God Bless Texas!

On July Fourth, my near-neighbors in Kerrville, queen city of the Texas Hill Country, awoke not to celebrations but to the unspeakable horror of mad rivers.

By Kenneth Allard

On July Fourth, my near-neighbors in Kerrville, queen city of the Texas Hill Country, awoke not to celebrations but to the unspeakable horror of mad rivers – a flood that instantly broke our hearts as well as records dating back to frontier days. The same sleepy rivers that once brought life and leafy shade, sustaining crops and aquifers, instantly became torrents of death, sweeping away roads, trees and bridges with the unimaginable force of water cutting new channels in its furious, downhill race to the sea. Worst of all: snatching the life’s-blood of our children, peacefully camping next to friends and counsellors, their innocent sleep suddenly transformed into unimaginable tragedy.

As the Kerrville death toll inevitably climbed higher, we suddenly found ourselves standing alongside Job, one of the Bible’s most ancient characters. Having lost family and every possession, Job cried out with primeval grief, “The worst of my fears has come true, what I’ve dreaded most has happened.” (Job 3:25, MSG) As a former Preacher’s Kid, I remembered how Job’s story got even worse when he was famously visited by a committee of designated church comforters. But Kerrville’s rivers were still cresting when the town was overrun by legions of formidable officials: Governor Greg Abbott, the Secretary of Homeland Security and more federal, state and local agency heads than anyone had ever seen before. Unlike Job’s frenemies, these folks brought gifts, federal disaster dollars and a cornucopia of equipment. The storm clouds had barely parted when squadrons of helicopters filled the skies, rescuing 850 people from trees, rivers and wherever during the first 24 hours of the flood’s aftermath!

For many Texans, Governor Abbott has become a popular hero. He became a national figure by combatting the worst border outrages of the O’Biden administrations, bussing illegal immigrants to distant American communities and instantly creating de facto border towns. He accomplished all that while managing the difficult recovery from the horrific Uvalde school shootings of May, 2022; those debacles cost the lives of 19 elementary school students and 2 of their teachers. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/27/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-timeline/

But this time, Governor Abbott led from the front, repeatedly emphasizing that during this crisis there would be all-out teamwork and dogged persistence “We remain in a search-and-rescue posture right now,” Abbott said during a Friday night press conference in Kerrville. “We will stop at nothing to ensure... that everybody involved in this is going to be fully accounted for." Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick added, “We will not stop until we find everybody…This is not a thoughts and prayers message—this is (a time to) get down on your knees and pray for all these families." These were important notes to sound in rallying a state located dead-center in the Bible Belt, particularly when many of the camps now being intensively searched have served for a century as beacons of Christian education. https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/kerrville-flood-texas-abbott-texas-rescue-missing/

Watching Saturday’s local coverage, I saw a respectful young reporter interviewing an oldster who looked much like the one greeting me every morning in the mirror; but this poor man stood amidst the leafy, water-logged mass of Hunt, Texas, having lost most of what once constituted his life. Needing a smooth end for her interview, the young lady sweetly asked him, “Sir, where do you go at a moment like this?” The old fellow thought carefully for an instant before giving her an answer for the ages. “To church.”

I almost cheered because my story about coming to Texas was eerily similar. Having recovered a childhood faith that once seemed lost forever, my Lone Star journey began 20 years ago this month, a reaffirmation that steadily transformed sorrow into joy, despite little things like circumstances. As Job discovered after all his trials, “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.” His story concludes, “So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than at the beginning.” (Job 42: 5, 12 NIV).

Sometimes it seems as if Americans have forgotten how to love one another despite history, common sense and the clear Judeo-Christian duty to do precisely that. As you read these words, please remember to pray for our First Responders, rescuers and caregivers as well as everyone in the Hill Country affected by the floods. God bless you, my friend and God Bless Texas!

COL (Ret.) Ken Allard rose from draftee to become a West Point professor, Dean of the National War College and military analyst for NBC News.