STAND IN THE GAP

Time: June 1970

Place: Ft. Jackson, SC.  

The tall, lanky young man who entered our barracks had a “lean and hungry look.” Our drill sergeant introduced him to me. 

In basic training for only a few weeks, I had been placed in charge of a platoon of 35 or so fellow trainees housed in our barracks.  

I probably was picked to serve as an “acting sergeant” over a platoon because I’d taught school for a year and, at age 23, was older than most draftees or recruits.

We were several weeks into our 8-week training program, so I wondered why the stranger — let’s call him “Angler” — was “recycled” into our company made up of five platoons.

The Army recycled men during basic training if they failed to perform physical training to an expected level. Recycled GIs had to return to an earlier part of training and move from company to company until they met standards or were discharged. Angler appeared physically fit, so I wondered if his problem was mental or social.     

Angler was left-handed and said he was a boxer. His large hands dangled from long arms. He seemed to fit into our platoon, but there was an edginess about him and, to me, his eyes appeared wolf-like. 

Within days after Angler’s arrival, I was summoned to do some work for the first sergeant. While I was away, Angler began picking at a young, handsome Spanish trainee I’ll call “Diaz,” a man smaller than Angler.

I learned that the two men ended up outside, fighting on the sandy lot located between our barracks and the next. Diaz went to the hospital. The MPs probably detained Angler. 

When I returned to the barracks, fellow trainees told me what happened. 

“Why didn’t you stop the fight?” I asked.

They gave no good answers.  

Tensions rise during basic training. There were other confrontations, especially toward the end of the training cycle, but the fight between Angler and Diaz was the worst.

Late that night, I saw Angler when he returned for his possessions.

“Why did you keep on hitting Diaz?” I asked.

“He kept on coming back,” he said.

Angler may have been recycled again, but I hope they threw him out of the Army. He seemed to be a lone wolf, looking for someone to sucker into a fight, looking for a man on which to vent his devilish anger.

The next day, Diaz returned for his belongings and to be recycled. His face evidenced blows to the cheekbones, the chin, and the forehead. Where Angler’s fists connected, Diaz’s skin had split, and an Army doctor had sewn up those long cuts with large stitches. 

Diaz’s face often appears in my mind. I hope he was later able to undergo plastic surgery.

When I think about Diaz and Angler and the men of our platoon who trained during the Vietnam Era, I think about the phrase “stand in the gap.”

In Ezekiel 22:30, the prophet says on behalf of God, “I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.”

During Old Testament times, cities had walls surrounding them to protect inhabitants from enemies. If a city wall had a breach (a gap) in it, an enemy could invade the city.

Ezekiel wrote his message during a time when Israel had wandered far from God, and “God was looking for someone who would stand between him and the people in the gap of their faithlessness and disobedience,” someone said.

“Standing in the gap” is often referred to in the matter of praying for or “interceding” for someone. Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of praying to God on behalf of others. The word “intercede” comes from the Latin “inter” meaning “between” and “ced” meaning “go.” So it literally means “go between.” 

But the term “stand in the gap” has become an idiom commonly used by the general public to mean “to expose one’s self for the protection of something; to make defense against any assailing danger; to take the place of a fallen defender or supporter.” 

Diaz needed someone to stand in the gap for him. He needed a man to step up and stop the fight that would scar his face. No one stood in the gap for him.

Is someone you know in a fight with Satan? Can you do something to help? Will you stand in the gap for that person?