{"id":4549,"date":"2014-06-01T16:11:03","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T16:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=4549"},"modified":"2014-06-01T16:11:03","modified_gmt":"2014-06-01T16:11:03","slug":"twelve-oclock-high-war-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/4549\/twelve-oclock-high-war-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Twelve O’Clock High, war movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey John,<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you ever seen the movie “Twelve O’Clock\u00a0High”?\u00a0\u00a0 While I was not feeling well a few days ago, I started to watch\u00a0it, having not seen it before.\u00a0 It’s a World War II movie starring Gregory Peck, and I was not prepared to be as blessed as I was, during the first half of the movie especially.\u00a0 For me, it was a wonderful picture of spiritual truths we have seen in you, and things you have taught us\u00a0about leadership and\u00a0God’s\u00a0kind of\u00a0government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trying to make this as short as I can, in the movie, Gregory Peck was an officer who was under the main General, and the main General wanted him to find out what the problem was with the 586th squadron (not sure of the\u00a0squad\u00a0#), because they were suffering abnormal losses.\u00a0 The leader (named Davenport) was very respected by his men,\u00a0but it was getting around that they were “unlucky”, even though he was supposedly a good leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gregory Peck could not figure out the problems after looking at the situation initially.\u00a0 He reported to the main General that he couldn’t find an answer and the main General said that there was always an answer, and had him arrange a meeting with Davenport, himself, and Gregory Peck.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The main General was very discerning.\u00a0 When he interviewed Davenport about the last raid that went wrong,\u00a0Davenport told them it was a that they got there at the wrong time and suffered losses because of it.\u00a0 He would not put the\u00a0blame on the navigator who made it happen, but the\u00a0General immediately interviewed the navigator who confessed to be the problem, but Davenport\u00a0kept defending\u00a0the navigator and\u00a0didn’t want to tell on him (covered for him),\u00a0because he thought the navigator\u00a0was a good man, and he liked and respected him (even though he had made a big blunder.)<\/span><\/p>\n

After the interview, the main General asked Davenport why he did not get rid of the navigator.\u00a0 And Davenport said it was because he was a good man, and it was merely\u00a0a mistake (and because\u00a0he liked him.).\u00a0 The main General said,\u00a0“what happens to the next\u00a0crew that gets in a plane\u00a0with that navigator?\u00a0 What\u00a0confidence will they have?”\u00a0 Davenport kept defending the navigator and would not remove him willingly, so the General ended the meeting and stripped him of his command, and gave the\u00a0squad to Gregory Peck without even saying why (you knew why, watching\u00a0 the movie). The General discerned that Davenport did not\u00a0have the strength to think of the unit as a whole, and was respecting popularity and favoring people instead of\u00a0doing what was right for all.\u00a0 He was not fit to lead with those qualities.\u00a0 It was the picture of the downfall of a man who had “friends.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Gregory Peck was given the\u00a0command, and he was determined to not to have\u00a0any “friends” so to speak, but to do what was right for the body of his unit as a whole.\u00a0He had seen what Davenport did wrong and tried very hard not\u00a0to go down that road.\u00a0 He took care of people that were infecting the unit with their wrong attitudes, got the squadron back to basic discipline, and basic tactics.\u00a0\u00a0He went through all kinds of situations that I thought\u00a0taught about responsible leadership and not respecting people above what was right.\u00a0 At first the men rebelled – they wanted Davenport back.\u00a0Gregory Peck didn’t know if he could hold them together long enough to fix it….\u00a0But as Gregory Peck’s\u00a0decisions brought them success, they started to warm up to him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I fell asleep that night, and it did not hold my attention enough to\u00a0see the end of the movie, but Paul said the General ended up removing Gregory Peck too, because the same thing ended up happening to him, as to Davenport.\u00a0 He started having the admiration of his men (and wanting it) and was no longer fit, even though he had\u00a0fixed the\u00a0unit.\u00a0 wow.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were many other examples, but the point is, that the movie\u00a0made me very appreciative for you John.\u00a0 The experienced General reminded me of how God shows you a\u00a0problem,\u00a0and you take\u00a0care of it.\u00a0\u00a0He knew that a leader could not be after popularity or to satisfy friends.\u00a0\u00a0And over the years I have seen you get real “results” by sticking to what was right, not concerned about “how big”, “or “who it is”\u00a0or any such thing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoyed understanding what I was watching, in light of what you have taught us.\u00a0 I thought that movie\u00a0was a good lesson on “spiritual”\u00a0leadership, with it’s insights, and types,\u00a0and spiritual shadows, if you had the eyes to see the similarities.\u00a0 In any case,\u00a0I enjoyed thinking on\u00a0these things.\u00a0 We have seen them happen amongst us.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey John, Have you ever seen the movie “Twelve O’Clock\u00a0High”?\u00a0\u00a0 While I was not feeling well a few days ago, I started to watch\u00a0it, having not seen it before.\u00a0 It’s a World War II movie starring Gregory Peck, and I was not prepared to be as blessed as I was, during the first half of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}