{"id":4650,"date":"2025-05-26T08:53:27","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T12:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4650"},"modified":"2025-05-26T08:53:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T12:53:27","slug":"the-company-of-the-willing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/26\/the-company-of-the-willing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Company of the Willing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

It\u2019s hard to overstate the eagerness of many underage men to join America’s armed forces in World War II.

Calvin Graham was one of them. In August 1942 he walked into a recruiting station in Fort Worth, Texas.

The recruiting officer had a pretty good idea Calvin was too young to go to war.\u00a0The dentist who examined his teeth was certain\u00a0that\u00a0he wasn’t yet 18 years old.\u00a0\u00a0

But Graham was determined to serve his country.\u00a0

While the dentist wasn’t looking, he quietly slipped his file from the stack of “rejected” recruits to the “approved” pile.\u00a0\u00a0

Within a few days he was in boot camp in San Diego.\u00a0That fall he shipped out to the Pacific theater, where he became a gunner on the battleship\u00a0South Dakota<\/em>. During the Battle\u00a0of Santa Cruz and the subsequent nighttime Battle of\u00a0Guadalcanal, he loaded shells into a 40-mm anti-aircraft gun.\u00a0\u00a0

The South Dakota<\/em> took 47 hits at Guadalcanal.\u00a0One explosion blew Graham down a stairwell and raked his jaw with shrapnel.\u00a0Despite serious wounds, he stayed on his feet all night long, fighting fires and pulling some of his crewmates to safety.

Calvin was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism and a Purple Heart for his combat wounds.\u00a0\u00a0

In a later\u00a0unguarded moment, however, he admitted to his gunnery officer (Sargent Shriver, who would one day lead the Peace Corps and run for president\u00a0in 1976) that he had lied on his enlistment papers. He hadn’t told the truth about his age.

Calvin Graham was just 12 years old.\u00a0

Shriver felt he had no option but to report what he had just learned. Graham wound up back in the States.\u00a0Then he was jailed. He was stripped of his medals and dishonorably discharged. Ultimately his sister threatened to embarrass the Navy by taking his story to the press.\u00a0The Navy relented and allowed Graham to go home.

Two days after his 13th birthday the next April, he rejoined his Fort Worth classmates in the seventh grade.\u00a0If his teacher had assigned the class a writing project entitled “What I Did During\u00a0Spring Break,” it’s likely his would have been a bit more dramatic than anyone else’s.

Historians believe Calvin Graham was the youngest American serviceman to see\u00a0combat during World War II.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

The Navy, however, was reluctant to acknowledge his contributions, since doing so would spotlight the gaps in\u00a0their recruitment protocols.\u00a0

Graham never stopped fighting to have his military service recognized.\u00a0Two American presidents eventually got involved.\u00a0In 1977, Jimmy Carter authorized his\u00a0honorable discharge and returned his Bronze Medal.\u00a0In 1988, Ronald Reagan paved the way for Graham to receive the medical benefits he had long been denied.\u00a0\u00a0

In 1994, his Purple Heart was finally reinstated.\u00a0But Calvin had died two years earlier of\u00a0heart failure\u00a0at age 62.\u00a0

In all 50 states one has\u00a0to reach a minimum age in order to drive a car or\u00a0vote in an election. At theme parks you\u00a0have to be a certain height\u00a0in order to ride the biggest\u00a0roller coasters.\u00a0\u00a0

How old do you have to be to be a hero?

Jesus shocked his listeners\u00a0when he seemed to throw\u00a0out the minimum age requirements for discipleship.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

“Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, ‘I\u2019m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you\u2019re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God\u2019s kingdom. What\u2019s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it\u2019s the same as receiving me'”\u00a0<\/em>(Matthew 18:2-5, “The Message”).

Training and experience matter.\u00a0\u00a0

But readiness and willingness to serve matter even more.\u00a0

Calvin Graham was in the company of the willing.

Are you prepared to say yes to the call of God in your life, no matter how someone else might assess your worthiness?

On this Memorial Day, let\u2019s\u00a0give thanks for the myriad men and women whose selflessness and sacrifices have granted\u00a0us the freedom to contemplate that very question.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here It\u2019s hard to overstate the eagerness of many underage men to join America’s armed forces in World War II. Calvin Graham was one of them. In August 1942 he walked into a recruiting station in Fort Worth, Texas. The recruiting officer had a pretty good idea Calvin was too young to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[432,248],"class_list":["post-4650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children","tag-memorial-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4652,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions\/4652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}