The 1^st Infantry Division under General William Dupuy was moving North to reinforce Long Binh Province and secure the base camps we were not equipped nor intended to hold under the full scale assault the Tet Offensive had thrown against us. The division was moving in convoy from Saigon north on route one. Six kilometers south of An Loc was a one lane bridge. This bridge had to be held, or the armor of the division would be stuck. I took a platoon (32 men) of Montagnards to secure the bridge. We left base camp under the cover of darkness just before dawn. We arrived at the bridge without incident. From the cover of the jungle we watched the bridge for over an hour as the sun crept over the horizon. Nothing no movement, it seemed the bridge was intact, and there were no foes to be seen.

Working through an interpreter I instructed the platoon to divide with the interpreter and half the platoon to set up defensive positions on the North side of the bridge while I took the other half and secured the South end.

We broke cover together and ran for the bridge. I was the first onto the bridge and with the first step on the surface of the bridge heard a metallic click. With a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach I rolled onto the ground searching frantically for a target. I was positive the click was the safety being released on a weapon. A weapon that had me targeted, and I had no where to go.

Time froze, nothing moved, all sense of reality fled (it always did in the midst of real conflict, all is as a slow motion replay or dream). Then I saw the wire leading away from the bridge into the water below. Tracing the wire back up to the bridge I saw the mine on the support post at head height. A post where my face had been within a foot of a moment before.

The mine was one of ours, a Claymore. A type of antipersonnel mine that is essentially a metal plate covered on one side (the hot side) with plastic explosive into which is imbedded steel balls. The back plate has a slight concave face on the hot side. A blasting cap is set into the plastic on the top right corner and the whole sealed in epoxy. As little as 1.5 volts from a battery or detonator device and you clear a path twenty-five yards wide. Claymores don’t misfire, they are extremely reliable, even in the jungle with all the heat and moisture. This one did!

Coincidence? Most will perhaps speak of luck and destiny. I knew it was far more than this. I began this day like all others with a quick prayer for God to walk with me today. He did! Destiny? I prefer providence, God’s providence!

As impossible as it appeared to me for that mine to not fire, two similar incidents move it from chance to the hand of God’s diliberate ordering of things for His own purpose. The second experience was with a Claymore which did fire. It was exploded from the side of the road into a jeep I was driving, it turned the jeep over, but I was thrown clear. Caught outside our defensive perimeter with a rifle and only five clips in my pocket. Two miracles, first how the jeep was all but destroyed and yet not one pellet touched me in an open jeep is again nothing but the protection of God.. Second, there was no follow up to the ambush. I lay at the edge of the road a long time waiting for them to reveal themselves. I wish I could share the physical aspect of complete fear like that. I knew I couldn’t defend myself in this situation. I didn’t have any cover, and not enough ammunition to even take advantage of the full automatic position of the weapon. I could only wait and use what ammunition I had on clear targets. No one did appear and finally I made a hasty retreat back to An Loc. (It was always most frustrating that we were being killed by our own weapons, but that is another story.) Last trip I took alone and without all the ammunition I could physically carry. This was a quick trip from our base camp out to the division HQ which was set up on a French rubber plantation a mile and a half away, in what we considered secure ground.

The third is real similar to the second, except there were four of us and it was a gun jeep, that is we had a fifty mounted on a pod in the middle of the jeep. We could pretty well defend ourselves, or so we thought. We were moving from Saigon to Xuan Loc a few miles South where we were in the process of setting up a new A-Team base camp and communications center on a small hill. Hills are rare in the delta country, and being able to secure the hill and establish a communications link there would insure the rest of our teams in the delta area had at least one sure link back to the support centers in Saigon and Nha Trang. For the most part Special Forces used our own support and supply lines in the early days of the war.

This Claymore fired too! It took out the front of the jeep and the rear, and threw all of us into the ditch at the side of the road. Claymores do not fire partial patterns, yet not one pellet hit the center of the jeep, and except for one stray pellet in the leg of the driver, no injuries. Again, no follow up by the enemy. They fired the mine and moved on, not one shot fired.

Luck? No way! God’s providence is the reality of life in this temporal world. Providence is God’s powerfully ordering of human events so that all works according to his purpose. God can and does put His mighty hand between us and danger or in these cases death. God alone has numbered our days, and we do serve His purpose, whether we agree, believe it, or consider it proper.

When the mind is frozen in fear, and there seems no hope, knowledge of God and His so ordering all events in our life for good gives the ability to do what has to be done, despite the feelings, and circumstance of the moment.

If you had a magic wand, what in your life would you change? I pray it would be none, even that which you consider bad or evil. It is this order of events in exactly this sequence and timing which have made you, you. Change one thing and you are not who you are. God has intended every event and is in control, He is protecting you and has a purpose in this current situation. We may not see it until much later, but it is there. In hind sight we can see traces of His hand and know part of the purpose, I am not sure we will ever understand all of it. Of one thing I am positive though, you have a testimony of the sureness of God’s love and providence no other has. You alone can reach a person so intended by God to be reached by you. Surprise, you can fail to be used of God and miss that blessing, it will not change the outcome for the other person. It will cost you present blessings and future rewards as you stand before the judgment seat of Christ to be rewarded according to your earthly deeds. That which God used to comfort you will be a comfort to another and it is God’s will that we comfort others even as we ourselves have been comforted.. If there was no other good, being able to be of a real help to a fellow traveler through this veil of tears should be reward enough for anything we can undergo. I think we will find however there is always more good that we can see or praise God for.

The Bible tells us we must be tried as if by a refiners fire. A refiner of precious metals in those days sat by the fire and watched the precious metal in the furnace. The metal had to be removed at just the right moment, or it would be ruined, becoming flaky and useless to the artist’s hammer. He knew when to withdraw the metal because it shined and he could see his reflection in the metal. God has saw the need to send His precious children into the furnace. How much comfort to know that Jesus watches over us a refiner of precious metal and will remove us at the perfect moment, His beautiful reflection being in us.

No matter what you face today, where you are in the process of the refiner’s fire, Christ is watching and will bring you out of the fire at the moment of perfection. God has made you who and what you are, Share the wonder, share the blessing that is you. Another cannot do this for you, and it is the will of God, for we are blessed to be a blessing.

By:  Dr. Chuck Baynard