http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865556198/Two-thousand-stripling-warriors-to-march-in-Bountiful-parade.html

But think of the potential complication, Ardis, when (along with all the marijuana aficionados that haunt these parts) you start getting web searches from people looking to hire an assassin. : )

But, what about a new slogan for Romney:

“Gott. Mitt. Uns.”

Has sort of a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

As to “Gott mit uns”–by the time of the Nazis, it had fallen far its place in imperial Germany, where it appeared above the eagle on the imperial standard. The soldiers of the Wehrmacht in World War II had the phrase inscribed on their belt buckles, and the SS, obviously the paragon of Nazi soldiery, had got rid of it altogether. On their belt buckles was inscribed “Meine Ehre heißt Treue”–My honor means loyalty.

Nowadays, the Bundeswehr uniform includes a belt buckle that reads “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit”–”Unity and Justice and Freedom”–the first line of the first verse of the German National Anthem. I’m not sorry that they don’t use the first line of the former first verse (“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles”) but the former second verse has more interesting possibilities: “Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue, Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang.” What better reasons to go chase the Taliban in Afghanistan than German women, loyalty, wine and song?

The whole idea of God using the Nazis as tools is just unpleasant. Especially since they claimed to be acting in His name (“Gott mit uns”)–I’d hate for the Nazis to be even partly right about that, even if the only one of their evils that He approved was the destruction of a Norwegian town.

Besides, I’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, I know how God feels about Nazis.

But, as you’ll know if you’ve ever tried to hire someone to dispatch a rival to the great beyond, the roster of possible assassins is not filled with Eagle Scouts and returned missionaries and College Republicans. Potential assassins are mostly an unsavory lot. It’s a dirty job and dirty people do it. (College Republicans are unsavory in “their own special way” but that’s another topic.)

What’s really annoying (besides the fact that, like the Assyrians, they don’t recognize their part in God’s delivery of justice to idolatrous Israelites) is that they, amoral bunch that they are, sometimes decide to play Sparafucile and kill whoever knocks on their door at midnight instead of the guy they were hired to rub out. And then you’re back to square one.

A couple of questions that came to mind: why evacuate the missionaries in 1939? Norway was not a combatant during 1939–and it wasn’t obvious as a strategic target for the Germans. On the other hand, shipping from Norway to the U.S. would have been just as much at risk of submarine attack as any other neutral shipping.

As to the “providential destruction of the enemies of righteousness”–I checked to see if those stories had non-LDS corroboration. And found, about Steinkjer, the following:

Steinkjer has survived two major disasters in modern history. The first was a town-wide fire in the year 1900, which burned down much of the southern parts of the town. The second disaster happened on 21 and 22 April 1940, when the town was struck by Luftwaffe bombers during the Norwegian Campaign. Most of the town was destroyed, but no lives were lost.

It’s interesting that the buildings were destroyed, but nobody was killed.

And Kristiansund indeed was bombed and severely damaged on 28-29 April.

I wonder if those hardy Norwegians learned their lesson!

I don’t know why that startles me; God smiting cities that rejected the Lord’s messengers is an old Bible tradition. I think it’s the idea of the Nazis as agents of divine retribution that really seems odd.

Good read, though.