Troops hear message of strength at national prayer breakfast

[unhappycamper]

Troops hear message of strength at national prayer breakfast
By Matt Millham, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, February 13, 2008

MANNHEIM, Germany — At the national prayer breakfast Tuesday at Benjamin Franklin Village, Col. John Read told the more than 100 attendees that ongoing conflict has fostered “grasshopper complexes” throughout the Army, and encouraged them to rely on their faith to overcome those feelings.

The term, which Read interpreted as a self-perception of inadequacy, refers to an Old Testament passage in which spies sent to scout Canaan falsely reported to Moses that the Israelites wouldn’t win against the Canaanites.

“To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them,” a spy said in the story, which Read recited.

The message of Read’s speech was, as the themes of the Army’s national prayer breakfasts usually are, uplifting. The breakfasts are a spinoff of the national prayer breakfasts held each year since 1953 in Washington.

President Bush, at the national breakfast in Washington on Thursday, told the crowd, “In prayer, we grow in meekness and humility.” He later added, “In prayer, we also grow in boldness and courage.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52429