Lesson From The Fields of Death I

Intelligence had place a North Vietnamese regiment in our area. I sat in a slick with five Americans from the 1^st Infantry Division Long Range Reconnaissance Platoon (LRP) and one native guide from our Recondo Platoon. We waited in the hot, stagnant, and acrid aircraft for the completion of the preparation of several LZs. None of which we would be using tonight. All of the artillery and gun-ship activity were a diversion. When the flotilla of choppers lifted off into the night, ours would not follow, but drop us in an area where there had been no preparation for a landing. Our task? Locate and report the position of the regiment moving into our area to complete the task of removing the four Special Forces camps blocking trails into Viet Nam from Cambodia.

Our four base camps had a total complement of some 75 Green Berets and 2500 South Vietnamese irregulars. We had been unable to even run routine patrols for several weeks. The 1^st had moved into An Loc, Long Bien Province to relieve the siege of our base camps. It felt good to have so many of our own people in the area and the heavy equipment and air power to defend ourselves for a change.

The 1^st Division had a whole infantry battalion on standby complete with armor to move when we reported the location of the enemy. They were going to keep gun-ships aloft as long as we were out. We would have air support within moments of contact if needed. This was dream time to us, we usually worked in pairs or alone with the local irregulars and sometimes with regular South Vietnamese units. However for the most part we lived off the land and worked in small patrols, making our reports and waiting for the air force to do its thing, then follow the retreat and report again so they could strike again.

After an eternity sitting in the chopper, it lifted and we moved into the semi-darkness. Thirty minutes later the nightmare began. We came into the LZ without lights and only a touch and go by the chopper that dropped us. We never made it out of the clearing chosen for the LZ. We were surrounded by Vietnamese voices from the moment we hit the ground. The diversion had apparently worked, and the chopper had been fast enough that the enemy around us didn’t realize we had jumped from the chopper. Choppers usually hugged the tree tops, so its nearness to the ground would not have been unusual in itself, and the US always prepped an LZ before dropping off troops.

We couldn’t move, not in the dark knowing we had enemy sentries on all sides. There had been a lot of chatter from all sides when we dropped to the ground from the chopper. We placed Claymore mines in a circle around us, much too close for safety, but as far out as we dared place them under the circumstances. The seven of us huddled in a tight circle waiting for the breaking of the dawn and enough light to move to a nearby LZ where we could radio for emergency extraction. We were not here to fight, just find and report.

With the fist hint of light we gathered equipment and our courage as we began to crawl through the shoulder high grass in the direction of the LZ. Moments later, perhaps we had moved some fifty feet, a soldier stood up inches in front of my face. He starred at me with a look of horror I will never forget. It only lasted an instant before I emptied the clip into him.

With the gunfire the area around us exploded with activity and gun fire. None of which seemed to be in our direction, we were inside the enemy perimeter and they were firing at nothing. I grabbed the radio and called for emergency extraction. Within minutes the call came back that the choppers were drawing too much ground fire and couldn’t reach us, to hold tight, help was on the way.

We pooled our ammunition and four of us took firing positions with the other three inside the circle to load and or fire to either side as needed should we be discovered. We didn’t stay hidden long! We began firing a pattern but knew we couldn’t keep this up. We also knew that as soon as we let up they would walk over us with never a second thought. We asked for ammunition and a chopper dropped it on our smoke grenade, literally in our lap. Some two hours and several more drops of ammunition later the infantry called and said to hold our fire, they were within range and we were shooting into their positions.

All of this to ask, how do you pray when the mere action of taking your mind off what you are doing for one second is death? How many of us will think about praying in the midst of the heat of battle? Answer, you don’t! You pray your heart out in the darkness before the crisis if you know it is coming. When the battlle is engaged, prayer will not be on your agenda.

The most powerful prayers of my life have been two or three words uttered in the rush of the moment before an engagement and never during, but with the certainty that God hears and answers this is enough. Such certainty doesn’t come from the heart or fervency of the moment, but a lifetime spent in awe of the awesome God we serve and the study of His Word. We all experience God every moment of every day if we will take the time to so note and praise Him in these calmer moments, the strength to endure the heat of the battle will be there from a soul deep belief fueled by the experience (Rom. 5:1-6).

The battle isn’t of necessity on some far away battlefield, but may be in the home, workplace, or streets of our community. Very often it may only exist within our own minds as the events of life coming so thick and fast confuse even the saints of God, and the tool of the devil we know as depression takes charge.

My very life in this sense I owe to a saintly Sunday school teacher who filled us with the Word of God and faithfully taught us about the faithfulness of God and His love for us. Annie Sue joined her Lord long ago, but her love for us, and the insistence that we "settle down" and learn the Bible have lived long after her earthly stay in the multitude of young lives she prepared for life.

The main church of my youth was a small church that couldn’t afford a full time minister. We had a retired minister come and fill in for us, for what ever love offering the church could provide. That saint, though long past the time and age when most have quit actively sharing God, faithfully preached twice every Sunday. He reenforced what Annie Sue poured into us by paying particular attention to us children and by every hook and trick he could muster, have us constantly engaged in a contest of who could memorize the most verses this week. I look back in wonder that in the midst of the poorest section of town and the most common of neighborhoods, he could inspire us to such lengths. I pray for a portion of his ability to reach young people.

While I want to engage the question of Christians at war and so-called lawful taking of another’s life, the real lesson for the moment is prepare today, for tomorrow may well be too late. You prepare by making God’s Word a part of your casual conversation by a constant daily sojourn in that everlasting Word, it will carry you safely though all the storms of life. This Word can face down the school bully, meet an unfair boss with dignity and courage, or receive the awesome message of an incurable disease for self or a loved one. God’s Word is life, and that more abundant.

By:  Dr. Chuck Baynard