David Brinkley was one of the best known and most highly respected newsmen of the 20th century. From NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report to ABC’s This Week With David Brinkley, he was a regular face on television news for nearly 50 years. However, if it had not been for bureaucratic stubbornness, Brinkley probably would not have been around to experience that successful career.
In the fall of 1940, Brinkley was set to start his studies in journalism at the University of North Carolina. The clouds of war were hanging heavily on the horizon, though. He was well-informed enough to understand that the United States would eventually get involved in the war already raging in Europe. Rather than wait to be drafted, Brinkley joined the army. America was not yet involved in the fighting, so he spent a dull year in the stateside army waiting for the inevitable. However, before his unit was sent overseas, army medics decided that Brinkley had a kidney ailment. He did not believe anything was wrong with his kidneys and he never had a problem afterwards. Nevertheless, the doctors insisted and sent through the paperwork for him to be medically discharged. Brinkley went back to his home town of Wilmington, NC and got a job as a reporter with the local newspaper.
His unit was part of the D-Day invasion at Normandy and continued to fight the Germans as they advanced into France. A few weeks later, a fleet of American bombers flew out of England to bomb German positions. Due to the weather, they were unable to drop their bombs on their targets. They had to unload the bombs anyway and it just happened that the place where the bombs fell was right on top of the 120th Infantry’s Thirtieth Infantry Division – the unit with which Brinkley had served. 245 of 250 men in that group were killed by that tragic friendly fire mistake. The probability is high that David Brinkley would have been among the fatalities if the army medics had not insisted that he had a phantom kidney ailment.
Sometimes seemingly stupid and bullheaded notions thwart our ambitions and leave us frustrated. However, those apparently random detours to the courses we have planned for our lives can lead us to a far better place than where we would have originally ended up. Instead of filling a body bag in France, Brinkley went on to a distinguished and influential career. Who knows where our disappointments may lead us?
Christians naturally see the finger of God in many of these apparently chance events. Such divine intervention is impossible to prove, but we do know that God loves us and that He wants things to work out for good in our lives.
