No Greater Love: Unity Is Our Greatest Strength | The Rob Maness Show EP 475

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” —John 15:13 is how American troops feel about each other. We believe there is no difference between us, regardless of the circumstances we were born into. The newest Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says it best, our Unity is our greatest strength. Even in the recent times of attempts to divide us by things like skin color again through misguided policies, we do not see our teammates through that lens, only the lens of our common mission, fighting and winning America’s wars. Charles Jackson French saw things the same way on that day he volunteered to return to Navy service after Pearl Harbor, and he certainly proved it through his heroic actions of great valor to save his shipmates without regard for his own safety after the USS Gregory was sunk in combat off the coast of Guadalcanal in 1942. Petty Officer French’s story is intertwined with our own, and the history of our country. We are responsible for honoring Charles story, but telling it to our children and grandchildren, for those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes. Petty Officer French’s story is also one of human frailty. He apparently suffered from post traumatic stress, as many of our veterans today suffer, and passed away relatively young in life, addicted to alcohol as a likely way to sooth his demons. Today I’m honored to have as my guest Carole Engel Avriett today. Carole is a military historian and author of a wide variety of Christian books, as well as having been the Homes editor for Southern Living Magazine. She’s here to talk with me today about her book, Midnight in Ironbottom Sound: The Harrowing WWII Story of Heroism in the Shark-Infested Waters of Guadalcanal.