| The Motive Behind The Red Shield back to 'The Red Shield'
The following account by General George Carpenter (1939 - 1946), appeared in the Red Shield booklet 'Service for the Services' in 1942
The Motive Behind The Red Shield Work
General George L Carpenter
There are many variations of that Great War Story in which a veteran returned from Flanders offered a London 'War Cry' seller 'a tanner for that Sally Army cup o' tea when I came out of the line, and a bob for the smile they stirred it with.'
All of them describe the motive behind the work of The Salvation Army for men and women of the Services. It is undertaken to add a little to their physical comfort, which effort is symbolized by the cup of tea, and to recognize and minister to the souls of the men and women in uniform, which is symbolized by the smile.
Every circumstance, in peace or war, is an opportunity for the watchful servant of Christ to aid his fellow men. Flood and fire, famine and pit disaster, earthquake and storm are doors through which, in time of peace, the Salvationist is expected to pass to serve and to succour. In war, the massing of armies and mobilizing of navies of sea and sky offer an infinitely greater challenge.
The means of service vary sometimes a frail tea-car drawn up close beside the barking Ack-Ack guns; sometimes a row of heated beds for men rescued from the sea; sometimes a quiet, tasteful room for a junior officer on leave; sometimes a sandwich flung into a passing train; sometimes a canteen nosing out into the Libyan desert; sometimes a crowded room in Iceland; sometimes a touch on the shoulder of the lad forgetting home standards of conduct - they are as varied as the signs on battledress shoulders. But the purpose is the same. Here are men and women called into abnormal conditions of life, and therefore subject to the strains and stresses of the abnormal. They need recognition as immortal souls. They need the ‘human touch’. They need, as much as in civilian life, reminders of God and their duty to Him.
As in the South African War from tents on the veldt, as in the First World War from hundreds of centres in Britain, France, and Flanders, as in the years of peace from Naval and Military Hostels at home and at overseas naval ports, in the Second World War we are striving to meet these needs.
A Hostel at Arras, used between 1918 and 1939 to minister to relatives visiting the graves of men who fell in Flanders, placed us first in the field. When the men of the 1939 B.E.F. arrived in the town, they found The Salvation Army there, long before work by voluntary bodies was officially recognized by the authorities in France.
During those quiet, sinister days before the storm, many Red Shield centres were established. Their value in maintaining morale was witnessed to by the constant demands for more, until the fall of France swept all that away.
But The Army’s Mobiles’ were at the Channel ports to meet the Dunkirk men, and now from 405 static centres and 200 Mobiles' in Britain, and from others in Iceland, the Middle East, India, Africa, Australia, the West Indies, Canada, the United States and elsewhere, the tea (and much else) is dispensed, and with it the smile, the word, the handshake, the guidance, the prayer that men marching toward eternity always need.
The Christian faith will need the ear of the men of this generation when reconstruction begins. We are winning that ear now, and riot a few hearts also.
General George L Carpenter - May 1942
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