news? Your next opportunity is not even a week away!
Finally, Question #3: Have you firmly planted your feet on a course leading to a career path that will bring financial security and personal reward?
Now, many of you are just beginning your higher education. Don’t panic if you haven’t selected a major yet, much less decided upon a career! Perhaps the more pertinent question for you is, how serious are you about finding your major? Are you sincerely asking yourself, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” or are you just sleep-walking through your academic program on your way to a good time.
Finding your life’s work is very much a process of following ever-narrowing paths. You start out as a freshman on a broad curriculum “highway.” Then, as you experiment with a variety of courses, your “road” steadily narrows until you eventually find yourself on a “straight and narrow path” of your eventual career. Sometimes, if you are really serious about your quest, you may find yourself on a path you never would have imagined. When I was your age, I attended a large university in California. A friend of mine played tight end on the football team, in fact, he was All Pac Eight. He started out thinking that physical education was where he belonged. But, as do virtually all undergraduate institutions, including this one, he was required to take a variety of courses, including a course in the biological sciences. Looking through the course catalogue, he ran across an introductory course in “entomology,” the study of insects. That piqued his curiosity, so he enrolled. It was a decision that catapulted him in a direction he never would have thought. Entomology became his major. Ultimately, he earned a doctorate in the subject and became a university professor.
Who can say what adventures lie ahead for you in a volume as seemingly mundane as the course catalogue?! But you have to take it seriously. And now, right now, is the season for doing so. You have earned a place in a very select institution. Did you know that the Church university, BYU, is able to accept a mere handful of the graduating Latter-day Saint high school students each year? That means that for each one of you, there are many others who are not able to be here. For the most part, these are the sons and daughters of faithful, tithe-paying fathers and mothers whose tithing dollars are contributing substantially to your education instead of their own children’s. In a manner of speaking, my friends, you have “rented the Marriott,” to the exclusion of someone else who would loved to have had a “room!” And each of you owes it to yourself, and to all those others who would like to have had your seat, to make the most of this opportunity.
Now is the season for choosing and preparing for your life’s work. It is okay if as yet you don’t know what you want to do, provided that you are “anxiously engaged” in the “good cause” of finding out!
There is an old saying that “you don’t know what you have ‘til it’s gone.” The Vietnam War interrupted my educational plans. What I thought would be a three-year experience in the Army stretched into five years, including two tours of duty in the combat zone. I wanted to become a lawyer. But at times I despaired that I might never see my home again, much less continue with my educational plans. And so, when at last I was able to resign from the Army and enroll in law school, I was ecstatic. I still remember the joy I felt just going to the student book store to purchase my law books for that first semester. Literally, it was like Christmas! That sense of gratitude for the opportunity of just being there colored my entire law school experience.
And I guess that is my message to you today– Opportunity! My comrades in arms and I in Charlie Company had no idea what an “opportunity” Col. Tug Greer had given us that fateful Saturday to dig a simple foxhole. It was only in light of the harrowing events soon to be upon us that we recognized it to our everlasting gratitude. My young friends, we took our “opportunity” that day only because it was forced on us. No one is forcing you. My counsel, quite simply, is this: Be wiser than we were! Recognize what is within your grasp this very day!
I cannot reflect on the priceless value of this day’s opportunity without thinking about the Hoa family. The year 1975 was grim in Vietnam. The Republic of Vietnam had collapsed in the face of the relentless onslaught of the North Vietnamese. The army had surrendered. The government had capitulated. Those who had been strongly identified with the government of South Vietnam or with the Americans feared for their lives and well-being. Many fled the country. Those who could not force their way onto departing military aircraft took passage on overcrowded ships and boats of every description. Some of these rusting hulks sprang leaks and sank in the South China Sea, not far into the voyage. Others were accosted by pirates, who molested and murdered many of these pathetic refugees and stole what few possessions they had brought with them. Tran Do Hoa, his wife Nga, their two young daughters and Nga’s teenage brother were among those who survived these perils and eventually reached the United States under an amnesty program.
Our ward in Southern California had offered to sponsor one such family. We found and rented a small home and furnished it in “early Deseret Industries”decor. Finally, the day came that we were to meet “our” family. With my young son as company, I drove to Camp Pendleton, the sprawling U.S. Marine Corps base in northern San Diego County, to pick them up. Following directions, we turned off the main highway onto a narrow byway that soon became a dirt road. We drove down this road for a considerable distance until we came to a large encampment of tents in an isolated part of the base. This was where these refugees were housed. The sight was heartrending: hundreds of Vietnamese attired in worn and ill-fitting clothing, many malnourished and still showing the bone-deep exhaustion of their ordeal. Clouds of dust hung in the late-summer air from the foot and vehicular traffic in and about the camp.
It was then, after checking in at the administrative tent, that I got my first glimpse of Hoa. He was a distinguished looking man in his early forties, thin to the point of emaciation, with graying hair and a gentle, polite smile. Nga, his wife, was a tiny woman with the natural beauty and graciousness of the Vietnamese. Two little girls, Betty and Ti, each clutching a doll, shyly clung to their parents. Thuan, Nga’s teenage brother, stood awkwardly nearby. And what I remember the most: all of their belongings were in a small, travel-worn suitcase and a cheap, plastic shopping bag. In Vietnam, Hoa had been a government civil servant, Nga had worked as a secretary. They had enjoyed a modest, but comfortable, standard of living. Now they had nothing. In fleeing Vietnam, they had forsaken everything they owned and held dear. Grateful to have escaped with their lives, they were totally and completely destitute in a strange land far from home. Hoa spoke halting English, Nga and the children spoke almost no English. As we drove out of that dusty encampment and onto Interstate 5, the great coastal superhighway, I remember thinking how overwhelmed and alone they must feel.
Looking back now, however, with the perspective of the years, I realize that Hoa and Nga had something not immediately apparent to the eye. They had a profound sense of gratitude for the opportunity that this land afforded them. They had virtually nothing of this world’s goods when they arrived in this country. But they brought with them a fierce determination to seize the opportunity provided. Through some interviews we helped to arrange, Hoa found work in a small electronics company. Nga immediately began attending English classes and eventually found a clerical job. Betty and Thuan enrolled in school and devoted themselves to their studies with single-minded resolve. Little Ti, a pre-schooler when the family arrived, grew up as an American child but fueled with the same work ethic that animated the other members of her family.
In time, our family moved away. We lost contact with Hoa and Nga and their children for a period of years. And so it was, with considerable delight, that we discovered on a return visit to that community that Hoa and Nga had purchased a lovely home. Two late-model automobiles were parked in their garage. Hoa and Nga each held responsible, remunerative jobs. Thuan had completed college as an electrical engineer. Betty had a scholarship to attend UCLA. And Ti was a vivacious teenager. Not long afterward, Hoa passed away prematurely.
More years passed, some twenty years from our first meeting. I was serving in the Area Presidency of the North America West Area and was assigned to a stake conference near Riverside, California. As I walked into the chapel on Sunday morning, there on the first row was Thuan. Although not a Church member and living more than 50 miles from this stake center, he had heard of my coming to the conference quite by chance from a workmate who was a member of the stake. He had come to once again express his gratitude, and that of his family, for the blessing of an opportunity. He threw his arms around me. It was a wonderful and tearful reunion for me, one I shall always remember.
As I look at us, you and me, bathed as we are in relative affluence, and all too often nonchalant about the opportunity cascading about us, I see in my mind’s eye a dusty encampment shimmering in the summer heat and a little family far from home, strangers in a strange land, with a worn suitcase and a plastic shopping bag. The vision restores my perspective.
Thus is the central teaching in the Parable of the Foxholes: Grasp the marvelous opportunity that this brief but vital season of your life affords! The sun and surf and sand beckon you, I know, as they did me on that long ago Saturday morning atop a rugged ridgeline, not far from here. But this mortal sphere being what it is, this brief season of your college studies may prove to be for you, as it was for me, a charming prelude to a much more challenging season yet ahead. And so, as there were for me on that fateful Saturday morning, there are for you “foxholes” to be dug.
Brethren and sisters, I have now lived more than seven decades. I have seen much of life. I have fought in many of its battles—and I don’t mean only those in the jungles and rice paddies of Southeast Asia. President David O. McKay once said that “the greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul. ” My young friends, I am a veteran of many such “soul-battles” in my own life. I have witnessed them in the lives of others. And I am here today to admonish you to learn now to dig your foxholes! But the “foxholes” to which I refer are not literal, they are not holes in the ground. Neither are they dug with a crude implement, like an “entrenching tool.” Your foxholes are figurative, they are in heart and mind. They are the product of devotion and courage. They are foxholes of faith. They are foxholes of determination. They are foxholes of purpose. They are foxholes of decision. They are foxholes in your very soul! My prayer for each of you is that you will remember the Parable of the Foxholes. This is your “p-day,” your day of preparation. Dig in.
Endnotes
Conference Report, Apr. 1967, 84-85