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Personal Testimony
I was born in Waynesboro,
Virginia in 1947. I was born into the Family of God, the Father, by
the power of the resurrected Christ when I was eight years old
through the witness of a white haired bible study teacher named Mom
Cole. She taught some neighborhood women one night of the week in my
mother’s home, after we moved from Waynesboro to Hampton, Va. I was eleven years old when I received the anointing
of the Holy Spirit after listening and praying with four young men
who came from Texas with another thirty six year old man named Bobby Ewing. They came to my mother’s
home in Hampton, Virginia from Waco, Texas. That same year I was
elected President of my 6th grade class and did very well in school
while witnessing to my classmates and leading some of my friends to
Christ. Things were really looking up for me. The young men from
Waco helped a minister named Tom Jones establish a church named New
Covenant,
which is still in existence today at 1079 Big Bethel Rd. in Hampton,
Virginia.
When I was
thirteen I began to reject everything, which
could not be proven by the science of man. This error was reinforced
by the influence of a high school biology teacher, but the error,
itself, was my responsibility and my choice. It was a choice I
consciously made. I said in my heart that I would prove that Jesus
was not God and the savior of the world by performing a very simple
act. It is written (John
10:28-29) that no man can pluck one of God’s own from his hand. I
reasoned that I would prove that statement to be false by removing
my own life from his hand and by doing that, I would be able to
prove that the statements of the bible were not the divine word of
God. In my troubled mind, this would disprove everything the bible
has to say, including Jesus being who he said he was. It was as if a
switch had been flipped in my mind, by a dark side of my
personality, which simply took over and suppressed the good things
Christ had been doing in my life.
The world
soon became a very dark place for me. Today, when I read the sixth
chapter of Hebrews, I don’t have to ponder its meaning, because I
have lived those verses. Whatever I built during the next 28 years
of rebellion was completely burned up. I built and it burned. I
built again, and it burned up again. Time and time again, the earth
of my life was spared, to the last particle of dirt, while all that
grew on it was burned to ashes. The ashes would simply blow away in
the wind until nothing was left. However, has the reader ever taken
note of how
fertile the earth becomes after a forest fire? It provides a
richness for supporting life, which is non-existent in a thriving
forest. (Heb. 6: 4-8) By the time my 18th birthday rolled around,
the die was cast. Excuses had become a way of life and the vain
imaginations of my mind replaced reality. I became close friends with
three
troubled youths even more troubled than myself. Many years later it
seems that the two whom Satan killed as young men chose to go
straight to hell. They never married or had children. Despite all my
witnessing to the third friend in recent years it seems he is
determined to to split hell wide open as well. However, I have
staked a claim at the throne of God for his soul. Although a terrible
depression had set in by the time I turned 18, I still graduated with honors from high
school and was looking forward to college and the freedom it would
bring.
My
parents had five children and I was the oldest. It would have been
hard to provide for college but I had worked every summer from the
time I was seven on my Grandfather’s farm in western Virginia and he had given
me the proceeds of the sale of one calf a year. This would have been
enough to pay for college but I now believe my mother spent the
money over the years for other things. When it was time to enter
college, and lacking the money to pay for tuition, she pressured me
into signing up for the
ROTC (Reserve Officer training Corp.) program at Virginia Tech,
because this program
paid a small monthly amount to students for doing so. I signed
up. A co-op student who worked with my mother, supposedly told her,
(My mother is not one who always got her facts straight) that I
would only have to attend drill once a week and weekend training
once a month. I expected it to be similar to the National Guard, and
my mother encouraged this false idea, yet she discouraged me from
going to the orientation, where I could have discovered the truth
about the mistake I was about to make before it was too late.
To put it bluntly,
my mother suffered from demonic oppression and so did I. I now had a
very false understanding of what I was getting into, false
impressions fostered by my manipulative Mother. She was guided by
her own personal demons throughout almost the entire length of her
long life but it took years for me to realize that. Instead of being similar to the National Guard,
the Cadet Corps at Tech was very similar
to the military training program at West Point. Freshmen were called
Rats and were harassed night and day. We were given no freedom
whatsoever. I immediately asked for a transfer to the civilian side
of campus. After six weeks, I got an audience with the Dean of
Admissions, who had the authority to grant this request. The answer
he gave me still rings in my ears today. “Son”, he said. “I went
through the Corps here at Tech. If it was good enough for me, it’s
good enough for you.” His mind was made up and so was mine. I
requested a termination form and signed it in front of him. At this
point, the angry Dean spoke into being a curse upon my life,
although I did not recognize it as such at the time, and I am sure
he did not mean it as such. He, said, "Son this is a decision which
you will regret for the rest of your life". He also said I would not
be allowed to return to Virginia Tech for a minimum of one year. The
Dean's curse was partially right. I did regret the decision to quit
school until later in my life, when I reestablished my relationship
with God. No curses can destroy that relationship. Only peace and
joy and fulfillment through the power of The Holy Ghost exists with
that relationship.
At this point in my life, however, the demons that had plagued me
must have jumped for joy, because in less than one year I was
drafted and on the way to the jungles of Vietnam to be assigned to
the 1/18th Battalion of the 1st Infantry Division. (Only two out of
forty recruits in my platoon in basic training were assigned to
Advanced Infantry Training and I was one of those two.) This meant
the odds of my name later appearing on that black granite memorial
in D. C. had just increased greatly, compared to the average service
member, since, as a front line soldier, I would continually be
placed in harm’s way.
Several
months, after arriving at my unit in Vietnam, we started night
maneuvers, associated with some of the larger operations of the
war. "Junction
City" was
the name of one of these campaigns. During the beginning stages of
these operations there was a lot of confusion because our unit kept
getting lost. This caused us to come under friendly fire in at least
one instance because we failed to link up with other units at the
right location on the map. We were mistaken for the enemy and we
were fired upon by other units in our own division. Command realized
something needed to be done. I had done a very good job of keeping
my squad sized patrols on course, so I and two friends were chosen
to lead the entire battalion during night movements, which seemed
good to me. It was just the kind of job I was suited for. I would be
in control of the entire movement of hundreds of men, and more
importantly, to self centered me, I would also be in charge of my
own destiny. The officers in charge had all the responsibility. If
something went wrong, they would get the blame. All I had to do was
make sure we didn't get lost. What a deal. Our Commanding Officer
was Lt.
Col Richard Cavazos. Little
did I know, that the Holy Spirit had ordained this legendary combat
leader to be in command of our unit at this very instant in time. He
would make decisions, in those deadly months, which would not only
save my life but many other lives as well, while delivering defeat
after defeat to the enemy. Of course, you will never hear about this
winner of two Distinguished Service Crosses when the war in Vietnam
is being discussed because this remarkable American doesn't fit the
public narratives.
I was told
the average length of time a point man lasted before being wounded
or killed was twenty days in Vietnam, although I have no way of
proving or disproving that statement. Recently, using the
internet, I counted 47 killed in action during my tour of duty (one
year) within my battalion of around 400. Many more than that were
wounded. I walked point positions many times during my tour of duty
for almost nine months, mostly in squad sized security patrols, but
as I said before, I also lead the entire Battalion on several night
marches.
During
those deadly months, the Holy Spirit directed my path, in many
different ways, through many different people, at critical times,
preserving my life. Though I didn’t recognize his voice or pray a
single time, his presence never left me. Our unit never got lost
while I was on point leading the way. In one incident, I had to
argue against my squad leader, who wanted to take us in the totally
opposite direction, from the course in which we were suppose to
follow. I refused to follow his instructions and the entire squad
backed me up. He finally gave in. I gained a lot of respect from him
when he finally realized the mistake he had been prevented from
making. Sometimes we would move on moonless nights, when it was so
dark, it was impossible to see a hand in front of one’s own face.
GPS did not exist in those days. The only navigation tools available
to us were a compass and maps. On one such night, I was challenged
by my new platoon leader. He nervously halted the column, looked at
his map and then looked at me. He then said, "You say we are at such
and such a check point, where, according to the map, there is a
large statue of Buda. I don't see that statue. Are you sure we are
not lost?" "Sir, I don't know anything about a Buda statue", I
replied, "But I know we have arrived at the correct check point".
Before the lieutenant could respond to me, a man standing beside him
shined his red lens flash light ahead of us and to the left, through
the dense jungle under growth. About five yards away covered in
jungle vines, looking like something from an Indiana Jones movie,
was a large stone statue of Buda. The lieutenant never questioned my
navigation skills again. Years later, I bought fifty acres of wooded
land to hunt on in East Texas and got lost on it several times in
broad daylight. Who do you think except the Holy Spirit could have
given me such confidence to lead my entire unit, guiding us through
that dark time with such success?
Our
battalion performed feats that earned each man in the entire unit a
bronze star medal. The feats performed by our unit, were boosted
time and time again by the incredible command decisions of Korean
veteran, Richard Cavazos. Richard later made four star general. I
recently learned from a conversation with Richard, that the entire
unit received a unit citation equivalent to a silver star, You may
find a description of one of these battles online if you goggle the
battle at Loc
Ninh in
late October of 1967. Brig. Gen. James Shelton wrote, what I
believe, is a very accurate description of Richard's combat command
capabilities in his book, "The Beast Was Out There". You may read
this at http://www.iam777.org/cavazos.htm .
The
following story is just one of many of those encounters where the
Holy Spirit intervened to save not only my life but the lives of
others around me.
On June 17,
1967, my unit, the 1/18th Infantry Battalion was guarding a large
1st Infantry Division air strip at Lai Khe. During this time, 1/16th
Infantry of the same division, the Big Red One, was ambushed by
between 800 and 2000 enemy troops of the 271st NVA regiment in what
was later called the battle of Xom Bo II. David Hearn, a forward
observer, later wrote a book about it. They were hit while the
1/16th and elements of the 2/28th were moving on foot from one
location to another to establish an NDP during a search and destroy
mission. The clearing, where the hostile forces waited in ambush had
been marked and targeted by supporting fire from their mortars,
setting two to three hundred yards inside the jungle curtain. Enemy
snipers tied themselves to the tops of huge trees overlooking the
clearing in order to shoot down on the Americans.
When word
came for my unit to saddle up, we were some distance from the
ambushed 1st/16th. We jumped into trucks and headed for the landing
strip where Huey helicopters were already lined up on the air strip
to take us by squads to the landing zone (LZ). While sitting to the
side of my chopper, waiting for word to board, the door gunner
jumped out and ran to the back of his chopper to check something
near the rear rotor blade, like he had probably done a hundred times
before. This time he forgot to duck and the tail rotor blade knocked
his head off. In less than five minutes his limp body was placed in
a body bag and carted off. Another gunner took his place. A friend
in my unit, Dennis
Winstead from Norfolk, Va., whom remarkably went all the way
with me through both basic training, advanced infantry training
(AIT) and then was assigned to the same unit in Nam, extended his
tour for a door gunner's job, just to have a clean, dry bed to sleep
in at night. Later I found out in a conversation with his daughter
that Dennis had been shot down three times while performing his
duties as a door gunner. Dennis Winstead was one of the bravest men
I knew. His ability to detect enemy treats and eliminate them
without hesitation was uncanny. He
saved a lot of his fellow soldiers from dying while he was in the
infantry and I am sure he saved even more as a door gunner on a
helicopter gunship. Dennis died January 18th, 2015.
After what
seemed like forever, word finally came to board the Hueys. After we
loaded on, each chopper moved up and off the air strip forming lines
not unlike giant droning bees at eight to ten thousand feet. The sky
had never been so blue and the earth below was carpeted with a rich
emerald green. There is a high that comes with flying into a hot LZ
that I can't fully explain. Within minutes a few moving specks could
be seen on the horizon ahead of us. The specks grew larger as our
formation of weather beaten Hueys drew closer. Those specks soon
proved to be the phantom jets that had arrived before us. Air
support was working the area over with napalm, rockets, and Gatling
guns. I will never forget the brilliance of the huge orange fire
balls of napalm contrasted against the green of the jungle and the
blue of the sky.
I
immediately dropped the ninety pound rucksack I was carrying, and
ran for the tree line straight in front of me. To my left side, my
peripheral vision caught a glimpse of soldiers dragging black body
bags, filled with the limp bodies of American soldiers, to the
center of the clearing and adding them to a neat row that was
already twenty to thirty bags long. Inside the tree line I came face
to face with only one defender, from the ambushed unit, within my
immediate sight. He had superficial cuts on many parts of his body,
from flying shrapnel. I ask for an update of the situation. He said
he had been receiving incoming sniper fire from one of the big
jungle trees in front of us. A few seconds after making this
statement, mortar rounds started falling to our right side. One
landed no more than ten yards away to my right. When it landed, the
1st /16th soldier and I had already hit the ground at the same
instant and crawled behind a large ant hill, which did not offer
much protection against flying shrapnel, but it was better than
nothing. Soon, several cries for a medic rang out from our right
side, which was an indication that some of the falling rounds had
found their mark. Through an email in 2016, RTO Fred Walters told me
that the men crying for medical attention where in his 3rd squad of
our 3rd platoon of B Company. Fred had just assumed the duties of
RTO (Radio Operator) for our B Company CO, Captain Brown, or he
would more than likely have been among the wounded, if not killed
outright. I can say this with some certainty, because Fred has
informed me recently that seven men in this, his old squad, were
wounded so badly, that they were sent State side, never to return to
the unit. Fred remembered the names of five of these men. They were
"Porky" Morton, Bianchi, Schotz, Ruiz and Lemon. The only one I
remember was Morton. However, until just recently I never realized
he had been wounded so badly that day.
The enemy
troops didn't keep the fight going for long. Their objective had
been to hit fast and hard and then withdraw. Now, they only wanted
to keep us pinned down and throw us off guard while they made their
escape. They would disengage and attempt to deal with my unit on
their terms, another time. Minutes passed after the shelling
stopped. Orders came to dig in. My newly found comrade from the
other unit disappeared to board awaiting choppers which were now air
lifting members of his battered unit back to Lai Khe, I suppose,
since that was their home base. The same choppers that brought us
in, probably returned to take them away. All enemy activity ceased.
Within a short time Chinooks appeared at the center of the clearing
with tons of supplies hanging in webbing underneath their bellies.
It was obvious we would stay a while. Night pasted without an
incident. Next morning word trickled down, that had been at least a
regiment sized enemy force which ambushed the 1/16th and that it was
probably still in the area. Security patrols started leaving our
newly established base camp. Each company in the battalion took
turns sending out these squad sized security patrols. It would be my
squad's turn in a couple days. Of course anything could happen in
two days.
The next
day sometime after breakfast, our new platoon leader walked up to us
with a brand new M-16 which had a grenade launcher mounted under the
barrel. He had gotten it from the fresh supplies we received
constantly by the Chinook helicopters. He handed it to Walker, the
man in my squad, who carried the old shotgun type grenade launcher.
The new lieutenant became a little upset when Walker refused to
trade in his old weapon for the new one. Several minutes passed with
the good natured college grad trying
every conceivable means of verbal persuasion outside a direct order,
to change Walker's mind. Finally the argument was settled when
Walker picked out the top of a tall jungle tree over a hundred yards
in front of our position as a target, and launched five grenades at
it. Five rounds were in the air before the first one hit. All five
where direct hits. Our rookie platoon leader just stood there for a
few seconds with his mouth open, then said, "You keep your "thump
gun" Walker" and turned around and walked back toward the command
post (CP) with the new weapon in his hand. I don't think anyone else
in my squad knew Walker could shoot like that. I know he surprised
me. Needless to say, Walker got to keep his old thump gun for the
rest of his time in the field. I made him a cup of hot chocolate
from the powdered creamer and cocoa in our C-Rations that evening to
celebrate getting to keep his gun. I heated it up in my medal
canteen cup over a small ball of C-4. Mum Good!
One of the new
recruits in my squad had it in for me. He could just look at me and
get mad. I honestly cannot remember anything I did to make him feel
this way. Bill Milliron had temporarily gone State side to settle
family problems and Glen Bowman was on R and R so I was stuck
sharing a fox hole with this guy. After we had been together for
several days in this location, I volunteered to go out in front of
our position on OP (observation post) just to get away from him for
a little while. On the way out to that position I realized I was
hungry and stopped short of my destination long enough to eat a can
of C-Ration peaches. While sitting down, leaning up against a small
tree, suddenly one of the claymore mines, in front of the fox hole
the new recruit and I were occupying, exploded. It sprayed 750
buckshot-sized pellets toward the observation post where I would
have been, had I not stopped to eat. I ran back to my fox hole to
find out what was going on, since there was no doubt that the blast
came from one of the claymore mines this guy and I had placed
earlier upon our arrival. The new recruit was standing there at our
bunker showing the platoon leader a broken safety lever on one of
the claymore detonators. He was telling the lieutenant that he had
been playing around with the detonator when it accidentally went
off. Nothing more was said about the incident by anyone, including
myself, but yes, I do think he was trying to kill me.
By the
time it was my squad’s turn to go on security patrol, not so much as
an enemy sniper had troubled us. The NVA and VC had simply melted
into the jungle and vanished. Everyone knew there was a very good
chance that a large enemy base camp was located within a very short
distance of our location. They also knew that any squad sized
patrol, which stumbled across it, would have as much chance of
surviving the encounter as a steer in a slaughterhouse. As our
patrol left the perimeter of base camp, I walked point at the head
of the patrol, as always, but alone this time, since Bill Milliron
and Glen Bowman were not there. My squad leader, E-6 Bartee, from
Roanoke Virginia, followed directly behind me on this patrol. Next,
behind him, was the radioman. The machine gunner brought up the rear
as always. Walker was somewhere in between. There were seven of us
in all, five old-timers and two recruits. As always we walked in
single file, one man behind another. An old timer from the Indian
Nations of New Mexico carried the M-60 machine gun. I cannot
remember saying two words to him the entire time we were together.
He later covered my squad's far right position in the Battle
of Loc Ninh and
burned up three barrels on his M-60 machine gun defending against an
all out assault of hundreds of attackers against my squad's side of
our Night Defensive Position (NDP). The next morning, after the
enemy assault troops had been practically annihilated, it was really
hard to get a proper count of the dead bodies lying scattered
throughout the jungle in front of his machine gun position, simply
because there were so many. As always, on this patrol, I carried a
LAW, eight grenades, and two hundred rounds of ammo for the Indian's
M-60, as well as 300 rounds of M-16 ammo for my own weapon. If we
stumbled across an enemy base camp, we would take out far more of
them, than there were of us, but the final outcome would be set in
stone. There would not be enough time to withdraw, or get help,
before every member of my squad was dead.
It was a
bright beautiful sunny day. The jungle was open enough to move
quietly through, without having to use a machete. An occasional
monkey could be heard howling from a distant tree. Every now and
then I could glimpse a mongoose hopping across the jungle flooring.
I can't remember the sounds birds made, but I know that they were
there, voicing their opinion of our intrusion into their world.
However, what could have been a place of wondrous sights and sounds,
filled with unbelievable natural beauty, was drowned out in my
conscious mind by a continual overwhelming obsession with how best
to avoid death. These pervasive thoughts completely destroyed
anything that would have ordinarily been a beautiful experience. I
kept saying to myself, "It is very important that our patrol stay on
its charted azimuths (compass readings). Bill Milliron usually
watched compass readings for me but there was no Milliron. Glen
Bowman was a second pair of very alert eyes and ears for me but
there was no Bowman. This was definitely all on my shoulders;
running the compass readings, counting paces and spotting any signs
of enemy presence, before it was too late to react. There was no
doubt in any of our minds, except maybe the guy who had blown a
claymore mine on me, that we were in a very dangerous location that
required each and every one of us to keep our wits about us at all
times. The guys were following behind me much more quietly than ever
before. There really was no room for error. If we got off course and
had to call for a spotter round, from our mortar platoon, it would
be a dead giveaway to the enemy, because they knew very well how we
operated so they most surely would launch several killer teams to
investigate. Our plotted course took us up gently sloping terrain.
The jungle was relatively open and easy to maneuver without making a
lot of noise and this security patrol was somewhat longer than most
I had been on in the past. In my mind, this meant that we may be
covering ground that our previous patrols had not covered, which was
always inherently more dangerous.
When we had reached the halfway point on the second leg of the
patrol, the jungle became very quiet. Not even the sound of a bird,
anywhere, broke the silence; A silence that seemed like some deadly
foreboding. Monkeys that had been howling from the tree tops no
longer were making a sound. The backdrop of the everyday sounds of
life in the jungle had completely disappeared. This absence of
jungle sounds sent a chilling sensation though my subconscious mind.
It made the hair on the back of my neck bristle. I became so
affected by this dreadful feeling that I stopped walking and turned
to look at my squad leader standing five yards or so behind me. He
was short, slim, with sandy blonde hair and his red face was
dripping sweat as his blue eyes stared intently back at me, looking
intently at him. He automatically knew I had something very
important to say because he had seen that look before. We stood
there facing each other for what seemed like the longest time. I
felt the words coming to my lips and being whispered to him, almost,
as if I were repeating something someone else was saying to me. "If
you go any further, you are going to die" the words said. Yet, there
was no proof of that statement in anything I experienced with my
five senses. Never the less, to my surprise, Sergeant Bartee
believed me, without question. I suppose he readily believed in part
because of the many past dangers we had been able to avoid, through
the combined good instincts of Bill, Bowman and myself, over the
last few months. However, this situation was totally different than
before. This had nothing to do with the natural intuition, which
came when a point man like me nervously sensed an inexplicable
change in the jungle environment, which may or may not have
indicated danger. This was an audible voice, bypassing my ears and
speaking specific words directly into my brain. This was not me
making a judgment call. Simply put, it was the voice of God's Holy
Spirit, who had entered my life, when I was a child, and who had
been with me, never leaving, or forsaking me all this time. Even
now, during some of the darkest hours imaginable and despite the
fact that I had decided to throw God away, He was still speaking to
me. As long as I live, I will never forget the look on Sergeant
Bartee's face, as he just stood there, listening to me, repeating
those words. There was not the slightest hint of questioning,
whatsoever, on his countenance. To him, what I had just said was the
gospel truth, and needed to be heeded, although, in my mind, these
words brought indecision, because they seemed to defy logic. My five
senses confirmed nothing of what I had just said. Yet, Thank God
Bartee immediately reacted to what I said, and not to what I
believed, because I really did not believe what I had just rolled
off my tongue. However, the real truth is always the truth no matter
what one believes or doesn't believe and the truth is always much
more powerful than any
of the weapons we carried among us. Now, the Spirit of all truth had
just spoken. These words of truth were the only instrument of life
that would work. At this instant in time, these words spoken
straight into my brain by the Holy Spirit were the only thing that
would bring us all home alive and without a scratch. Acting on what
I believed, using my five senses, would not bring life but death.
Acting on what I believed would have instantly turned every man in
that patrol into dead men walking. The proof for what I am saying
here, came later, but it was undeniable proof when it did come.
Now, the
life giving power of Holy Spirit words, implanted into my conscious
mind by the one, who said in the Bible, that he would never leave me
nor forsake me (Hebrews 13:5)began to set events into motion. Bartee
turned and beckoned with one hand for the radio man to hand him his
mic. The radio man moved up close to his side so the cord would
reach and handed the mic to Bartee. The sound of breaking squelch,
by keying a mic could be heard a long way off, so I instinctively
turned to the front again, to face in the direction we had been
traveling. I strained to see the slightest movement that looked out
of place. The conversation on the radio behind me was lost to
my hearing. After several minutes Bartee motioned and whispered for
me to approach closer to him. "We are withdrawing," he said. The
tortured look on his face had turned into one of relief. After
backtracking a hundred yards or so, he started explaining to me,
that our Battalion Commander, Dogface 6 and now retired four star
General Dick Cavazos, had given orders over the radio to mark our
position and return to camp. His exact words were, "We don't need to
get any of you boys hurt. That's why America makes so many bombs.
We'll target the entire area where you are standing for an air
strike sometime tonight."
The command to
withdraw without spotting the enemy or drawing fire, was, to me,
highly unexpected. I don't believe any other commander in the First
Infantry Division would have given an order to do that, with no
visible evidence of an enemy presence. I was completely surprised,
and yet, instantly relieved on several levels. On a subconscious
level, it immediately reinstated in my mind a lot of the lost
confidence in Battalion Commanders, namely, in one Battalion
Commander, Dick Cavazos. We may have just received a pardon from a
death sentence but that would remain to be seen. At this moment, the
indescribable feeling of relief that comes from the fact that we
were headed home instead of further into enemy territory was all
that mattered.
That night,
while sitting in base camp, drinking a cup of hot chocolate, made
from C-rations and heated with a ball of C-4, I didn't worry much
about whether or not our patrol had called the shots right or not.
We had returned from our patrol alive and that was all that
mattered. Whether or not the enemy base camp was located where we
sounded the alarm was of very minor importance to my professional
pride. After all, I had no professional pride. I was just a twenty
year old draftee counting the days until I could leave this hell I
had woke up and found myself in.
Shortly
after dark, the ground began to rumble. The shaking of the earth
around us lasted for no more than five minutes and then it was over.
I finished my cup of hot chocolate. Tomorrow my company would return
to the bombsite to see if indeed there had been an enemy base camp
located close to the spot where my patrol had stopped, but tonight
it was just great to be alive.
My entire
company moved out early the next morning to survey the results of
the bombing the night before. Within the general area of the
bombing, the terrain had been devastated. The bombs had left deep
craters in the ground. Huge trees had been uprooted and it was hard
to navigate through the tangled mess. The first thing that alerted
me to the fact that human life had been destroyed, was the uniquely
sickening sweet smell of dead human flesh. Unfortunately, I had
smelled this odor too many times before. It was impossible to locate
the exact spot where we had been standing the day before, because
the bombing had changed the look of the area so much. What wasn't
hard to determine was the destruction of a very large enemy base
camp, which had obviously been located directly in the path of our
security patrol the previous day. Large disheveled pieces of bamboo,
used as supports for overhead covering, were scattered everywhere.
Disassembled bunkers and underground connecting tunnels were exposed
for anyone to see. Some of the rather whole human bodies had been
flung in all directions, landing in grotesque poses. No doubt, many
of these slave victims to tyranny had been resting in a relatively
peaceful state before their earthly souls were instantly translated
from one hopeless situation to an eternity in hell. Many other
bodies and body parts had been covered up by the bombing. It was
obvious that the enemy had no clue that they were going to be
targeted by an air strike. I believe almost every person in that
camp was killed and despite the direct and truthful way I have
described what happened, it gives me no solace to see such loss of
human life and the potential that each of these lost souls
represented. If only they could have found it possible to heed the
voice of that same Holy Spirit, who had spoken to me, thus embracing
Jesus Christ instead of the devil. My own life is living proof of
this one truth. There was little doubt that this was the camp of
those responsible for the ambush of the 1/16th and elements of the
2/28th.
In a phone
conversation with Richard Cavazos a few years ago, I asked him why
he had trusted my unfounded suspicions of a base camp. He simply
said, "I always trusted my men". Then I was corrected by him
and told the bombers, making that ground rumble were not B52's but
Australian Canberra's. Most likely they were from the RAAF 2nd
squadron, which had been initially deployed at Phan Rang on April
19th, 1967 to support troops like us, operating in the Iron Triangle
and War Zone C.
Now, many
years later, I realize that words spoken through the power of the
Holy Spirit are much more powerful than any weapon formed by man.
The word of God framed the universe. How could it not have the power
to save me? I have heeded that voice in my head many times since
that dark day so long ago and it has not only saved me from death
many times over, but against all natural logic, that voice has made
me prosper, as those around me prosper. I have come to take more
pleasure in the latter. Him, taking care of me is a given, but
seeing others allowing him to bring forth victory in their lives is
an indescribably gratifying feeling. (John 1:3) Not a single man was
lost in my platoon during the time I was with them, but while I was
at Di An processing out to come back to the States, my entire squad
was shot to pieces. Not only did every single man in my unit receive
a bronze star but my unit also received a Valorous Unit Award, which
I was told, by Dick many years later, was equal to every man
receiving a Silver Star for their level of heroism in their combined
actions during the time he commanded the unit
After I
returned from Vietnam, I continued to walk in rebellion. I returned
to Virginia Tech. in the fall of 1968 after being discharged from
service in June of that same year. I did well in my first year of
engineering studies but the loneliness that some would call “post
traumatic sock of combat” caught up with me in my second year at
Tech. Without contacting my family, I left suddenly one snowy winter
evening during winter registration and started driving west. When I
stopped traveling, I was looking at the Pacific Ocean. I lived in
Orange County, California for almost a year and was then given an
opportunity by an acquaintance I met at work to take a job he said
he would have for me when he returned to Houston, Texas. In late
November the company I worked for was collapsing and the owner was
unable to pay me. One day the phone rang and it was this same guy,
John Cooper, who said he had a job for me in Houston, Texas, if I
could make it to Houston at my own expense. I said yes. In a few
days I was on my way to Houston, Texas. I was 23 years old.
My bondage
was great.
I worked
for John Cooper for a while and that company folded too. I found
other work, where I could generate the most cash with the least amount of mental
effort, because so much of my mind was in torment. That meant
working long hours at menial tasks. After living in Houston a couple
years I decided that I would learn to drive tractor trailers and
then buy my own rigs and lease them to outfits that did that sort of
thing. After truck driving for a couple years, I realized this life
was not for me. During that period of time I met Julia who is my
oldest son’s (Jeremy) mother. We were married 4 years and she left.
During that time I managed to land a job with a Chemical Plant in
Channelview, Texas. I worked there over 20 years. During the time
that Julia and I where separated, I took a vacation and drove to a
patch of East Texas woods to try and renew my childhood relationship
with God. The Holy Spirit showed me a small tree with a vine growing
around it. He had me cut down the tree and make a staff. Shortly
after returning from East Texas and my experience with God and the
strange commandment concerning the staff, I met a beautiful woman in
a bar in Houston. We spent the next few years, together, wasting
time. That relationship ended, after she told me how boring I was.
After she left, I found out from a mutual friend that she was using
cocaine. I was now 36 years old.
At times,
I tried to pray. However, I was in such deep bondage, I could only
say the Lord's prayer. I also started reading a few verses from the
bible once in a while. One evening, I walked outside the control
room of the large chemical plant, where I worked and said the
following words. “Lord I do not understand you and I do not trust
those who claim to understand you. My life is going no where. I am
wasting it away. Lord, if you are real, please take my life and make
whatever you will with it.” Immediately, the lights came on. I began
to be led, from the confusion I had lived in for so many years, into
a more and more peaceful and orderly place. I began to pray with
power, which I could never do before. Larry Gillum, a Baptist
Counselor whom I was led by the Holy Spirit to see recommended that I attend Grace
Community Church.
It was located in League City and I was living in Pasadena very near
Larry’s office. His office was located across the street from the
largest Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas, when he made this
recommendation. It didn’t make much sense for a Baptist counselor to
recommend a spirit filled nondenominational church over another
church of his own denomination. However, many times the leading of
the Holy Spirit can inject strange anomalies into the course of
one's life.
After
attending Grace for a while, I attended a deliverance training
session taught by a man named Richard Lot. I did this mostly out of
curiosity. My attitude was this. "I don't believe I need deliverance
but why not error on the side of humility and learn more about it. "
Besides, my life was still not where it needed to be. By now, I had
spent a lot of time in social settings with the same guys who were
practicing praying for me, so during the prayer session, I remember
thinking, "Gee, the people praying for me are worse off than me".
After performing ritual prayers taught to the members of the
deliverance team, by Richard Lot, they finally asked me if anything
came to mind, that I might want to talk about. Actually I was more
sure than ever that there was absolutely nothing at all that I
wished to talk about with these guys. However, noticing the looks on
their faces, I didn't want to discourage them, so I mentioned the
only thing that came into my mind and that was the name "Othar".
Everyone looked at me like I was a little weird and that was that.
The session ended. A few weeks later one of the men who had prayed
for me and who had personal problems dating back many, many years
showed remarkable improvement in his life after counseling with a
Baptist Minister, whose name was Dr.
Joe Albright.
The Holy Spirit strongly urged me to make an appointment with Dr.
Albright. I did, but had to wait 6 months because he was booked up
that far in advance. In May, 1993, I headed to the west side of
Houston for a 3 day counseling session with Dr. Albright. I had
arranged a week's vacation for the all day sessions, scheduled to
last 3 days, consecutively, as the Doctor had requested. Again the
Holy Spirit was at work, leading me full circle to a Baptist
deliverance minister through a contact I had met in a church that
believed in the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
I was met
at the door of Dr. Albright's home by his wife, Rita, and quickly
ushered into the presence of Dr. Albright, himself, standing in his
study, where an impressive array of plaques covered the walls behind
him. That array was more than enough proof to indicate that he had
been completely obedient to the scripture that says, "Study to show
thyself approved". However, he was very quick to say, that the Lord
could use a rock to do what he did. Dr. Albright's appearance was
that of a very tall man in his early 70's who’s most magnetic
feature was that of his clear, piercing, blue eyes. While walking
into his study after greeting me, he was quick to mention that he
would charge no fees for his services. He said early on that I would
be the beneficiary of his many days of fasting, which were not for
me, but for a lady, he was seeing that evening. He added that she
had been involved with a Satanic Cult.
I arrived
at his home office on a Wednesday morning at 10:00 AM. We prayed and
ask the Holy Spirit to take control. He ask me to tell him about
myself and start anywhere, I pleased. I talked about my youth a
little, but mostly about my 3 failed marriages and how I had always
wanted a home and family but seemly, the harder I tried, the worse
things got in my personal relationships. I told him about Oliver B.
Shank, a fellow recruit in basic training, who walked up to me one
day and read my palm. After reading it he had said that I would be a
good soldier but I would always have a problem with women for the
rest of my life. So far, it had turned out as he had predicted. I
had just gone through my third divorce but had been a decorated
veteran of the Vietnam campaign. At the end of our first session
(around 3:00 PM) Dr. Albright ended by making some startling
statements. To summarize his words, "Wayne", he said, " You
definitely have a split personality that is demon oppressed. This,
however, cannot be dealt with unless you believe that what I am
telling you is true. You have a strong side of your personality that
does not submit to Christ and although you are born again and will
go to heaven if you die today, you will struggle with this for the
rest of your life if you don't get deliverance. It is the strong
side of your personality that you depend on when the going gets
tough. You should be trusting in Christ. This is the ground in your
soul that Satan has been able to use." He ended our meeting that day
by saying, "Let's pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you that
what I am saying is true. It will be impossible for you to get
deliverance if you do not see this for yourself." We prayed, and
that ended our first day of this three day session.
I went to
Wednesday night services at Grace Community Church that evening and
couldn't wait for the service to end. That strong restless feeling
that I had felt at other times in my life seemed to overwhelm me. It
was the same feeling that had propelled me to quit college, to
severe relationships with friends, family, and loved ones by
withdrawing into a strange fantasy world of the mind that the bible
calls, "vain imaginations". The next morning I couldn't wait for the
next session to begin. The truth of what Dr. Albright had said had
definitely been revealed to me, or so I thought. The Holy Spirit,
however, had other plans of his own.
After
arriving around 10 am the next morning at the psychologist's home
office, Dr. Albright began the session by saying, "The Holy Spirit
has told me to tell you about my cousin who committed suicide after
becoming an outcast in the community he lived in". He went on to
say, "He became an outcast because he was a convicted murderer." "My
uncle", Dr. Albright said, "had killed a man but was a very wealthy
and respected man in this 1930's town, so he paid my cousin to take
the wrap for him and serve his time in prison. After getting out of
prison my cousin couldn't get a decent job, because he was branded
as a murderer, by the community. Finally things got so bad in his
life, that he just took a rope and hanged himself."
As Dr.
Albright was telling me this depressing story, I remember asking
myself, "What in the world does this have to do with me?" When I had
arrived at his home that morning, I had been so excited and could
hardly wait to tell him about the revelation of the previous night.
Instead, I had to sit there and listen to this ridiculous,
depressing story, which had nothing to do with anything in my life.
After the many months of waiting to see this man and anticipating a
breakthrough in my life, it seemed, as though, I had come to another
dead end. When He had finished this awful story, which seemed to
have nothing to do with present reality, I tried brushing the story
aside, by abruptly changing the subject. I quickly mentioned that I
had, indeed, sensed the split personality, that he had noticed, when
we met yesterday. Even as I was saying this, however, I could feel
that same feeling of hopelessness come over me, like so many other
times in my life. The excitement I felt, about being able to share
with him the confirmation of the truth in what he had told me the
previous day had just had a wet blanket thrown on it, by listening
to this silly story, which seemly had nothing to do with matters at
hand. It was time to go back to the tombs. I was standing at the
edge of a breakthrough, but at this point only the Holy Spirit could
provide the bridge to get to the other side. That bridge certainly
would not be built by Dr. Joe Albright and his crazy stories about
his family tree. At this point, all I was hearing from the good
Doctor, through my filtered thought processes, was a ridiculous
story which was totally off base. I couldn't see how it had anything
whatsoever to do with me. In reality, however,
I would soon find that it had everything to do with me. Every deception
imprinted inside my mind, by my demonic captors, since birth was now going to be exposed. Yesterday's false
revelation which I thought I had acquired at Wednesday night church service would be
out the window. After he had spouted out such a disjointed family
history lesson like this, those demons who had controlled my mind
for so long were completely bewildered. They were now disarmed
enough to allow me to speak for myself and say just about anything I
wanted to say. All my egocentric motivation to make my conversation fit in with Dr.
Albright's seemingly "Alice in Wonderland tea party story" was gone.
So, I said
exactly what my unfiltered thoughts were thinking. I mentioned the
first thought that popped into my head. Right out of the blue, I
told Albright about the deliverance session at Grace. I mentioned
the name that had popped into my head, and how I had made it up just
to have something to say to a bunch of would be exorcists with
disappointed looks on their faces. I also told him that the name was
the only thing that came out of the session with Richard Lot, but I
stopped short, before telling him that I thought the name was as ridiculous as the
story he had just told me. "Wayne, what was the name, he asked?" "The name was Othar",
I said. The expression on his face
suddenly changed, quite noticeably, I may add. Dr. Albright's eyes switched from their normal
piercing gaze to a look of discovery. He looked like someone who had
just found the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle and at the same time
realized that it fit into a totally different place on the
picture, then were he was expecting it to fit. "Wayne", he blurted out, "My cousin in the story I was
telling you, who hanged himself, was named "Othar".
Well, I
must say, that this was an amazing revelation for both of us.
Instantly we were of one mind. There was no doubt now, who was in
charge of this deliverance session and it wasn't either one of us.
How many people in the world name their son "Othar"? Would you name
your son "Othar"? I would name my son "Sue" before I would
name him "Othar". How many "Othars" do you know? The point I am
trying to make is this. The probability numbers for
Dr. Albright's cousin having the same name as the name that popped
into my head months before are astronomical. There was no way I
could have any doubt that I was having a life changing experience
with the God of the Universe. In one instant, in the twinkling of an
eye, the Holy Spirit had proven to both men in that room that Dr.
Joe Albright was acting as a servant of God by relating a seemingly
unrelated event in obedience to God instead of the learned responses
of a psychologist. In that same instant, the Holy Spirit had
revealed to my skeptical mind that he was in control of this meeting
and that I could trust the events of this meeting to be orchestrated
by him. The years of conditioning, by Satan, to be suspicious of all
authority, was crushed under the thumb of the Holy Spirit in one
second. The deliverance I had been seeking happened very quickly and
my life has not been the same since that moment. We prayed together
and I invited the Holy Spirit to take control of my entire soul. I
confessed the sin I had committed by allowing my palm to be read
years before. Dr. Albright mentioned that Satan could have spilt my
soul at birth and that this strong personality in me was going to be
an asset instead of a liability now that it was under submission to
Christ.
At the time
I met with Albright I had just ended marriage number three. Less
than two weeks later I started dating my present wife whom I met in
a singles group at Grace Community Church months earlier. A year
later we were married. There is no doubt that this marriage will last a life time. A
year later we had a daughter named Kari and in that same year (1995)
started a Real Estate business which God has used to bless our
family and many others since. Three years later we had a miracle son
named Caleb. God is a God of restoration and continues to prove that
fact in my life. In the years since that meeting, I have been taught
by The Holy Spirit, and in turn, have made myself available to speak
to other Christian men and men's groups concerning how they can get
free from Satan's grip. They struggle for lack of knowledge in the
word of God. The truth is
this. Not many are willing to seek God for real deliverance. Most in
the membership of the church today want to play it safe by doing the same
old things over and over, seeking ritual over renewal. The real
power that is available to the body of Christ comes by faith in the
things that cannot be seen or reasoned out beforehand. If Albright
had not been led by the Holy Spirit through his faith in the Holy
Spirit, he would never
have told that seemingly unrelated story about his cousin, because
it would not have made sense to the natural mind to tell such a
story, yet that seemingly unrelated story was exactly what I needed
to hear.
Satan's
bondage can run wild in any Christian if unchecked through the
knowledge of God's word. New birth in spirit does not automatically
mean freedom for the soul. The bible says, “For the lack of
knowledge, God's people perish”. That doesn't mean we lose our
salvation. It simply means we will live in defeat, instead of
victory, as our souls whither over time. Paul said the salvation of
the soul must be worked out with fear and trembling. Jesus, himself,
set the best example for this. His very first act after receiving
the anointing of the Holy Spirit, at the Jordon, was to separate
himself, fast and use the word to put Satan in his place. Sadly
enough, many Christian men do not gain the knowledge in the word of
God to be able to understand who they are in Christ. When men learn
how to use the sword of the word to put Satan to flight, they can
then start to become Christ's witnesses to their families first,
their church and finally the world. Since I received deliverance, I
have grown continually in the Lord in knowledge and ability to be
used by The Holy Spirit to become an effective witness for Christ to
those around me. More importantly, the love Of God is increasingly
manifested in my heart. I was 46 years old when I got this
deliverance.
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