Abandoned

ABANDONED During a skirmish with enemy sources in a rice paddy in Vietnam, I was suddenly cut off from my platoon and receiving heavy firepower. I felt so utterly alone and deserted by my fellow soldiers. My instinct told me to seek the nearest cover available and return fire with hope that my platoon would circle back to rescue me from possible capture by the Viet Cong. My ammunition was running low which added to my feeling of being discarded like a broken toy might be tossed aside by a child. Thoughts ran rampant through my mind. Had my platoon forsaken me? Had they forgotten one of their own? Had they utterly vacated the mission out of fear for their own life? I felt as though they had simply dropped off the face of the earth. Suddenly, I heard the drone of a helicopter in the distance. As the sound became louder, I realized it was coming directly toward my position. It came in low over the rice paddy and opened fire. The enemy began to scatter in every direction to escape the menacing overhead attack, but none were able to do so. The chopper landed on a small knoll nearby and every man whom I thought had deserted me and left me to die poured out of that chopper like a bunch of ants out of an anthill. We hugged, hollered, high-fived and hopped around like kids on Christmas morning. We suffered no casualties in that particular skirmish and after the celebratory action subsided, we knelt in prayer to our Sovereign God and Creator for delivering us from the hands of the enemy. Additionally, we prayed for the families of the Viet Cong who died that day in a war of sheer hell that should never have lasted for so long and leave numerous American families without fathers and husbands. A senseless war that is still a blight on the most beloved country on earth. It is with gratefulness and by the grace of God that I survived and I now act as a counselor for men who are still dealing with combat fatigue with no possibility of ever being whole once again. WAR IS HELL! 16 June 2020 for the contest sponsored by Dear Heart