There is a price that is paid
May 25, 2026
By Jeff Becraft
On my way in today, I passed a guy who lives in our community. I often see him walking through our neighborhood. He is a Marine. He is retired but as they say in the Marines – once a Marine, always a Marine.
He was at a four-way stop waiting for the bus with his son. I rolled down my window and said, “Thank you for what you’ve done for our country.” He smiled and walked closer to my car and says, “What branch were you in?” I responded, “I wasn’t in a branch.” I continued, “But I’m heading to work, and today I’m going to go out to lunch and I’m able to do all that stuff because of what you and people like you have done. So, thank you very much!” He was very appreciative.
Granddaddy, my Mom’s dad, fought in World War I. He was a combat engineer. That meant that at nighttime he had to crawl out of the trenches into no-man’s-land under enemy fire and fix the barbed wire barriers that had been damaged by shelling.
In those excursions out into no-man’s-land, he would come across dead bodies strewn about everywhere on the ground.
For my entire life that I knew Granddaddy (he passed away when I was 11), he had flat white hair. He told my older brother that when he went into the war, his hair was jet black; but every night, crawling out there into no-man’s-land, scared him to death, and he came home with totally white hair.
There is a price that is paid.
Grandaddy really didn’t talk much about fighting in the war or any of the heroics of his life or the acts of courage he was a part of.
Real heroes rarely talk about themselves.
In fact, I heard a World War II pilot talk one time and it was such an honor to hear him. But he said, “We don’t want to keep talking about it… It’s you all that want us to keep talking about it.”
If anything is free, then that means someone else paid for it. Some have paid the ultimate price.
I am at work today and I am heading out to go through a fast-food drive-thru and I will be doing other things this weekend. I can enjoy the freedom to do all those things because someone laid down their life for me.
They gave their life that I might live.
Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope located in Columbia, South Carolina, where people find encouragement to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. Jeff has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. If you would like Jeff to speak to your group or event, you can connect with him at [email protected].
