Issue 25.13
On February 6, 2000, I attended stake conference and an Elder Huber was the guest speaker. He told of an experience that he and another American, who was a newspaper man from Chicago, attended a multinational meeting in the Soviet Union. They joined delegates from many nations for an official dinner. The dinner was hosted by the manager of a huge grape growing and wine making state farm and winery. At any Soviet Union function, one thing one may count on is that there will be no shortage of alcohol. Toast after toast was made for which Elder Huber drank his toasts with water. The Russian’s glare focused more and more on Elder Huber and finally the final most important item of the evening was to be toasted. The host left his table and walked over to where Elder Huber was sitting and with a newly opened bottle of vodka; he poured Elder Huber’s glass full. The meaning was clear. The host would not tolerate another non alcoholic toast for this most important toast. At this point, Elder Huber asked the two youth speakers, Aimee Brown and Jeffery Olsen, what would they do. They both said they would act dumb but refrain from the alcoholic drink. Every person at that meeting was thinking what they would do. Elder Huber said that his American friend took the drink and downed it. At that point my memory took me back fifty-five years to something that happened in Europe during World War Two. During that war the American service people had a weekly newspaper, the Stars and Stripes. I think it was November of 1944 that a feature story of an interview of an American Ground Forces General, whose name I cannot recall, was printed. He said, “If I were a platoon leader, I wouldn’t want a soldier in my unit who didn’t drink alcohol because you couldn’t trust him. I’m afraid he would desert his comrades and run”. For the next two issues, the letters to the editor space was dominated by servicemen’s answers, which were 100% at issue with the general’s comments. In the following issue, there was a letter written by a wounded infantryman who was a patient in the big American hospital near Cambridge, England. He said, “A nice nurse is writing this for me because I no longer have a hand to write with. I was a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) man in my unit and was engaged in heavy fighting. The enemy was saturation shelling our part of the front and I was hit by an enemy artillery round. I was awarded the Purple Heart medal and the
Silver Star for my actions under fire. I do not drink and I am under your command, therefore I do not deserve the Silver Star for my actions under fire. Please inform me where I must send this medal to return”.
If I had been in Elder Huber’s situation with the domineering Russian host, I would have related this story.
Sam Wyrouck can be contacted at 801-707-2666.