“Commitment to Love”–A Classic

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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. — 1 Corinthians 13:7,8

The Beatles sang, “All you need is love . . . love” and Captain & Tennille sang, “Love . . . . love will keep us together.” Is that true? Experience says “no”—it takes more. What it takes to keep a marriage together, especially during the challenges of war time, is commitment.

No one knows that better than Clebe and Deanna McClary, and Deanna’s autobiography of their Vietnam War years is entitled Commitment to Love. It’s a classic. And because it is so candid, and so hopeful, it should be shared for the truth it has to pass on to marriages today.

Early in the book, Deanna states this very thought: “. . . perhaps my story will make some of the struggles in your life and marriage more bearable. In this day of quick fixes, speedy divorces, instant answers to life’s most difficult questions, my prayer is that something here might inspire you to press on regardless. It’s the tough choice, the careful solution, the lengthy, agonizing struggle, that produces the most beautiful results. Sometimes it seems like a blind investment, having no idea of the return for your effort. Yet somehow you believe that one day, God will work everything out for His glory.” (p. 30)

Their rocky courtship before and during Clebe’s Marine Corps training led to their engagement and marriage in 1967—she only nineteen years old. Shortly thereafter he received orders for Vietnam, with plans for Deanna to stay behind at Quantico. They weren’t even married a year when she got a telegram notifying her of Clebe’s injuries received while under fire on his nineteenth patrol with the First Marine Division’s First Reconnaissance Battalion. She learned that ten of the unit’s thirteen men were dead or wounded . . . . and Clebe barely survived after losing an eye, an arm and suffering multiple internal injuries.

Deanna describes the first time she saw Clebe after his medevac flight to Bethesda: “The emaciated man before me had my husband’s voice . . . . Anything and everything that physically represented Clebe before was now either gone, ravaged, sewn, or full of fragments.”

Theirs is a long story with twists and turns . . . but one of endurance and recovery. When many wives would have turned around and left, saying something like, “I didn’t sign up for this,” Deanna clung to her promise of covenant love.  She stayed with Clebe through the excruciating months (years) of therapy, relying on her nursing training and a newly-discovered stamina and independent spirit.

In one of the most poignant sections of the book, Deanna described at length her decision to “stay”:

“Years later some family members revealed their early fears. They hoped and prayed I would stay with Clebe because they could see how he responded to me. They knew my faithful love was the key to his rehabilitation.

• I didn’t stay just because it was the right thing to do. I wasn’t a martyr, certainly not a hero. How could staying with the man I loved put me in his category, a true hero who sacrificed his body and risked his life for his country?
• I didn’t stay only because he needed me, though it was clear that he did . . . .;
• I didn’t stay because I was afraid of what people would say if I left;
• I didn’t stay because I enjoyed the functions of my role . . . . ;
• I didn’t stay for any hope of recognition or glory . . . .;
• I didn’t stay because God told me to, because I wasn’t even a Christian at that time. Had He promised that if I stuck with Clebe He would give him a ministry beyond our wildest imagination, a chance to share Christ with people of all ages and walks of life all over the country, it would not have motivated me. That’s not where my heart was.
• I didn’t stay because Clebe begged me to. . . . ;

The fact is, I knew almost from the beginning that the man I saw in that hospital bed was the man I had fallen in love with. I never dreamed of leaving. Leaving wasn’t an option.” (pages 28,29)

After the years of speaking engagements, the books, the movie . . . . all chronicling what Jesus Christ has done in the McClary’s marriage and life, Deanna concludes: “Many wives tell me that they could never have done for their husbands what I have done for mine. I find that shocking. People are always looking out for their own interests; that’s why marriages break up . . . . I know there is no perfect marriage. But there is a perfect Savior. In spite of all the obstacles and challenges and unique demands placed upon us, we can choose to rejoice in the Lord, ‘I will rejoice in the God of my salvation, He is my strength’ . . . . My commitment to love is my gift to God for His gift of life to me. May you view your commitment to love in a new light after reading this book.” (pages 202, 220-221).

Clebe and Deanna McClary’s story may be forty years old, but it is a timeless classic. Thank you, Lord, for the gift of your grace to take a young couple through the horrors of war with the ability to encourage us all in these days.

Work Cited:

McClary, Deanna (with Jerry B. Jenkins), Commitment to Love (Pawleys Island, S.C.: Clebe McClary Inc., 1989)

Questions to Share:

1. In what ways does the McClary’s story speak to you about endurance during the tough times of marriage?

2. Marriage is meant to be a covenant and not a contract. What do you see to be the difference?