Goodbye emotional combat gear

Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of

Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.

I hope the following message challenges, encourages and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

I was speaking up near Knoxville a little about a little over a

year ago and a woman come up to me and she said, are, have you

heard of Honor Air? And I said, yeah, I've heard of

it. You know, and they were taking

World War 2 veterans and Korean veterans where she said, well,

now we're taking Vietnam Veterans, which means you guys

are getting old. You know, our, our, you know,

that greatest generation has, has passed away.

I mean, there's last November I spoke to a luncheon in Atlanta,

400 veterans, one World War 2 veteran one, and then the Korean

and I guess us guys now. In fact, I was amazed at how

many grateful when we went, I went to Washington, DC in April

with 131 veterans, three Korean War Veterans and 127 Vietnam

Veterans and 1 Desert Storm veteran.

And, and, and we've, we went to all these memorials.

Now 30 years ago, right before we left here, we, I had done a

victory over Vietnam conference, facilitate a victory over

Vietnam conference at the 700 Club.

We did seven, I think in five years.

And the year before we moved to Chattanooga, we went to the wall

in Washington, DC, the Vietnam Memorial.

And when we went there, there's, you know, they have all the

statistics. You, if you know a name and

where they were born, you can go there and they'll give you a

piece of paper and your pencil and you make an edging of that

person's name that's engraved on the wall. 58,000 names of those

who paid the ultimate price in in Vietnam.

And my best friend Danny, I'll talk about just a minute, was

killed standing right next to me in our first major battle.

We had gone through all our training together.

He was my best friend and the 1st combat operator was killed

right next to me and saw I knew Danny died in February of 1966.

I went to the panel and I went to the to the book of the names

and there were 4 Daniels I didn't know.

I couldn't remember where, you know, I had a horrible time

remembering names and I still struggle at times because I

blotted it all. I didn't want to remember, I

wanted to forget. But there were 4 Daniels in the

Marine Corps that and that died in Vietnam in February of 1960s.

I couldn't remember his name. And people were going and they

were put into etchings and I, I couldn't remember his name.

And this time when I went, it wasn't so emotional because as I

was getting ready to go to Vietnam, but I did not know at

that time that God took all that pain, all that healing away.

And so this time I was able just to minister to the other people

that are there. But, you know, I went to the

World War 2 memorial and the Korean memorial.

Neither one of those were in Washington, DC Then the Vietnam

Memorial before they had the World War 2 and Korean Memorial

went to the Wall. And, you know, it's just it was

powerful to think of the the price of freedom, but, you know,

the ultimate price for our freedom.

Yeah. Yeah.

The veterans, you know, we, we owe a debt of gratitude to them.

But the one that paid the ultimate price for our freedom

is the person of Jesus Christ. And, you know, and I, I love,

you know what John said, when the sun has made you free, you

are free indeed. Amen.

When I joined the Marine Corps, you know, I, I shared this as a

first service, you know, and every now and then I'll mention

some program, you know, TV program that, you know, shortly

ago. They weren't even alive, Rod,

when that, that program, you know, come out and, and, and I

mentioned, you know, that when I volunteered to, to I've actually

volunteered to go to Vietnam. And I'd said I, because I knew

what combat was all about, you know, and I said, it's kind of

like when you get married. And there were people that did

that same thing. They just, they, they just

laughed. And what I mean by that is that,

you know, when you get married, you think you know what you're

doing. But then I'm going to let Pastor

Dave work that out with you. But, you know, I, I had seen on

TVI had seen John Wayne and the Sands of Iwo Jima 3 times.

And yeah, I see a couple, couple of my mature brothers here today

that you might remember. Tuesday night, Victoria Morrow

on combat. You know so man, I had to and

you know so I, I thought I've got this all figured out you

know so we. And when we shipped out to

Vietnam in the fall of 1965, man, I knew the war was going to

be over quickly because the Marines had landed and.

And like I said this, so Vietnam was a different kind of war.

It was guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare is where your

enemy lets you wait. So it's his advantage to let you

find him. And so one of the, our first

major operation, we were on a search and destroy mission South

of the of the Demilitarized Zone and we had 217 Marines that are

reinforced infantry company. And there was we got woken up in

the middle of the night, flown and we landed in a open field,

set up a perimeter real quick and, and from 2:00 till dawn, we

just, we sat there not knowing what was going on.

They got the squad leaders together, said OK, a village at

a S enemy's army post nearby had been overrun tonight by an

unknown size enemy force. And so they put us on

helicopters. We landed.

We start out at dawn and for hours and hours we kept

searching for this elusive enemy.

We would see signs that they've been there, discarded equipment,

some bloody bandages and, you know, all day, 2:00 in the

afternoon. I'm exhausted.

I'm, I'm barely 18, you know, I'm carrying about 50 lbs of

explosives and, and ammunition for the mortar crew.

And we're walking. I'm, I'm just, you know, I've

never been so tired of my life. And, and I remember looking at

my platoon Sergeant, who was a Korean War veteran who took us

new guys under his wing. And I remember asking, Sergeant,

are we going to take a break? And as I was talking to him, we

did not know that we had pushed a battalion of Vietcong regular

650 enemy soldiers into a tree line on a peninsula.

We had pushed them. They had nowhere else to go.

And we were walking across this open field and I remember as I

was asking my platoon Sergeant if we were going to take a

break, the enemy opened fire. And as I was looking at my

platoon Sergeant, I saw his head literally explode as a 51

caliber machine gun run hit him in the head, killing him

instantly. And I remember as I started to

throw myself down, out of the corner of my eye, I saw as my

best friend Danny took a machine gun run to the chest, killing

him instantly and he and throw him backwards.

And I remember throwing myself down to the ground and looking,

you know, I couldn't see anything but gunt muzzle flashes

in the tree line. And I remember shooting at an

enemy that I didn't, even, couldn't even see.

And so we lay there in the open field and I could hear our

company commander on the radio screaming over the, the sounds

of explosions. They were dropping mortars and

rockets and, and, and we were pinned down this field.

And I could hear him calling for artillery, calling for gunships,

calling for anything that would get, you know, suppress the

enemy's fire. And after about 15 minutes, the,

the command went up and down the line to assault the tree line

'cause we couldn't lay there exposed.

Now, I'm going to be real honest with you.

You know, I remember there was a movie nobody remembers, some of

those old people years ago, Audie Murphy played a civil, a

civil War movie called The Red Badge of Courage.

And at, I think it was the, the first battle that they had, some

of them dropped their weapons and ran.

And, and I'll be honest with you, I've never seen anybody die

before. And I'm laying there on the

field on fire in the jungle and I'm trying to get as low to the

ground as I can, really praying for the ground to open up and

swallow me. I did not want to get up because

I knew I would not. I would never make it to that

tree line. But then to my left, I saw my

fellow Marines get up. On my right, I saw my fellow

Marines get up and run to the battle.

And I didn't want to be, you know, because you depend on the

person on your left and on your right.

And so I got up and I knew it wasn't going to make it, but

somehow I did. I got the tree line.

It was over in 45 minutes. And at 45 minutes, my company of

219 Marines was reduced to 78 men, had not been killed or

wounded. And it took my my unit out of

the field. And then they asked for

volunteers. I remember I had two uncles that

were Korean War Veterans. They were Army, nothing

personal, you know, just, you know, and they were telling my

brother and I, you know, my twin brother, I joined the US is

never volunteered. You, you never, you don't tell.

That's, that's, you know, you volunteer to go in and you know,

they were volunteers. So they're asking for volunteers

to move from the bases out into the villages and live with the

people, train the local militia to take, you know, their, their

communities back from the Vietcong.

And so I went out, we moved into the village and, you know, it's

just, I love the people of Vietnam, but they, and, and, and

I felt sorry for them, you know, 'cause they, they faced

oppression. If, if they were, you know, ever

the enemy ever came in their village and they support the

Americans, they would kill them. You know, they would come to

villages at night, take their sons or daughters into the

jungle and make, you know, and make them become communist

soldiers and, and serve the, the communists.

And so, you know, we, we lived in the villages.

We, you know, we, we ate with them, we fought with them, we

bled with them. And sometimes we died with them,

winning the hearts and the minds and for the time that we were

doing at work, that they, they loved us.

We loved them. We built.

And so we, we began to know the territory around our villages.

We patrol day, night, afternoon and we we learned the area as

well as the people that lived there so that the enemy at that

time, before we started doing this, the enemy controlled the

night and the South Vietnamese army would withdraw to their

bases and the communists could do whatever they want.

When we moved in. Now they had to wonder when they

were going to run into us. And so I became a point man.

You know, a point man was a guy. You lead the patrol out your,

your job is to, you know, avoid the booby traps, avoid the

ambushes, find the enemy, kill them, and then get back to your

to your village. And, and I, I, I knew the whole

area around my village and I had, at that time we're, I, I

had good hearing. You know, I asked Shirley, what

was that person's name again? She goes, you know, that's not

what I heard. But anyways, a lot more fun of

that. So I, but I had good hearing.

I still got good peripheral vision, you know, guys.

And so I'm, I'm the point guy. Well, one day my squad leader

went on on R&R, you know, for a week out of the country.

And we, they sent us a new squad leader from our rear area.

And I didn't know why. So we're preparing for this

patrol that night. And I was telling them, look,

there's been a lot of enemy activity.

We're going to try to go out there and, you know, and disrupt

the plans they have to attack our village.

And so he and I got into a discussion.

I'd call it a discussion. There's an argument about how

did you know what we were going to do?

And so he got mad at me. He was a Sergeant.

I was a Lance Corporal. So he put me at the back.

You know, there was 13 of us, and I was #11 in in the line as

we went out on patrol. And so this Sergeant and I don't

know what he was trying to prove, but he's on a patrol.

We're going down a trail he had never been on, only seen it on

an overlay and a map. And as we were coming to the

fishing village where we were going to set up our ambush, he

was walking point and I was, you know, we're we're stretched out

on the rice Paddy dike. And I remember as we came into

the village, all of a sudden, the hare literally stood up on

the back of my neck and, and, and on my arms.

It's like something was wrong. And before I could even yell or

say anything, the enemy opened fire.

We had walked into what was called an L-shaped ambush and

the gunfire was just a horrendous and behind me, a mine

went off and blew me and the two guys behind me off the trail

into the rice pad. And I remember laying floating

on my back in the rice Paddy. Just, you know, the concussion.

I was dazed. I was, I was trying to figure

out what's going on what and I'm laying there and out of the, I

mean, literally it was like Ghost come out of the, the

jungle and anybody they, they went up and down the, the line

on the, the rice petty Armand on the trail and anybody was still

alive. They killed them, took all their

weapons, equipment and I mean probably less than two minutes

just disappeared like Ghost to get back into the jungle and I'm

laying there floated as my trying to get my senses and

after I finally where I could start to hear and get another

what was going on. I could hear some moaning and

the two guys behind me had taken the whole impact of the

explosion and we're we're seriously wounded.

And I got them up on the rice against the rice petty dike.

And they're, they're moaning, you know, and I'm trying to, you

know, keep them quiet because I expected them any minute that

they hear us and come back. And I remember crawling up the

trail to see if anybody was alive.

When I got to our radio man, our radio man was a big guy.

He was a Samoan, you know, think of the rock, you know, big guy.

And he was so big that when he fell backwards, when he was

shot, the radio was underneath him, you know, and they didn't

Even so that we had the radio, I called, we always had a platoon

on standby. Within 1/2 an hour they flew,

landed in the the rice Paddy dyke of the spread out.

They took the two wounded guys, put them in a medevac flight and

then we took the everybody in front of me had been killed.

You know, that Sergeant was shot 27 different times and you know,

and so they put me and my 10 fellow Marines and corpsman in

that helicopter and flew us back to the rear of the next morning.

They told me when I went to the company headquarters, they said

that that my friends had died on a, on a helicopter, never made

it to the hospital. And you know, and 118 year old

kid, 118 year old Marine survived that ambush and he

would carry the guilt of surviving for 23 years.

I did 2 tours back-to-back, you know, it was wounded twice.

And both times I wanted to get out of the hospital, get back to

my, my Marines as as fast as I could.

And then finally, you know, one day we had, we were on a fire

base and we got hit in the middle of the night and we, all

through the night, we fought the enemy off at dawn, you know, the

enemy withdrew and some, some helicopters landed.

Our, our division commander actually wanted to, you know,

get an update and they flew in. And so I'm standing there just

standing around. Somebody said, Helly, nobody

pronounces our last name right. You know, I've been called

brother hell so many times. But Helly and I here and said,

get on that chopper that you know, OK, you know, chopped on a

chopper and they flew me back to the Nang.

They said, get your gear, put me on a plane to Okinawa, Okinawa

to the States. Met my brother in Okinawa.

We both were coming back on the same day.

Got into LA. The a police officer said, you

guys are lucky just missed the protest protesters that were

throwing pig's blood on everybody in the uniform that

was coming back. And so we got, we got home this

little little humor here. We we got in a taxi cab and went

to my parents house, knocked on the door, you know, like 9/30,

10:00 at night. And the door opens and here's

remember that movie, you know, throw Mama from the train.

You know that here's here's that woman cigarette hanging for her

mouth, little thing on her head. And you know, Bunny slippers

with a big robe. And Ron and I are looking at

each other. We look up at the address, at

the address, look at her. And I go, hi, is my mom here?

And I thought, you know, maybe she had somebody stay at I don't

know. And she said, do I look like

your mother slammed the door right in our face.

My parents had moved. You know, that would be nice to

know. But so anyway, so now, so now

it's 1967 and, you know, things had happened because in Vietnam,

you know, the media so grossly distorted what was happening in

Vietnam that, you know, my mom said, Rod, look, I'm glad, I'm

glad you're OK. I'm glad you're home.

But this Vietnam thing, it's a little, you know, awkward

wasn't, you know, but it was like, but it's embarrassing, you

know, so let's do this. Let's not talk about it.

Let's just pretend like it didn't happen and let's get on

with our life. Well, I want to tell you

friends, I I wanted to get on my life.

I was so grateful to be alive and I and I wanted to forget.

But there's only one problem. And that was when I would go to

bed at night and I would close my eyes.

I would remember all over again, but I was very fortunate because

I was still in the Marine Corps and I was surrounded by guys

just like me that I could look at their ribbons under uniforms

and know where they've been, what they've done.

And there was that camaraderie, you know, that that Esprit de

corps, that fellowship. And so I was three years in the

United. I was a drill instructor for a

year and a half. That was that was interesting.

I didn't want to be a drill instructor and you know, I

believe in like having fun. And so, but it worked for me

because the recruits would say stay away from that guy.

He is crazy as it just guy. And so I did that for a year and

a half and then I re enlisted to be a criminal investigator.

You know, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, I had a better haircut.

And you know, I did that for about 20 months.

And so in 1970, I volunteered to go back to Vietnam.

And, you know, after I, you know, after I become a Christian

people I, I knew they'd say, dude, what was wrong?

What were you thinking? When, you know, you volunteer to

go back for 1/3 tour. And, you know, for a long time I

would just kind of nervously laugh it off and I'd say, well,

you know, I'm a Marine and, you know, we're just not that smart.

And you know, now, just so you know, we're the only ones who

can say that about ourselves. OK.

And I was just last one off and but really, and I realized 1 is

that by 1970, because of the media, because of the anti war,

this country had changed so dramatically that I mean, I

would put my uniform on and go somewhere and some peace

protester wanted to kill me for peace.

That was always interesting. And and or somebody call me a

baby killer. And when I was in Vietnam, there

was not, that's not who was killing the babies.

And you know, I just, I felt like this isn't my home anymore.

I don't recognize my own country.

And I felt more needed, useful, accepted 12,000 miles from home,

stinking Leech infested, rice Paddy, mosquito, malaria

infested. I felt more needed, accepted

there that I did in my own country.

And so I went back to Vietnam. I went back to the village they

had reorganized this, this the, the, what they were doing and

called it Combined Action Group. And we're, I was back in the

village. I had actually 3 squads of

Marines, a, a platoon of Vietnamese militia and we had

four or five village South of, of Dunang, the big military base

of Dunang that I was responsible for.

And we did the same thing. We started because they hadn't

been doing it the my, my predecessor had not to just they

stayed in the villages and the enemy was everywhere.

And so we began taking the night away from the enemy again.

And one one day we planned an operation.

We found we hit a gorilla base camp completely by surprise,

surround him in the middle of the night, hit him at dawn,

killed a bunch of Vietcong, captured a bunch of equipment we

had. There was so much stuff there

that we couldn't even carry it away.

So a couple days later, I thought it would be a good idea.

Let's load up with explosives to go out there and blow up these

bunkers so that they can't and the equipment so they can't be

used again. So as we started off, I was

walking point. Now, I shouldn't been walking

point and I didn't consciously know why I was walking point.

But in reality, you know, several years earlier that my

mind would always say if I had been walking point that night,

what I have known would you know, would we have walked into

an ambush? And so as I walking across the

field, it takes longer to tell the story than than the time

that took. But I stopped at the edge of a

field looking for trip wires and something flew through the air,

hit me in the in the the thigh and fell right in front of me.

And I looked down and laying at my feet was a grenade.

And before I could move, before I could think it, you know, is

it this is it registered? It went off just ripping me

apart and throwing me back several feet.

And when I hit the ground, it was the most incredible fear and

surge of adrenaline that I had ever experienced.

You know, I knew I was hurt and I knew that I needed to get away

from where I was. And I managed to struggle to my

feet. I had blood all over my face and

I reach up and wipe the blood out of my eyes and about 40 feet

from me, like where that cameras there was a there was a N enemy

soldier and had his rifle point at me and I saw the barrel

recoil and felt the bullets as they hit me and knock me back to

the ground. I mean, I hit the ground face

first. I had my face buried in the

ground and I was struggling to roll over because I was carrying

about 40 some pounds of explosive.

And I remember rolling over and I look up and that soldier that

I believe is the one that shot me was standing over me.

And I remember laying on the ground looking up at this young

man as he raised his rifle over his head and run his bandit

through my stomach as I was laying on the ground.

I thought this is not happening. This is this is a nightmare.

This is just it's not happening and I'm going to wake up and I'm

going to be OK. And the nightmare went on and

somehow I was able to get to my feet and I took a couple steps,

I felled, I struggled, got to my feet, took another couple steps

and fell, moving back to him. And finally I just fell and I

couldn't, I couldn't get up. I just rolled over and looked up

in a beautiful blue sky and and there were palm trees just, you

know, kind of blowing in the wind.

And there was a rice, freshly planted rice Paddy right right

next to the dike where I was laying with.

I watched the wind as it rippled across the freshly planted

emerald rice Paddy stalks and, and pain that I had never

experienced before just hit me, every part of my body.

And it hurt so bad that I just, I just wanted to close my eyes.

And, you know, I was tired, tired of the killing, tired of

the, of the, the suffering, tired.

And I just, I just, I knew I was going to die in that trail and I

just closed my eyes And then all of a sudden I was being dragged

across the field. And there was like a moment of

terror because I thought, if it's the communist, they have

me, you know, I'm, I'm in really deep trouble.

And then I heard a voice in my ear as my 21 year Old Navy

corpsman said, I've got you. I've I've got you.

And I remember them trying to stop the bleeding.

I remember them calling for a medevac flight that were not

available. A Marine helicopter, supply

helicopter, big double rotors. Sikorsky heard the crawl landed.

They put me in this great big open, you know, the cargo Bay of

this big helicopter in the middle on a stretcher.

And, and I remember looking over at the door gunner and he looked

over and just shook his head and looked out the window, never

looked back. It was about a 15 minute flight

and as we went higher and higher I could feel myself getting

colder and colder as the blood was just literally draining out

of me and they got me to less than 15 minutes.

I was in a triage at a hospital, 95th Army Evac Hospital, MASH

Hospital at Danang, at China Beach.

And I remember all the activity, the smells, the sounds, the

blood, charge skin, blood. I wasn't the only casualty.

And I remember a doctor coming up and put the mask on my face

and he said, son, we're going to take you down to surgery.

And over the next few days, I was in and out of consciousness.

I remember one day when I was an investigator, my training

investigator was a guy named Mike Smith.

Mike was a staff Sergeant. And I remember I woke up one one

day and, and Mike was leaning over what I thought was my bed

and, and you know, he was looking at him.

He had tears. He was an African American.

My, my trainer loved the guy. He'd have me over to his house

for dinner and his family and, and he was, had tears running

down his eyes. And he said, you're going to be

OK, You're going to be OK. And I never saw him again.

Some years later, my brother was at Camp Pendleton and I went to

visit him and he said, what was that guy, you know that that

trained you, that investigator? I said Mike Smith.

He said, we got a new Provost Marshall on the base.

He's a major, but his name's Mike Smith.

He's a black Marine. And so I went to the Provost

Marshall's office. I walked in and and I said his

Major Smith in and said, no, he's not in yet.

But I said, could I wait? And I said sure.

So I sat with my back to the door.

And so a little bit later, you know, he came in.

Shoot. The corporal jumped up.

Good morning. Eddie's corporal sat down.

So I got up, looked at him. I said, is this where I sign up

to? Is this where I can sign up to

enlist? And this guy looked at me for a

minute and I mean, his face went white, you know, and he's, he

says, helly. I said, yeah.

So we hugged each other. We cried.

He took me to the officers club for lunch, which is kind of cool

because I'm a retired Sergeant, you know, and we're talking.

I said, Mike, I said, I, I thought I saw you when I was in

the hospital. I said, was that you or was I

just dreaming? And he looked at me for a

moment. He said, you know, because I had

a top sheet or a security clearance, you know, when they

want to make sure you don't divulge something.

So he was sent there and he was standard.

He said when I got there, he said they had operate on you,

but they and you are still on the Gurney from the operating

room and they pushed you out into the hallway and laid a body

bag over the end of your your Gurney and you know, because you

weren't supposed to make it. And he he said and I didn't want

to see you die. I never knew how close I had

come. And so in and out of

consciousness, 6 days later my brother comes in and I wake up

and I don't know what I look like and, and he walks past my

bed and he stops. Where's the doctor?

Couple beds away. And he says, excuse me Sir.

He said I'm Sergeant Helly's brother, could you tell me where

my brother's AT? And the doctor looked at and put

the chart down and I could hear him.

I couldn't turn my head. I could see him out of the

corner of my eye. I said, he said, son, He said,

your brother's going to die. We've done everything we can do.

He's not going to make it. And my brother stood there and

he said, well, can I see him? He said, they told me he's in

this ward, but I can't find him. Apparently he had walked past my

bed a couple times. And so the doctor took him by

one arm and a nurse came over on the other side, walked him back

to my bed, stopped and just stood there.

And my brother turned and looked at this massive human rubble

laying on the bed, ripped apart 70 some shrapnel wounds, burns,

2 bullet wounds. And he stands there and his face

just went white and he started to to weep.

And he took a step toward my bed and his legs buckled underneath

him and he grabbed the the end of my bed just sobbing.

I want to tell you Church, I was I had never been so afraid in my

life. I had, I felt a fear that day

greater than anything on the battlefield.

And I, I was 22 years old, three months for my 23rd birthday and

I landed that I said, God, if there really is a God, if you

let me live, I'll do anything you want.

And I went to sleep passed out and I can remember off and on

over the next few days as I would wake up.

My brother was always there. He was on the floor sleeping or

sitting in a chair. One day was one night he got to

sleep in a bed that was not occupied.

And he told me some years later, he said about the 10th day, the

doctor took him aside and it would been on the 6th day he got

there. He'd been in the field and he

said the doctor took him aside. He said, he said, Sergeant, your

brother's going to live. He's a mess, but he's going to

live. And it was a few days, about a

week after that before they felt I was strong enough to survive

the flight home. So they put me on a plane.

And on the way to Japan to refuel, I started bleeding

internally. So they took me off the plane,

took me to the naval hospital at Yukushka Navy Base in Japan, had

five surgeries over a couple weeks.

Then they put me on another flight back home.

I got to Chicago, Great Lakes Naval Hospital outside of

Chicago, got into the when they got me, took me in to the triage

to change my bandages. It was taking the bandages off

in this foul smell filled the triage room and the doctor

looked at me, said Sonny said you got gangrene in your leg,

We're going to have to take it off.

That was a rhetorical question. You know, he wasn't I couldn't

talk because that was I was not in agreement with that.

And so I'm in over the next few days, I would wake up different

times in that day. And this doctor at a team like

morning, night, middle of the night, this guy was working on

my leg. And one night I woke up, you

know, I, I'm a light, I was a light sleeper.

And you know, 1 morning I woke up with startle.

Somebody was standing by my bed in the middle of the night.

And I looked over here as his doctor.

And when he saw that I was awake, he looked at me, smiled.

And I'm almost sure this guy's a Christian.

And he, he looked at me and, and he said, Sergeant, he said that

Gangrene's gone. And he smiled, kind of shook his

head, grinned. He said, you know, that kind of

gangrene just doesn't go away. And he was Navy.

I'm Marines. So Doc, Marines are tough.

That's about all I can say, because I could hardly.

And so he shook his head, walked away.

So then they said one of the bullets had shattered my right

arm and shattered the elbow. And so they said they found a

bone infection. So it says we're going to take

the arm off above the elbow to stop the infection from

spreading. And that was not a, you know,

they weren't asking my opinion. They were.

So I remember waking up in in recovery.

And as I was waking up in recovery, I realized I was

holding my right hand. Navy guys, they like to play

tricks on Marines, you know, So I thought they just didn't throw

the parts away, you know, just parts as parts.

And so, yeah, but then my fingers moved.

And so, you know, so the doctor came in.

He said, you know, he said I was, I was all prepared to

amputate, but something compelled me.

They cut it open, you know, for the elbow all the way up.

They said something compelled me that we cut it open.

The bone infection is gone. So we did this, this, this and,

you know, medical terms. I have no idea what it was, you

know, And then they began to tell me, OK, you're going to be

here two, 2 1/2 years. You're going to have to have

surgery, therapy, recovery, then more surgery, therapy, recovery.

We're going to put pins and plates in your legs.

You're going to have leg braces. You'll have 15% use of your

right arm. You got strap on your eyes cause

you to go blind. You won't be able to have any

children. And, you know, kind of on and on

they went to encourage me. And, you know, nine months

later, 26 operations for plastic surgery operations on my face.

Yeah, I, I didn't always look this good.

Nine months later, I, I walked out of the hospital and I was

OK, at least on the outside. And then I went to work for a, a

private security investigation company.

I became a professional investigator, you know, wore a

suit tie, you know, and I learned 1971 after I got out of

the hospital of Vietnam, still going, but I could cover up a

lot of wounds. And on the outside, I looked OK.

I met my wife, convinced her I was normal, and we got married

anyway. And, you know, and, and for the

next two years, I put my wife through her own PTS program.

She has a Purple Heart plate on her car.

There's a reason for that, you know?

And two years afterwards, she, you know, she walked out.

She said, I love you, but I can't, you know, you're killing

me too. Well, right before that, we made

the mistake of walking into a church.

Now, my stepdad used to take us to a traditional church.

You know, we grew up and I don't think you ever should say

anything bad about your, you know, your background and Martin

Luther would be concerned. But you know, that's so.

So anyway, we went to this church that I'd always felt

comfortable in before, and we were ambushed.

Ambushed 2 born again spirit filled Lutheran pastors that

loved Jesus and they had a group of people in there.

They still had Lutherans, but they had a group of people in

there that were spirit filled, loved us, reached out to us and

we, they asked us to take part in a Bible study And Shirley

said, OK, and I looked at her like, you know, what are you

thinking? But so we went to this Bible

study and they had that first night they had icebreaker

questions. You know that to make you feel

comfortable when you already know you're not comfortable with

that, like the first time you walked into here and go, who are

they? These people?

So and so I'm trying to think of you understand.

And the last question was, when was God real in your life?

I'm trying to think of something that sounds religious, you know.

I mean, you know, I know peer pressure is just for younger

people, but I did want to fit in.

And so the going around a room church never happened before

since. But as I was sitting in that

room with these nine other couples, I was lifted up out of

that room and I was looking down in another room and I saw a man

laying on a bed, bloody and bleeding.

And I heard him say, God, if you let me live, I'll do anything

you want. And I was back in that room with

a mirror in front of my face. Spiritually, I looked in that

mirror. I saw a phony.

I didn't like that person I saw. Now I realize God had spared my

life. Why?

But it took my wife walking out. That brought me to rock bottom.

We are separated 10 days. We were living in Omaha at the

time and you know, we decided to get together.

You know, we wanted our divorce to be amicable, you know, be

friends that kind of and I like my version of it.

We met in a public place. I live in the South and you

know, he needed killing is a good it's justifiable, you know,

to and I needed killing. But we met and surely, yeah, we

knew these people had something different.

And Shirley said unless we put God first, we're not going to

make it. And I said, I know that, but how

do you do this? We went to her apartment.

I moved her out so quick so I could try to have fun again.

Did not have fun. And we moved to went to her

apartment and knelt by the bed and just cried out.

I said, God, what's missing? And the still small voice of the

Holy Spirit spoke and said, it's not what's missing, it's who's

missing. You need Jesus.

I didn't do this right. You know, I never watched

Christian TV. You know, somebody was said,

Amen. At our church.

That pastor would have been scared half to death.

And and so I, I probably didn't do this right.

But thank God that the word of God says whoever calls upon the

name of the Lord will be saved. I said, God, you know what's

been said that what's been but who's been I said, Lord, if you

can use somebody like me here I am.

And, and you know some of these veterans here, you know, every

morning when I got up with some of you who have been hurt and

wounded, every morning when I got up, I felt like I strapped

100 lbs of emotional combat gear on my back.

I carried this weight of guilt, of shame, of hate, of

bitterness, of unforgettable. I carried this weight around

every single day for 4 1/2 years.

And that night I said that simple prayer, the weight fell

off of me. And if I thought that, if I

doubted that anything had changed when I went to bed that

night and closed my eyes, I slept for the first time in 4

1/2 years. No nightmares of Vietnam since.

Or I did have a, a bad dream one night that I was in the church,

something like this, and I was preaching and I was so boring I

fell asleep. But that was a, you know.

But that was A and I need to. So God changed our life.

He healed my body. He healed our marriage.

Surely. I've been married for 52 years,

8 months and 22 days. Not that I'm counting.

I have two children that the doctor said I'd never have.

I have 5 grandchildren and 1 great granddaughter who's about

four months old. Shortly after I became a

Christian. You know, when I was medevaced

out of Vietnam when that plane lifted up and they would have to

accelerate as fast as they can because sometimes the enemy

would be at the end of the runway and shoot at aircraft

taken off. And you know, you're at a

medevac flash. You know, last thing you do is

get shot again. And, and I was on a stretcher,

probably about 3 or 4 off of the off of the high.

And but it's a plane tilted to go over Danang Bay to Vietnam's

a beautiful country. And I'm looking down the

beautiful beaches, the fishing boats out there, the mountains,

the, you know, the green trees and is it?

But I looked out that window and in my mind I never wanted to

ever see Vietnam again. Never, because it was too

painful. Shortly after I became a

Christian and got saved in early December 7475, maybe February,

March, I looked at Shirley and I said, I think I'm supposed to go

back to Vietnam. Well, April 30th, 50 years ago,

Vietnam fell and they were shut off from the outside world.

Nobody was going to Vietnam. For 14 years, I'd go to missions

conference, I talked to WYWAM people, I talked to anybody that

was going to Asia. What is going on in Vietnam?

Nothing. And so 1988, Shirley and I had

the the honor of going to focus on the family doctor, James

Dobson. He was still in California and

Doctor Dobson was doing, we're going to tape 3A series of three

radio programs on PTS. They call it PTSDI, Don't call

it PTSDI, call it PTS. Cause a disorder means there's

something wrong with you having the wounds of, of, of, of

whether it be Vietnam or abuse or rejection.

That's not a, that's not a disorder.

That's your system reacting to what's it, what's not a normal

situation. That's just my opinion.

But when you get to heaven, you'll see I was right.

And so we're on this program and Doctor Dobson's interview and

several other veterans. And he said to one of them, he

said, Bill, I understand you just got back from Vietnam.

And I said, yeah. I said, I believe that God gave

me a heart to take Christian Vietnam Veterans back to with a

message of reconciliation. You know, we all know 2nd

Corinthians 517, you know, if any person is in Christ or a new

creation, the old passes away, all things become new.

The next verse says, therefore, since we have been given this

ministry of reconciliation, as I believe God wants veterans,

Christian veterans to take a message of reconciliation to our

former enemy. And then, you know, we, I said,

I said to him, what do you get? You guys have any plans tonight?

You know, after, after we take part, can we take you out to

dinner? So we're talking about he's

sharing his heart with me and my heart's burning.

And he says, he just looks at me.

He says, you want to go? And I said, yeah, you know, pick

Shirley up off the floor. And several months later, 14 or

23 years after my first trip to Vietnam, I'm on a plane, I'm in

my 40s, and I'm going back with a camera bag and the gospel.

And I could tell you so many stories about what God has done.

I want to just tell one story in closing.

And then we're going to minister.

We took on a bunch of projects. We, we did some churches, but

our favorite, the beginning was a polio orphanage, 450 children

with polio, handmade braces. You know, these kids, we would

take toys and, and balloons and, you know, some clothing to these

kids and they were so happy. They had nothing.

They were so happy. But you know, and they just, you

know, here's you want to see a bunch of hardened veterans just

sob every time we left that orphanage after we had visited,

you know, we're just got tears running down our eyes.

And so we had done a product, we repaired their therapy pool that

hadn't worked since 75. And so we were negotiating.

I was a team leader. So I had I was meeting with the

communist officials that were over all the social services,

you know, for Saigon. Saigon was a city of about 9

million at the time. And so we were veterans, we were

Christians, we made no, we didn't hide that at all.

And so, and the all the communist officials were former

soldiers, you know. And so we started, they always

ask you, when were you here? Where did you serve?

Whatever. And so as we're talking, the man

over all the social services in 1966, we were on an operation on

the DMZ, walked into a regimental base camp at for five

days. We fought literally at times

hand to hand to fight our way out of that, out of that, that

jungle, nearly half my company was wiped out.

And as we were talking, the man that's in charge of social is

the was the regimental commander of that unit.

Asian culture has a thing called face saving.

We had just made him look good. And now he realized I had some

painful memories because of what his men did, you know, during

during the war. And so he looked through the

interpreter. We had interpreters.

Her name was Hen. She was a Buddhist, Buddhist

girl. And he said, why do you come?

Why do you do this for the people of Vietnam?

He said, we had the Ford Foundation here and, and, you

know, they said, Oh yeah, we want to help the people of

Vietnam. We showed them all the needs and

we've, we've never seen them again.

And then we had the the Carnegie Foundation, same thing.

We showed them all the, Oh yeah, we wanted, and they never came

back. You know, this may seem like a

small thing to you, but it's not to us.

Why do you do this? And so I looked at him and I

said, Sir, I said, Jesus Christ has healed all the painful

memories that I experienced in Vietnam.

And because of that, I can say that I love you and Jesus loves

you. Now.

There was about 12 communist officials on the other side of

the table and three of us, him started weeping.

My interpreter just started bawling.

And they're looking at us, looking at her looking at us

like, what did you you know, And we're like, like awkward.

Wasn't still a term yet, but it was awkward.

And then after a couple minutes, she finally got her emotions

under control and she asked me a question.

And so she told the Colonel what I said.

He looked at her and looked at me.

Look, he got up and he come around the long term.

So I got up and he come up to me, looked up at me.

I'm 64. Most of the Vietnamese are not,

you know, And it just threw his arms around me and had tears

streaming down his eyes. And I'm kind of, you know, and

afterwards, you know, I mean, we just hugged each other for the

longest time. And it's, and he looked at him

and said something and she said, he asked me to tell you that

he's never had an enemy tell him he loved him.

Only Jesus, only Jesus. The video, there's a video, 5

1/2 minute video of that story that's had one and a half

million hits on the Internet. And it's not about me.

I remember the first time they called said Roger, that videos

had over 1,000,000 views and hundreds of thousands of of

people got the next step to know about Jesus.

Not that's not about me. Because we live in a world where

there's a lot of people that are hurting.

There's a lot of people. One, they need to know that they

can be forgiven, and two, that they know no matter what they've

experienced, what they've gone through, what they've been, what

what has happened to them, that God will give you the ability to

forgive others no matter what they've done.

Thanks for listening to our podcast.

If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you

can get the word out by subscribing and sharing it on

social media. If you'd like to support the

ministries of Heartland Church, you can do so at Heartland

Church online.com/give.