Friday, November 6, 2009

Bored Soldiers



This is a great and funny video about the activities that bored soldiers take part in. On the surface it appears that this has no similarity to events in The Book of Mormon. We read in Alma 55 that:

7...the Nephites were guarded in the city of Gid; therefore Moroni appointed Laman and caused that a small number of men should go with him.
8 And when it was evening Laman went to the guards who were over the Nephites, and behold, they saw him coming and they hailed him; but he saith unto them: Fear not; behold, I am a Lamanite. Behold, we have escaped from the Nephites, and they sleep; and behold we have taken of their wine and brought with us.
9 Now when the Lamanites heard these words they received him with joy; and they said unto him: Give us of your wine, that we may drink; we are glad that ye have thus taken wine with you for we are weary.
10 But Laman said unto them: Let us keep of our wine till we go against the Nephites to battle. But this saying only made them more desirous to drink of the wine;
11 For, said they: We are weary, therefore let us take of the wine, and by and by we shall receive wine for our rations, which will strengthen us to go against the Nephites.
12 And Laman said unto them: You may do according to your desires.
13 And it came to pass that they did take of the wine freely; and it was pleasant to their taste, therefore they took of it more freely; and it was strong, having been prepared in its strength.
14 And it came to pass they did drink and were merry, and by and by they were all drunken.


This is an excellent description of the average soldiers life. They receive a small amount of rations and their leaders often put them on boring guard duty. Thus they try to supplement their rations with stolen goods. And they try to dull their boredom by drinking.

I'm amazed at how even the casual details included in The Book of Mormon still include wonderful bits of information.

2 comments:

nephite blood spartan heart said...

The second guy inside was you right?


My 4 year old son came in half-way through that and said-"Hey those G.I.Joes are silly."

Morgan Deane said...

lol, I actually did this to my zone and district leaders on my mission. Something about getting lots of bored guys together makes you do crazy stuff like this.

My two year old daughter looked at the video with the strangest look on her face. It was priceless.