The Growing up in Portland, Maine, I always looked up to my big brother Tommy.

He was funny, he was brave, and he was by far the best player on his high school football team.

He was so good that his coaches were talking about scholarships by the time his senior year rolled around.

But Tommy had other plans, and in 1964, he took a bullet flying a helicopter over in Vietnam.

And in typical Tommy fashion, he managed to fly his bird back to base, and he even landed the thing before passing out.

Doctors fought to save his life, but sadly he didn't make it through

the surgery, and we lost him. I was 13 when we got the news, and it broke us. It was the

worst thing that ever happened to us, and it took five long years before we even felt like a family

again. But then just as we were starting to shake off the grief and regain some sense of normalcy,

the draft happened.

I was 18, unemployed, and ripe to be picked out for mandatory military service.

And when my parents realized this, they freaked.

Mom almost lost her mind thinking that she might lose a second son to the same

godforsaken war, and dad wasn't much better. But unlike Tommy, who wanted to go to Vietnam,

because he wanted to fly helicopters on Uncle Sam's dime, I had a way out. An old friend of my

moms had a brother in the church, and if he pulled a few

strings, he could get me a scholarship for an undergrad course at the University of Maine,

and because if I was destined for the seminary, I could dodge the draft and avoid Vietnam altogether.

And the plan was for me to skip out once the draft ended. But to my surprise,

studying the Bible gave me back a sort of hope that losing Tommy had taken away. Faith proved a

potent medicine, so when it came time to leave, I decided to stick around instead. Now for me,

the church was all about service,

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