Last Sunday we took time in our morning worship service to honor all veterans and their families! We do not always marry the national calendar to our church calendar, but this year I felt led to do so. Maybe because I have been reading “Last Stand at Khe Sanh: The U. S. Marines’ Finest Hour in Vietnam.”  This is my generation’s war, and although I did not have to go, I had many friends and men I knew who did. Yes, sometimes I feel a little guilty because these men and women never received their due respect and honor. Upon their return they were ridiculed, scorned and treated down right awful by people for whom they sacrificed so much to protect. 

I suppose my sensitivity was heighted this year by reading about the Marines’ at Khe Sahn, where some 6,000 Leathernecks were besieged by 20,000 NVA regulars, with the bulk of the fighting occurring between January to April of 1968. What these men went through would be very scary to me and sacrificial for me!. It is really, real to me because I personally know a man who was there. He took a rocket round directly into his fox hole with four other Marines. Three of them died and my friend was seriously wounded, but there is no doubt God spared Him because he was called to preach and is one of the most powerful evangelists I have ever heard. Many people have come to Christ under his ministry. The amazing thing is that he was led to Christ by a Catholic chaplain in another fox hole not long before this attack. I would not want to go through what he experienced, but the old saying is, “What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.”  I think that is true of my friend! 

The Bible says it this way, ”Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  Thanks Jim and to ALL those who served in the great “unappreciated war.”