Alma 53

The Nephites forced the Lamanites to bury their own dead as well as the Nephite dead, all under guard, of course. After the burials, Moroni made them start digging a Lamanite-style trench around Bountiful. He knew they were good at this.

With all these free undocumented laborers, he also had them build a wooden wall up from the trenches, with a latticework of planks in the trenches and trench dirt piled against the exterior base. So now Bountiful was a big fort. What they thought was an eternal fort. But nothing lasts forever, as we know. Certainly not walls, anyway.

It was a wall to keep people out, but also keep prisoners in. Moral: we often end up building our own prisons. Here endeth the lesson.

But the story goes on. Moroni had a habit of preparing for war. So he kept his troops busy arming and training, just in case. Peace is an addiction that demands constant, painful injections.

Unbeknownst to him, the Lamanite armies in the southwest had gained ground and recaptured a few cities. Moroni later blamed this on dissent among his own troops. He hated dissent. Also espionage, unless he was doing it.

Now, an update on the Ammonites, those Lamanites who’d been converted, moved to Zarahemla, and were under Nephite protection there. They’d vowed never to fight again and relied on the generosity of others for protection. They’d have been hacked apart long ago if not for their Nephite protectors.

Now, with the waning of memory and the constant news of danger among the Nephites, they were ready to drop their vow and arm themselves. Fortunately for the vow, Helaman persuaded them not to drop it. He convinced them they’d go to hell for being oathbreakers. They had made a covenant with God.

Their children, though, were another matter. They hadn’t actually taken their parents’ vows. So they enlisted, two thousand of them. As Nephites, mind you. They swore their own oath: We will fight subservience, any time, any battlefield. Just give us the clubs, swords, spears, bows, arrows, slingshots, rocks, pickaxes. It’s all good.

They picked Helaman for their leader, which seemed a great resolution to this seeming mess.

They were all young men, of course, and obviously had grit, not to mention young muscles and bones to march and swing metal with. And they had a reputation for reliability, which they had learned from their parents who swore never to fight and never did. Religious, too. Way religious.

Helaman marched them to the southwest, to meet the Lamanite insurgents. All this was at the end of the twenty-eighth year of the judges’ reign.