Posted by:
amos2
(
)
Date: May 09, 2013 01:34AM
Sorry about the Spurs' 91-100 loss to Warriors, it's still early in the series 1-1.
OK, my motion: same place as last time- Chuy's on I-10 at UTSA, 7pm, Tue 14 May.
Now, a story about San Antonio...I was here several years ago for another military course. I was fully TBM but in a rather insecure and compensating phase. You know, extra faithful, hadn't masturbated in years, 30 min BoM every day, and went out of my way to find LDS services on-post (most LDS members in my position, I found out, went off-post).
I showed up at church and found that there was a cadre of local members called to minister to the transient personnel in-training on this base. Most of us were YSA's aged 20-30 and would be in Iraq and Afghansitan soon. I wasn't a YSA however. I was quit older, married with kids and, frankly, was the only officer (albeit barely a lieutenant) who attended on-post services (officers were free to leave post on weekends and later I found out some were attending a local ward). The on-post branch probably thought I was out of place, but to me, out of place meant meant-to-be.
A particular instructor played audio recordings of THE most fantastic WWII heroics of an LDS veteran. For a few weeks I listened in awe as he pepped us up for combat tours "according to LDS standards".
That meant not only avoiding the common "vices" of soldiers, but remembering the heroic acts of Book of Mormon warriors and...at least one AMAZINGLY heroic LDS WWII vet.
But, coincidentally, I had kind of a side-hobby of studying WWII history.
This LDS vet's audio seemed incredible. I knew the few largest battles of the Pacific War, which his stories trumped! He specifically claimed to have been among just 3 survivors from a ship of 3,000 who were wiped out in one hour storming some generic island he didn't name. The very worst landing of the Pacific, Iwo Jima, was barely that bad. Yet he didn't mention the name of the landing. To be in the most epic landing and NOT name it is utterly atypical of WWII vets, who usually name their battles. That's like being at Normandy and saying he just landed on some generic beach, like it just happened like that all the time.
That triggered a childhood memory of my mom complaining about a GA who made up WWII stories...because my grandpa, who was an actual WWII vet, was incredulous about him.
So I did some homework.
Sure enough, the audios were the work of Paul H. Dunn, a known charlatan who was even censored by the church back in the early 1990's when his stories were exposed as fakes.
What I DIDN'T know until then was that a BYU professor and relative of Elder Packer lost his job for telling the press about it, after it was apparent the church did not intend to take any public action.
Dunn's stories had been widely sold and circulated since the 1960's, and my still-TBM FIL even told me they were staples of LDS culture much of his life. He was sad about the scandal, but he thought it ended in the early 1990's when it all came out.
Yet here I was in 2007, and many others, getting these fictional heroics on my way to Iraq as the LDS "standard".
The obscenity of it was clear to me, TBM or otherwise.
To make sure, I did some research. I even paid to subscribe to the Church News just so I could access old archived stories online. I printed Dunn's apology/confession, which ran in the Church News in the early 1990's (albeit short and not front-page). As a faithful TBM I was aware that criticizing a GA was thin ice, but golly this was necessary...fiction was being taught in church! I figured the instructor would thank me for the candid tip...if I backed it up with church sources.
No.
He reacted with passive-aggressive contempt for me, and toward the BYU professor who "was told" to keep quiet and "disobeyed".
I was stunned.
This guy intended to keep using this material because he had a "testimony" of it, even though the Church News carried a church censor of Dunn. As a TBM it was very confusing to me. I knew Dunn was a fraud, the church even said so, but because this bother had his own testimony of Dunn's work, he "slayed the messenger", me. He didn't talk to me after that. He looked at me like an...apostate (however I didn't actually apostatize for several more months, for unrelated reasons).
What a difference 6 years makes. I'm back in San Antonio temporarily, in the exact same footprint as when that happened. I see myself back then, and the mental fog I was in. I pass the chapel every day. LDS services Sunday 1300, among other services.
I wonder if they're still preaching Paul H. Dunn.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2013 02:26AM by amos2.