Dr. Peter S. Ruckman - Ruckmans Battlefield Notes

***

By Dr. Peter S. Ruckman:

* Bible Believers Commentary Series

* Beginning and Advanced Bible Study Material

* In-Depth Apologetics

* Numerous Pamphlets on Selected Topics

* Variety of Gospel Tracts

* Audio Cassettes

* Video Cassettes

Also Available:

* AV 1611 Bibles

* Study Helps

* Concordances

* Biographies

* Evangelism Material

* Material by Other Authors and Speakers

***

www.kjv1611.org

For FREE Current Catalog write:

P.O. Box 7135 Pensacola, FL 32534

When we went to Ft. Benning (1944), we were commanded, Know your enemy. This included not only his weapons, tactics, and habits but the silhouettes of his ships, tanks, and planes. We were also trained to spot his rank by the insignia on his uniform (German and Japanese).

You are to know your enemy.

I. The Book said it was the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

II. The Book said your enemy was invisible many times.

III. The Book said you could not beat him in your own strength.

IV. The Book said you had a C-in-C who could handle him. OKW is in good hands.

V. The Book says you have an offensive weapon (Eph. 6:17) and five defensive pieces of armor: a breastplate, a loin cover, sandals or boots, a shield, and a helmet.

The shin greaves are not mentioned because, doctrinally speaking, you are kneeling in prayer. This battle is fought on your knees; therefore, your shins are covered. You have no armor to cover your back. Like the unsaved Philistines you are to quit you like men (1 Sam. 4:9), which would be facing the enemy, standing fast, keeping ranks, and never turning to run from anything but youthful lusts (2 Tim. 2:22).

It goes without saying that the further you get out ahead of your own troops the more times you will get shot in the back by your own troops: short rounds, friendly fire, etc.

I know my enemy, I know my equipment, and I know my captain (Heb. 2:10).

Now! Have you any idea about how I will go about training Christian troops for their warfare in this age? Have you any idea how my Citizens Military Training Camp or Army Specialized Training Program or Reserve Officer Training Corps will differ from the ones set up by Jerry Falwell, Clarence Sexton, John Rice, the SBC, Chuck Swindoll, Zane Hodges, the BBF, A. T. Robertson, Bob Jones III, Tom Malone, Shelton Smith, Dave Hunt, David Cloud, Mike Randall, and Lee Roberson?

By now it ought to be getting really clear. Or as my old Tactical Officer at OCS used to say (Eddie Copelandwe called him the BIRD DOG): Is thut cleah, Ruckman? Is thut cleah?!

In the Dark Ages I must receive the crossbow bolts and long bow arrows (and the napalm tipped spears and the slingers stones) on my SHIELD or HELMET (Eph. 6). I must be strong in the Lord, and in the power of HIS might. The breastplate should be flak-proof (bullet proof in the twentieth century) at least to some extent. I am not to desert or even break ranks. I am not even to give place to the Devil (Eph. 4:27), and under no conditions am I to surrender: GIVE NO QUARTER; TAKE NO QUARTER. Or as Jeremiah said it, Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood (Jer. 48:10).

Is thut cleah?

If you gave place in a Macedonian phalanx or a Roman phalanx (200 B.C.) or a British Square (1800-1900), your buddies become out flanked. If you throw down your weapon and run, your cowardice will become epidemic (Patton). The worst beating America ever took in any war she ever fought (including the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Indian Wars, the Philippine Insurrection, the Spanish-American War, Vietnam, Korea, World War I, or World War II) she suffered at the hands of the German Wehrmacht in the last year of the war, after Germany had been fighting it for five years and was down to fifteen to seventeen year olds for fighting material.

This debacle is simply overlooked by most military historians. Americans pretend it didnt happen, but it did. It was accompanied by another drubbing from the Krauts (in the Huertgen Forest: Nov. 1944) that caused the Army Replacement Centers in America to give draftees only six weeks training before sending them into the Death Factory.

I was training troops in the IRTCs (Infantry Replacement Training Centers) during these two battles: the Huertgen Forest and the Snow Eiffel. The latter battle was the greatest mass desertion that any American army ever witnessed in infantry combat. The fleeing troops were the Golden Lions (the 106th Infantry Division under Major General Alan Jones).

This total collapse of a division preceded the battles of St. Vith and Bastogne in the Bulge in the winter of 1944 and 1945.

They suffered 16,000 casualties in six days (Dec. 16-22, 1944), and the Bull Run (1861) retreat they ran was so heavy it blocked their own troops who eventually were set up to relieve them. Passing the buck from General Jones to two of his Colonels (Descheneaux and Cavendar) didnt really explain what happened, although the failure of reconnaissance to detect the building up and aligning of three armies of crack German troops (Deitrichs 6th SS Panzer Army, Manteuffels 5th Panzer Army, and the Brandenbergers 7th Army) had a lot to do with it.

When the Krauts came through the American defense line like a wildcat tearing through a paper bag, the retreat became a routnot a delaying action. Cowardice was epidemic. The Christian is supposed to STAND and having done all, to stand (Eph. 6).

Somewhere around 1954 I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to evaluate my position and prepare for action.

It began with John Rawlings and Lester Roloff. Rawlings wanted to put my sermon on Why I Believe the King James Bible is the Word of God into his monthly newsletter, and Roloff wanted to tape it and use it on the Family Altar Program." Until then I was just an unknown, street-preaching, soulwinning, prison-ministering evangelist. Of 400 sermon outlines I had put together, only FOUR of them were about the King James Bible issue. (I only have six today [2003] after fifty-three years in the ministry.) Those four messages were enough to split three national fellowships, more than fifty colleges and universities, and several hundred local churches. They were aimed, specifically, at Christian scholars involved in revising, correcting, and perverting the AV; especially the SAVED ones who used it to make a living.

From 1954 onward, I was called into active duty involving a DESTRUCTIVE (WARremember?) ministry for which I had no particular love. I simply wanted to win grown men to Jesus Christ. The C-in-C had other plans. He had been dealing with Christian terrorism in Bible ranks since 1885 (RV in England and the ASV in America: 1901). The Christian terrorists worked exactly as the PLO, El Fedayeen, Al Fatah, Hamas, and Hizbullahs operated in Israel between 1929 and 2003. They operated with the approval and support of every major nation in both hemispheres.

I found myself in a position similar to that of Col. Josef Pips Priller, a five-foot six-inch Luftwaffe Colonel in Hitlers Third Reich. This Nazi received a field telephone call on D-Day (June 1944, Normandy Beach) to strafe the invasion beachhead. He was told to take his squadron with him; he had no squadron. All of his wing had been sent to the Eastern front more than a week before. He was to attack, taking only his wingman (bat man) with him; he would go in against