As student: In my hospice training I learned of a man, a retired Army general, also in his nineties, pondering the same question, "why?" As he lay in his hospital bed nearing the end with cancer, he posed this question to our hospice psychologist, "I've commanded troops around the world having a complete and successful life.
In a perfect world I would pick seven, six private soldiers and a lance corporal in the battalion that I know, that I have commanded before on operations and I know inside out, jocks that I know can do a job, but we don't get that luxury, we get who we are given.
Moreover, the "Great Commission" of Jesus declares: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28 19 20; compare Mark 16:15, Luke 24:47, John 20 21 22, and Acts 1 8).
Although there is no actual account of the institution of baptism by Jesus, the Gospel According to Matthew portrays the risen Christ issuing the "Great Commission" to his followers: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28 19 20).
Whilst in India he wrote of his regiment "I have commanded them for nearly ten years during which I have scarcely been away from them and I have always found them to be the quietest and best behaved body of men in the army".
I had command of my pitches".
"I feel like I had command of my pitches," Nova said in a whisper.
I had command of a precise and specialized vocabulary that I could summon more or less at will.
"From 85 to 88, if I have command of my pitches, I can get anybody out, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that," Martinez said.
"Saini explained who I was," Blyth recalled, "and I gave him my passport and some Malaysian documents stating I had command of the Petro Ranger, which the pirates had neglected to destroy.
Somewhere in this moment, my soul, somewhere in this moment all that I have known, all that felt, all that I have experienced have commanded me to say, what do you do now?" -- Harry Belafonte.
