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In 1940, Langdon Gilkey, equipped only with a degree in philosophy from Harvard, went to China to teach English at Yenching University. Three short years later, he was taken prisoner when the Japanese Army came crashing into the city.
His confinement taught him a powerful lesson: fellow prisoners could be less merciful than the enemy.
During the last few years of the war, Gilkey and other POWs were housed at Shantung Compound near the Chinese coast. With every resource going toward the war effort, food rations and other supplies dwindled drastically. Prisoners were receiving only 1,200 calories a day, mostly bread, water, and some occasional stew. Malnourishment was rampant in the camp, and the prisoners dreamed of food as often as freedom.
Then one day, a shipment of 200 packages from the American Red Cross arrived at the camp, one for every American prisoner. The POWs were wild with delight! The parcels contained powdered milk, butter, cheese, chocolate, sugar, coffee, jams, dried fruit, fish, and yes, Spam. The packages were, in Gilkey’s own words, “manna from Heaven.” The American prisoners, accustomed to a meager diet, shared the extra food with their fellow prisoners from other nations.
But several months later, the food was gone, and conditions had once again deteriorated at the camp. Winter had come, and morale was at an all-time low. Suddenly, the week after Christmas, a team of donkeys appeared at the gates carrying even more Red Cross packages, this time too many to count! The Japanese guards counted almost 1600 parcels in all, and decided they could distribute one package to every prisoner (1,450 at the time), and an extra half-parcel to the 200 Americans.
Joy and excitement gripped the camp…but it would not last.
The following morning, much to their chagrin, the prisoners were informed that no parcels would be distributed. A small group of American prisoners argued against the distribution plan, insisting that only American prisoners should receive packages from the American Red Cross.
Gilkey did the math: those prisoners were demanding seven-and-a-half parcels for every American…with nothing for anyone else. The instructor would later write, “I felt fundamentally humiliated at being an American.”
Eventually, orders came from the guards’ superiors to distribute one parcel to every prisoner, regardless of nationality, and then ship the extra packages to other camps. The Americans forfeited a blessing because of their greed.
It’s very difficult to know the full dangers of greed. Maybe that’s why Jesus warned it could cause men to forfeit their souls.
Resource’s Origin:
Shantung Compound by Langdon Gilkey. Harper & Row, 1966, Pages 96-105.
Topics Illustrated Include:
America
Food
Greed
Hungry
Mercy
Prison
Prisoner
Sharing
War
World War II
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
