A Marine's Promise To God
A Memoir of Vietnam
by
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The Summer of 69
I graduated from high school in 1967 and went to Northwest Missouri State University on a football scholarship. If I had not had the scholarship, I might have joined the military, because there was a part of me that wanted a piece of the Vietnam war. My friends and I had grown up in the shadow of our fathers and their participation in WW II, and I didn’t feel that I should necessarily have it easy while my fellow Americans were fighting a war. But I loved football and with the scholarship, I chose to go to college.
I played two seasons of football but let my grade point drop below a C, so at the end of the fall semester of 1968, I got suspended from school for a semester. In those times the draft was “Johnny on the spot” and Uncle Sam was saying he wanted me. It looked like I was going to get a piece of that war after all.
I joined the Marines in mid May 1969 on the “90 day delay” plan, which meant I wouldn’t have to go to boot camp until mid-August . It was my intent to live life to the fullest for those three months. I took every opportunity to have fun with friends and family, while working two jobs. In August my brother Gary and I headed off to western Oklahoma to visit friends of ours, the Whitakers. Paul was the minister at a church on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Previously, he’d been our minister at the Martin City Baptist Church in the south suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. Gary and I were there for a couple of days and then I headed out for San Antonio, Texas on my own, to get with some of my relatives on the Ray side of the family.
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About the Book
Life-threatening, near-death experiences are common subjects for books or television; usually these focus on a single experience in one person’s life. A Marine’s Promise to God, by David L. Ray, follows the author on his tour of Vietnam in 1970, through more than ten near-death experiences—during which he never even received a wound. He was the squad point man, notorious for being the most dangerous combat role. The marines around him were wounded and killed, but Ray survived by the power of prayer and the promise he made to God, which he has done his best to keep.
As Ray chronicles his path to joining the Marines and discovering the chaos of the life of a Marine grunt in Vietnam, he introduces readers to his experiences of life with his company and in the bush. The narrative follows Ray as he works day and nighttime missions and patrols, finds his place, and sees moments of extreme violence and sadness.
David L. Ray is a living example of the power of prayer, divine protection, and overworked guardian angels. Time after time, when the shooting and explosions had stopped, Ray realized that not only was he still alive, but he hadn’t even been hit. To this day, he has never forgotten what God did for him—and he has never forgotten his friends who fell while serving their country.
About the Author
After playing two seasons of college football, David L. Ray joined the United States Marine Corps in May of 1969. He survived his tour in Vietnam, inspiring his writing, and then returned to Northwest Missouri State and graduated. He and his wife have two children and live in Fort Dodge, Iowa. This is his first book.