From what I understand, it was a pretty popular movie, mostly about a group of friends from a town in Pennsylvania, and their experiences while serving in the military in Vietnam, and after.
I was living in Southern California at the time, and went to see the movie one evening. I was dressed in a casual but neat suit jacket and slacks; was clean shaven, and looked a little out of place among some of the more "hippy" types. As I was standing in line, a slightly unkempt younger fellow came up to me and out of the clear blue sky asked: are you a NARC? That is, a narcotics officer. No, I said. I just want to see how this movie is going to portray those who were in Vietnam, as I was. I guess that satisfied him, and the short conversation ended...
In 1975, after Vietnam fell to the Communists. some of those that had served in the Army stayed behind for any number of reasons; money, adventure, maybe they were so messed up in the head, they just didn't want to go home (I guess you could call it PTSD, but that phrase wasn't in vogue at that time); who knows...
In the movie, there was a scene of one of the former military brothers playing Russian Roulette with a bunch of low-lives sitting around a dirty table filled with money and a few guns. The idea was to bet on each guy after he spun the cylinder of the revolver, then put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. If the gun didn't go off, then he won the bet. If, on the other hand, he was unlucky enough to have the chamber with a round in it (there was only one round in the cylinder that held 6), then he blew his brains out; he obviously lost the bet -- and his life.
I might add that he probably also lost his soul too.
Hence, the title of my article: Playing Russian Roulette with your soul.
The point here is that no matter what circumstances one is faced with in this life: happiness/unhappiness/success/failure/money problems/illness/family problems/no family at all, an endless list here...
We are all responsible for what happens to our souls. We cannot, and should not, blame others, or, in the case of the decline in our dependence on what some call "organized religion," and maybe kicking God out of our lives, we are still accountable for all our actions/inactions, words and deeds. To think otherwise, is to play that very serious and deadly game of Russian Roulette.
I can direct this short article to fallen-away, or lapsed Catholics, but it should apply to all those who have lost that sense of our obligation to recognize and worship the One who made us, realizing that there are, in fact, "rules and regulations" that we have to live by, like it or not.
Pride will often tell us: no-one is going to tell me what to do! Ah! But someone is! Can you guess who? If there is an absence of good, the opposite will fill the void, and that "opposite" can wind up directing our lives to the point of no longer applying the Natural (moral) Law to what we say or do. And, as we can see what is happening in society today, the loss of the sanctity of life can, and usually does, lead to the cheapening of the gift of life and the consequences that go along with it.
Another long list: contraception, abortion, euthanasia, homosexually, and the weakening of marriage, and from that, the potential destruction of the family unit -- the building block of society.
To all fallen-away Catholics: come home, and those not in the Church, an open invitation to come into the one Ark of Salvation that Christ died to establish for all mankind...
Pray for our country..
Gene DeLalla
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