An Evacuation Hospital in Vietnam

Nothing compared to the tremendous explosion at a nearby ammo dump. My perception was that the tent next to us had taken a direct mortar hit. I ran outside to see if I could help the injured. Outside of every tent was someone like me looking at the tent next to them. All of us then looked up at the sky, lit up like a July 4th fireworks celebration that had gotten out of control. My father had a picture published in a photography magazine of that exact thing happening one July 4th at a nearby military base. It looked very similar to his photograph. I stared at the plume of smoke and fire trying to determine if the explosion was nuclear or not; I soon concluded it was not.

The explosion broke windows twenty one miles away; I still had trouble believing it was not an atomic explosion. A couple of guys in one of the tents were doing the 1960’s version of Karaoke; they were playing a song on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and were recording themselves singing along with the music. Tape recorders were advertised as having sound on sound, sound with sound, and sound-to-sound. On the recording, the explosion sounded distorted because the input circuitry couldn’t accommodate that many decibels. The next sound was like a slow turning helicopter blade when the engine is being started. That noise ended with a thud. Then you heard voices screaming on top of each other.

The swirling sound and thud was caused when a 155 mm artillery round traveled three-quarters of a mile end- over-end. The round weighed a hundred pounds. It was not fired; it was like a giant had thrown it. Fortunately, it did not explode when it landed. Projectiles fired from a barrel can travel long distances because the rifling in the barrel puts a spin on the projectile. For something that heavy to travel that far end over end is indicative of the force of the explosion.

A soldier in our tent tried to take charge of the situation. He shouted, “I don’t want anyone to leave here (our tent) without their zipper.” We knew he meant to zip up our flak jackets, but it was just comical enough to cause us to relax a little. I did admire him for volunteering for Dust-Off duty a few weeks later. When those helicopters were shot down at low altitudes, there wasn’t time for autorotation and they landed really hard. That guy was braver than me. We had a pilot whose helicopter had been shot down at low altitude who was brought in with severe burns to his head. His head was the size and shape of a basketball; his face was so swollen, he looked like a cartoon character. I prayed that he would be all right.

We ran to the bunkers and waited for the all-clear signal. When it came, most of the guys went back to their tents. I felt a tremendous urge to pray. It was like having to go to the bathroom really badly, but it was a spiritual urge. At that point in my life, I was trying to let the Holy Spirit lead me like I saw Him leading my spiritual mentor, so I had to obey this leading if I was serious about being led by the Holy Spirit..

I knelt in the dirt and started praying. A Christian friend walking by asked me what I was doing. “Will you pray with me,” I pleaded. “No, it’s all over now; I’m going to bed.” I had no idea what I was praying for, as it did seem to be over. But the urge to pray was very strong so I prayed in the Spirit, in an unknown language. After about ten minutes, the urge was gone and I felt perfect peace and zero fear like I had when I was baptized. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew I had not gone temporarily insane.

The next morning, I was working in the Arms room when a visiting officer came in to check his weapon. He had been sent to investigate the explosion at the ammo dump. When I greeted him, he said, “I came over here to eat breakfast but you don’t know how lucky you are, boy.” He said the explosion the previous night was caused by a satchel charge with a timing device. The Viet Cong had dug tunnels under the ammo dump and placed the satchel charge on a small ammo pad in the dark.

What he said next left me speechless, “There was a satchel charge on a large ammo pad but the timing device on the large pad stopped fifty five seconds before detonation; that large ammo pad would have killed everyone in a one mile radius, including you.” I knew someone would think I was weird if I explained what happened; you will always be considered somewhat weird if you say you did something because you were obeying a spirit you cannot see.

Later that day, I saw my spiritual mentor. Besides being a surgical nurse, my spiritual mentor was the one in our unit who would visit other nearby units and trade for movies, ice cream, or whatever. He had many contacts around the area and often got inside information through the grapevine. I didn’t tell my spiritual mentor what the visiting officer had said, but my spiritual mentor told me the same account, right down to the fifty five seconds. I didn’t tell him about my prayer because God clearly deserved the credit; it wasn’t my idea to pray. Can I prove the fifty five seconds event was a miracle? No, but I have no doubt. It turns out that wasn’t the first time that ammo dump was attacked and it wasn’t the last. I admired the guys who were assigned there. We joke about someone sitting on a keg of gunpowder when someone is throwing matches; those guys lived that.