America's Largest Catholic Newspaper
To the Editor:
As a naive R.A.F ground-crew airman assigned to the Middle East in the 1940s, I bore witness to the barbaric practices of the native jihadists in the Suez Canal area. Two of our soldiers, one male and the other female, made the mistake of dallying too long after a movie showing in a makeshift tent. I was one of the search party that picked up their butchered parts the following day in the sandy wastelands of Egypt.
Fast forward to today’s world and we find the very same treatment meted out to James Foley with perhaps more of the same to follow for other prisoners. When I first observed the picture of Mr. Foley in the press with his executioner by his side, I feared for his future for I knew that he was in a hopeless position.
However, the expression on James Foley’s face was something else: standing tall, resolute and steadfast with an expression of fearlessness. I rightfully concluded that only someone with a deep, indomitable faith could withstand the scourges of evil that had been perpetrated upon them.
After the savage execution of this innocent human being, I couldn’t help but empathize and envision him as a modern day St. John the Baptist who shared a similar fate with only faith and love of Christ to give them strength in their darkest moments.
Jim Laverty
Garnerville
