Trusting God in War and Peace

Seventy-three years ago, Melvin Bockelman, currently a member of Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Olathe, Kan., had an experience that he says he will “take to his grave.”

At that time, he was a young man — just 17 years old — serving in the Merchant Marine during the last year of World War II. He had left high school to become a mariner the previous year because “the government was calling for young boys to do that. Our troops were not going to get their supplies” without more manpower for the ships, he recalls.

He signed up and was put to work on a ship that delivered aviation fuel to American aircraft carriers in the Pacific.