Even in war moral power is to physical as three parts out of four. ~Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

It was 1917 and America had just entered the First World War. Througout the nation, soldiers were preparing for the voyage that would allow them to defend their nation’s honor across the seas in places like Belgium, America, and France. Knowing that many of these American warriors would never return, and that all of them would need a guide for their conduct in battle, the New York Bible Society determined to give each soldier a pocket New Testament. They also asked former President Theodore Roosevelt, himself an outspoken Christian, to compose a message for the inside cover. His words framed a warrior code for that generation and have come to be known as the Micah Mandate.

The teaching of the New Testament is foreshadowed in Micah’s verse: “He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you; but to do justice and to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8)

Do justice; and therefore fight valiantly against those who stand for the reign of Molech and Beelzebub on this earth.

Love mercy; treat your enemies well, suffer the afflicted, treat every woman as though she were your sister, care for the little children, rescue the perishing, and be tender with the old and helpless.

Walk humbly; you will do so if you study the life and teaching of the Savior, walking in His steps.

Remember, the most perfect machinery of government will not keep us as a nation if there is not within us a soul, no abounding of material prosperity shall avail us if our spiritual sense is atrophied. The foes of our own household will surely prevail against us unless there be in our people an inner life which finds its outward expression in a morality like unto that preached by the seers and the prophets of God when the grandeur that was Greece and the glory that was Rome still lay in the future.

In these words, Roosevelt both put the war in spiritual perspective, and told America’s soldiers wht it meant to conduct themselves with honor. He first assured them that they were fighting a system of evil, one demonically empowered like the pagan empires of old. Then he gave them an ethical code, telling them how to treat women, their enemies, the weak, and the dying. And he called them to live humbly, to realize that success in battle, much like success in life, depends upon honoring the God who rules men’s destinies.

This charge became a creed and a warrior code for men in the field. They quoted it to each other in times of duress and took their New Testaments home to give them to the children they would one day have. The words captured the dream of a civilization distilled into the kind of code a warrior can live.

Eighty-eight years later, a battle-weary sergeant in Iraq was shown Roosevelt’s words on a reporter’s Palm Pilot. “God,” he said, the admiration obvious in his voice, “I wish we had such a thing for OUR war.”

Source: Mansfield, Stephen; The Faith of the American Soldier; Penguin Books Ltd., 2005; p. 113-114