The Christian Soldier
The preacher came out to visit a man that was on the prayer list of
the church for a long time. This was the first time he had caught
the man home, to talk with him. The preacher said, We’ve been
praying for you son, the whole church has, for a quite a while now.
I know the Lord has been speaking to your heart.
The man said, You know I want to believe and I guess I should,
but I just can’t. The preacher said, Can you tell me anything about
why you can’t? He said, My dad, he was a Christian, he believed
every word the Bible said. But he didn’t come back from
Vietnam, he was listed as a MIA (Missing In Action).
The preacher said, A lot of good Christians have died in wars over
the years. The man said Yeah, but this one was for nothing, he
didn’t die for a good cause, his death was meaningless. How
could God let a Christian like my dad die for nothing like that?
The preacher said, I’ve got something to show you, for some
reason God lead me to bring this with me this time. I think I know
why now, he wanted you to hear this story.
The preacher pulled out a small box and opened it up. Inside the
box was a purple heart and a small cross on a chain to be worn
around your neck. The preacher said, I got this purple heart in
Vietnam, and this cross. It means more to me then this purple heart
does. I was saved twice in Vietnam by the same man, I had never
met him before that day. I don’t even know his name, all I know is
was a Christian man.
One day in Vietnam I was loaned out to another group, my regular
unit was down to just a few men after a big battle. I was told to
jump into a helicopter as soon as I had arrived. There was about
30 different ones to choose from, I just climbed into one of them.
They flew out deep in the jungle someplace and dropped the ropes
down through the trees tops for us to repel down. The jungle was
so thick you couldn’t see the ground. We didn’t know if we would
land on quick sand or what was at the bottom of the ropes.
The Officer in charge pointed to me and the man carring a radio
on his back, to go down first and check it out before sending any
more men down the ropes. We repelled down the ropes as quick
as possible, you had to or you might get shot on the way down by
a sniper.
We landed right in the middle of a village full of North Vietcong.
There was no way to go back up the ropes, all we could do was try
and make a run for it. So we took off running down the main
street of the village. They were shooting at us from every where,
out of the windows and door, from on top of the houses and even
from underneath the houses, all around us lead was flying.
He managed to get out over the radio as we were running "Abort!,
Abort!, Ambush!, Ambush!", This kept anyone else from coming
down and getting into the same mess we was in. They shot the
radio right off his back, they shot my canteen and ammo belt off
me too.
Some how, we made it out of the Village without being killed. A
whole bunch of them was chasing after us, firing at us every step
of the way. The more they shot the faster we ran. Until they shot
my legs out from under me, I was hit seven times. Two times in
the left leg, two times in the left hip, three times in the right leg.
The man asked, What did it feel like being shot so many times,
even once would hurt real bad? The preacher said, I was lucky, I
didn’t feel a thing, I was numb from the waist down. My legs just
quit running and I went down. I would have been a goner, but that
Christian stopped and threw me over his shoulder.
He was running as hard as he could go to get way, with me over
his shoulder. I was shooting my M-16 back in the direction of the
Vietcong chasing us. I don’t know if I hit any of them or not, I
couldn’t get my head up high enough to see anything, being
draped over his shoulder like I was. They quit chasing us after a
little while, for a short time at least.
The man said, How did you know the radio guy was a Christian?
The preacher said, After they quit chasing us he put me down and
tore up his shirt to make bandages with, to stop the bleeding .
While he was doing that, he was praying for me to be all right. I
seen this cross around his neck. He took it off his neck and put it
around mine. The he said, I’ve got Jesus with me, so he is here
with both of us.
The preacher said, I wasn’t a born again Christian then, like I am
now. That was OK, because the Lord was with us both. The
Vietcong started chasing after us again, I couldn’t help this time,
I’d lost too much blood already. I passed out and he carried me
about 20 more miles. I guess the Vietcong caught up with us
again some place during that 20 mile stretch. The men that found
us said he was shot up pretty bad. He bled to death carring me all
that way. He was carring a AK riffle instead of his M-16 when
they found us. 48 hours had passed from the time when we had
been dropped off into the middle of that V.C. village.
I can only imagine what went on after I passed out, and until the
time that they found us. He didn’t have a shirt on, or any dog tags.
There was nothing to let anyone know who he was. The
helicopters carring his body back, was shot down, and none of
those men, or the bodies were recovered from the crash site, it was
in an area held by the V.C. army through out the rest of the war.
The preacher said That is all I know about the Christian man that
saved my life twice in Vietnam, except for maybe one other thing.
The man said What is that? The preacher said, I think he was your
father, and he would want you to have this. The preacher handed
the man the cross that he had carried in the box, next to the purple
heart for many years.
The man felt that maybe it was his father, it sounded just like the
kind of thing he would do. Christ had lifted the burden off him,
that had been in his way for so many years. His father had not died
for nothing, whether or not this was his father that had saved the
preacher twice, he knew his father had died trying to help another.
He gave his life to Jesus on that front porch, while talking with the
preacher.
Written By : Johnny lee Hall
