In Honor of Veterans Day

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad.

Before landing, we circled rock islands which protruded the calm South China Sea.  How could this peaceful beauty be a war zone?  Yes, there was a beauty to the rough rocks that sat scattered in a sea which sparkled in the bright sunlight.  And so too, was there beauty to the mountains, rice paddies, gleaming beaches, and bright-eyed children.

Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace;

We landed at an open airfield, two miles in length, surrounded by hangars, planes, and miles of barbed wire.  It would be several months before hamlet and camp names would be learned and before we would see the jet still embedded on the side of Monkey Mountain.

strengthen them in their trials and temptations;

For those going to the U. S. Naval Support Activity, our first sights of welcome would be jeeps, tar paper houses with tin roofs held down by old tires, motorbikes, water buffalo, black silk pajamas, straw hats, green and camouflaged fatigues, staring children’s faces, trash, sandbags, more barbed wire, and a brilliant clear sky.  DaNang, once a city of 35,000, that day knew close to a quarter of a million, including a plane load of 160 new arrivals.

give them courage to face the perils which beset them;

That first ride, in what can only be described as cattle cars, ended in front of a white-washed building, erected by the French many years before, with a fence of painted white chains and mortar-shells.  We would not get specific assignments until the next day; but that night we would know the meaning of “red alert” and hear the distant sounds of firing artillery.  And while not that night, there would be nights when the ground shook.

and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

May 2, 1969 is but a memory.  During the period from May 1971 through September 1972, I was stationed at the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington, D.C., where I would write orders for other Naval personnel to go to the Republic of Vietnam, some at the direction of the United States Navy and others at their own request. 

When I first wrote my thoughts, on the 20^th anniversary of having been to Vietnam, I closed with, “May such a time never be experienced again.”  If this were only true.  Amen.

Bill Wilds

Photo: Bill Wilds, Christmas 1969, US Naval Support Activity, DaNang, Vietnam