A Leatherneck Looks At Life

By 2nd Lt. Cornelius Vanderbreggen Jr.

The story of a WWI marine’s journey to finding everlasting peace, which he finally finds in Jesus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hauraki Publishing
• Release date: Mar 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781786258625

2nd Lt. Cornelius Vanderbreggen Jr.

CORNELIUS VANDERBREGGEN (1915-2015) was a Dutch-American second lieutenant in the Marine Corps during World War II who subsequently became a Missionary. He is cited as having been an early mentor to well-known evangelist Pat Robertson, whom Vanderbreggen met in 1956 and impressed with both his lifestyle and his message.

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Text originally published in 1944 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

A LEATHERNECK LOOKS AT LIFE

BY

CORNELIUS VANDERBREGGEN, JR.

Second Lieutenant, United States Marine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 6

FOREWORD 7

CHAPTER I—EDGE OF DARKNESS 8

CHAPTER II—WANTED: A TREASURE THAT CANNOT BE LOST 11

CHAPTER III—SEEKING IT 19

CHAPTER IV—HOLLAND FIGHTS THE SEA 32

CHAPTER V—HOLLAND FIGHTS FOR FREEDOM 41

CHAPTER VI—FINDING IT 57

CHAPTER VII—LOSING IT 70

CHAPTER VIII—SEEKING AND FINDING AGAIN 86

CHAPTER IX—LOST—AND FOUND FOREVER 96

CHAPTER X—RANDOM NOTES ON SATAN 108

CHAPTER XI—A LEATHERNECK’S LIFE 126

CHAPTER XII—A LEATHERNECK’S PRAYER 144

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 147

FOREWORD

THE Pocket Hymnal for Service Men of which Morning Cheer has now distributed over half a million copies, has been greatly used by the Lord through many chaplains, service men and women, and their families. The original idea for such a hymnal came from Lt. Cornelius Vanderbreggen, Jr., and as we have fellowshipped together in this work of evangelism, we have rejoiced in the blessing which the distribution of the hymnal has been to so many.

It is with thanksgiving, therefore, that we make available through the Morning Cheer ministry this book, a testimony to wonderful grace and the Lord’s enabling in giving the Gospel to service men, through our work and through the faithful witness of Christian soldiers.

GEORGE A. PALMER

CHAPTER I—EDGE OF DARKNESS

WHEN I was a boy, and that wasn’t so long ago, I liked, like any boy, to visit the amusement park or the seashore Crazy House and there to parade laughingly up and down before the amazing mirrors that turned smiling faces into leering pumpkins, ears into barrage balloons, feet into canal boats, and legs into beanstalks. Dr. Jekyll could never have had as much fun turning into Mr. Hyde as I did becoming one monstrosity after another. I never tired of the sport.

Life is like that. From infancy to old age we impersonate a whole succession of characters. Through our mind’s eye we see ourselves changing one role for another, and we enjoy the show. The mother-loving boy of twelve becomes the thirteen-year-old authority-resisting neighborhood hellion. The sixteen-year-old woman hater becomes the seventeen-year-old, hair-oiled, village Willie Baxter. The sophomore college playboy appears as a horn-rimmed senior social science major with the sense of a mission and a reverent word for Marx. The idealistic young school teacher becomes the personable and prosperous city councilman. The ardent Democrat turns boisterous Republican. The boisterous Republican forgets politics for fishing and golf. The life that has been lived by one soul has thus been many lives. Each life, that is, each role, has had its own peculiar outlook, ambitions, and behavioristic attitudes.

It is not just the external world that make us become first one person and then another. The mirrors in the amusement park alone account for the fundamental changes of appearance in the laughing, light-hearted promenader. But the heart of the actor upon life’s stage itself often dictates the change of mask that inaugurates a new act with a new characterization.

You know as well as I know how often we become dissatisfied with ourselves. Believing that peace and happiness are to be had through possessing wisdom, we assume the pursuits and mannerisms of a scholar. We find no peace so we effect, consciously, a gradual or a not so gradual change. We become a gay debaucher, still no peace; a cynic, utter spiritual desolation. Perhaps we take another shot at being a scholar. The second failure is more painful because it emphasizes the first.

Life becomes a grueling affair. We live on nerve alone and what we call our faith. Our faith is mainly in that worldly adage that you will be whatever you believe yourself to be. Therefore, when being one person doesn’t bring us happiness we try being another. But it never works.

I look back, for instance, over my own short span of years and see a multiplicity of me’s! I have but one college diploma, and yet that rightfully belongs to three different Cornelius Vanderbreggen, Jr.’s: 1. to the grind; 2. to the reformer; and 3. to the socialite. Strictly speaking, the three of us were never on the campus at the same time. The grind attended for the first year and two-thirds, then the reformer, and lastly, during spring of my senior year, the socialite.

That some of my classmates combined all those qualities in one personality does not alter the fact that there were three different me’s. The registrar called each me by the same name. So did the comptroller. So did most of my professors. But I could distinguish each me clearly from the others. So could a few of my very close friends.

Each me had his own objectives, successes, and failures. Don’t ask which one I liked the best. Don’t ask which one was the most popular. All three of those me’s are dead today. I’m glad to have known them for I learned much in their company, but I do not mourn their passing or hope for their resurrection.

Side by side with these three dead collegiate me’s are a score of other me’s. I have my own private mausoleum! The eerie thing about all of these interred personalities is that every one of them was murdered. The very body and soul that invited them to come in and hold sway rebelled against them, indeed violently expelled them, for none of them ever brought real happiness or lasting peace.

Tonight I am at peace. Tomorrow I shall have that same peace, and the next day. I say this with confidence. I say it as I look out across the vast Pacific Ocean, the world’s most far-flung battle zone, into which I expect soon to venture as a fighting leatherneck. I am at peace with the world, at peace with myself and, most important, at peace with God.

I do not overlook the fact that in another month, or two, or six, I may be here no more. A Jap torpedo may spell for me a choking death and a watery grave. A bomb may eradicate me and deny me even a grave. One machine gun bullet may make me a gold star on the home-town service flag. Malaria, cholera, beri-beri may claim me. Do not think that I am being dramatic. I am being realistic. One does not want dramatics as he stands ready to go into the thick of things. He wants to see himself as he is, all masks off; and he wants to see the world as it is. He doesn’t want anybody to tell him that he’s sure to come back because he’s such a fine fellow. He knows that thousands finer and braver than he have already died. They’re not coming back. He doesn’t want anybody to claim that it all will be over soon, that the last few months will be easy. He knows that the enemy still clings to vast portions of the globe and that hundreds of thousands of lives will be spent before there is a military situation called victory and the state of world exhaustion called peace.

No, tonight as I sit here awaiting the nearby day when we expect to board transports and head for the South Pacific, I am not feeding myself on fancies. I am meditating on facts. Life is a fact, the most glorious fact that we encounter, until we learn that death is a fact too. Then, until we understand the fact of death we can no longer have any permanent or justifiable happiness in the fact of life.

It is because life has been so sweet for me and because death holds no terrors for me that I have been led to record the wonderfully peaceful thoughts that are mine to share, as I enjoy what are, presumably, the last hours that I shall spend in my native land for many months to come.

Life has ceased being sweet for many people today. And the very thought of death brings unspeakable fear to thousands upon thousands of others. If I can relate simply how I found light in an existence which I thought could offer nothing but darkness, and security in a world where I had once found only abysmal uncertainty, perhaps my words may bring a ray of hope to someone who is lonesome, as I once was lonesome, or afraid, as I once was afraid.

At worst this monologue may be a farewell message to a host of friends who, however weak my efforts, will as always be charitable judges. They have known me with my masks on. They have known me with my masks off. There is therefore now nothing that I seek to hide from them. Above all I crave that the peace which is mine might also be theirs. So much of it has been made possible by their tenderness, tolerance, and patience, which helped sustain me through many a trying hour until I found a strength that cometh from God and fadeth not away.

I long to bequeath the same peace to my family: Mother, Father, Sister. All the joy of my youth was purchased by their sacrifices. Nothing that I am today or ever hope to be has any meaning unless it is considered in the light of their unwavering love. I would never have had a friend if they had not first taught me how to be a friend. I would never have kept going until the day that I came to God if I had not first seen the love of God in them.

This, therefore, is the humble, affectionate testimony of a United States Marine, who, standing on the threshold of a misty future and looking at the turmoil of a weary world, still believes that even in war one can have peace, and even in death, eternal victory.

CHAPTER II—WANTED: A TREASURE THAT CANNOT BE LOST

WHEN I was about thirteen years of age I heard a remark which impressed me as being very wise. Since then, I have found it to be even wiser than I thought, and I have therefore never forgotten it.

I was in the presence of a wealthy cousin, a middle-aged woman, who had just received a beautiful new diamond ring from her husband. A friend of hers who was admiring it said, And of course you are going to have a paste model made.

Most certainly not, my cousin replied.

But suppose it should be stolen, or just suppose you should lose it, the other woman insisted. You would be heartbroken.

Then came the telling answer: I don’t believe so. We can’t afford to have anything that we can’t afford to lose.

We can’t afford to have anything that we can’t afford to lose. Those words wrote themselves indelibly on my youthful mind. I was certain that they were true. Many years later I was to recall them and apply them as a measuring stick to one would-be basis of earthly happiness after another. Still later they were to obsess my mind as I sought feverishly for something in life that was permanent. And still later, even not so long ago, I found a treasure which, once possessed, can never be lost; a solid and imperishable foundation for earthly happiness.

I believe that it is right to say that even unconsciously, as a boy, I started seeking for something in life that would be permanently satisfying. The soap bubbles of early childhood would burst, one after another, but then I found myself! I saw that there was glory to be had in the realm of sports and I set out to make myself a name that would never be forgotten.

My first venture was in tennis. Mother gave me two dollars and ninety-five cents to purchase a Wright and Ditson racket at the village drug store. I bought a hard rubber ball to go with it and went home to practice against the side of the house. Many a famous tennis player made his start in just the same way, so to this day I have the consolation of knowing that the reasons for my failing to achieve stardom were probably constitutional rather than tactical.

It is true that all my early sessions of swatting the ball against the wall were overshadowed by domestic difficulties. A screened kitchen window too frequently received the full impact of the hard rubber ball, and on such occasions I was always given a firm parental warning as to what would happen if ever I broke the glass. This gave me a mental burden, another reason, perhaps, why my game never reached Davis Cup heights. The mental burden was removed, however, quite unexpectedly and effectively.

In answer to my sister’s pleas that I teach her what I knew, I took her out one day for her initial period of instruction. The first ball that she hit sailed through the unscreened window of the cellar door. That was the end of my burden, and the beginning of hers! Unfortunately, it was also the end of all tennis practice against the side of the house.

After that I found a court or two in the neighborhood and had a chance to play with human beings. My enthusiasm grew, and just when it was flourishing the courts closed down. Undaunted, I rigged up a miniature sized grass court right in the back yard. I used clothes lines for marker tapes and old window curtains as a net. A whole host of neighbors were attracted by my ingenuity and came around to play with me. Even Mother joined in. All our fun came to an end, however, when the woman next door, who had played tennis in her youth, attempted too vigorous a backhand half-volley and crash-dived into the turf. She went home limping and our back yard was never the same again. By that, I mean we all decided it wasn’t such a good place for tennis, and I soon took up the clothes lines and curtains.

When I got to junior high school I started to play real tennis regularly. At the age of fourteen I entered my first tournament, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Dirt still marks the spot where I was dusted off in the first round by the second-seeded player. I didn’t win a game. A month later I entered another tournament and drew the third-seeded player as my first opponent. Again it was love and love. After that I stopped entering tournaments. Ever since I have been playing tennis for pleasure, but since hundreds of thousands of other people do the same thing, that has never made me famous.

Basketball was my second sport and became my first love. The girl next door introduced me to it. Thoroughly captivated, I volunteered to provide permanent facilities for playing. Within forty-eight hours I had secured a rubber ball about eight inches in diameter and had nailed a bottomless peach basket to the back of the house. I had fulfilled my promise. But I had on my hands a new problem in domestic relations, for wild passes and highflying shots in the games that we started hit the back kitchen window and the dining room windows, with unerring regularity!

It was a question of stop playing or secure a new gymnasium. My father came to the rescue by providing a twelve-foot bean pole and a piece of plank three feet long and one foot wide. The pole became the standard; the plank, the backboard; and fifteen cents’ worth of shrubbery wire, properly stapled to the backboard, the basket. We were now free as birds. No more window troubles.

I bought a three-dollar rubber ball. I made all sorts of overnight friends! Our back yard became a rendezvous for all lovers of basketball. We played in autumn, winter, and spring. We wore away all the grass. When it snowed we shoveled away the snow. When we weren’t playing basketball we were either sick or sleeping. We went home for meals (because we had to) but we didn’t eat; we swallowed.

All of this laid a foundation in basketball that was not without meaning. In subsequent years of my life I did play on many a basketball team, but I never was the cause of any dazzling headlines or received any most valuable player awards. Fame and I just didn’t seem to mix.

The closest I ever came to stirring up the public on account of my association with the sport was during the winter that I taught English and coached athletics at a private boys’ school on the Hudson. An emergency call came through one Thursday for a referee to handle two high school games the following evening at a little spot called Pine Gulf, some fifty miles distant. I accepted the bid, then subsequently learned that one of the contests was not a junior varsity boys’ game, as I had presumed, but a girls’ engagement!

It was too late for me to withdraw my services, so I made a hurried trip to Newburgh to purchase a girls’ rule book, meanwhile consoling myself with the knowledge that during four years in high school I had never missed one of the fairer sex’s basketball games. Indeed I had always had at least one favorite on the team and had been known to state, frequently, that I would never think of marrying a girl who didn’t play basketball. So I had a background.

When the big evening came, however, I would have preferred a backdrop so that I could have disappeared behind it. The first difficult circumstance was the setting for the game; a converted church basement. There was one case where conversion was a ghastly error. The ceiling could not have been more than fifteen feet high. The size of the court was at best sixty per cent of what it should have been. The sidelines were broken at regular intervals by huge cement foundation pillars that jutted slightly into the playing area. The backboards were flush with the walls, and, if I recall correctly, the walls were hung with radiators. The last and most dangerous hazard was the squealing, screeching, blood-thirsty, cramped, and irrepressible mob of local partisans. And when I say partisans I am not using a figure of speech. I am employing an active verb! I am describing that type of home-grown athletic fan that loves its team, knows its rule book, and hates all referees.

The girls’ game was a farce, but I was the person who provided the comedy. There had been so many changes of custom and precedent since I had witnessed a girls’ contest that I was constantly at a loss when it came to making quick decisions. Consequently the participants themselves took to prompting me, and for this I was duly grateful. The visiting coach, however, had a lack of appreciation for player-umpire teamwork, and during the half-time rest period he approached me to impugn my honesty, my integrity, my ability, and my sanity. I felt certain that anyone so pugnacious and so irate could not be completely right, but as I contemplated the fact that I had accepted the refereeing job voluntarily, I felt no inclination to question his judgment of my sanity.

Somehow I muddled through the second half of the girls’ game. The home-town had the largest number of rooters present, and the home-town team won. I can’t honestly say whether there was any working of the principle of cause and effect in this, but I have always had my suspicions.

I commenced my duties as boys’ referee with a sense of relief winch was as foolhardy as it was short-lived. Had a referee been all that was needed I am still convinced that I could have handled the job creditably.