Poem
Poem
Poem
Poem
Poem
Poem,Photograph
The Hand of God in Vietnam
By Max Riekse, Army
Writing Type: Prose
By
Max Riekse
In
1996. Lt. Col. Les Mitkos, an Army Reserve chaplain and a Lutheran minister in
civilian life from Illinois, was asked to give the main Sunday morning sermon
at the U.S. Army Infantry Center Chapel on Main Post, Fort Benning, Ga., which
he did on Sept. 22.
It
was an outstanding sermon from the heart in which he related the combat
experience of a close personal friend who had been in Vietnam.
His
sermon centered on the Three Ws — Worship, Work and Witness. Chaplain Mitkos’
friend had been an E-6 in the super-secret and mysterious U.S. Army Security
Agency and assigned to the Fifth Special Forces in Vietnam. His friend later
became a U.S. Army Reserve chaplain and was also one of those called up to
support Operation Joint Endeavor.
In
his Sunday morning sermon, he related that on one of his friend’s excursions
into the fields of Vietnam in late 1970, he was with a unit made up of seven
Americans and indigenous personnel in search of a Vietnamese Communist (VC)
unit estimated at battalion size. The unit that his friend was with had stopped
at a Vietnamese village in search of information on their quarry and was given
very good intelligence on where they had gone.
This
particular village had a strong Catholic presence with a Catholic priest
visiting it upon occasion. Off they went, and before long they had picked up
the trail and begun tracking them, only
to discover later that the enemy force that they had been pursuing had doubled
back and was heading toward the Vietnamese village and the people that had been
of such great of help to them.
His
friend and the men he was with arrived at the village around two hours too
late. The village was destroyed, and it appeared that every man, woman and
child in the village had been killed. There was dead silence. Then someone
discovered a hole in the ground where a six-year-old girl had been hidden for
safe keeping. She started to cry and would not stop. Several men suggested that
she be left there as they had a mission to finish, and besides, it would not be
a very smart or safe thing to do to try to bring her along with them. Where
they were going was no place for small child, and her presence could put
everyone’s life in great danger. One man even suggested killing her.
At
that point, this six-year-old child walked over to a pair of dead people lying
on the cold, hard ground that were presumably her parents and just stood there
not crying. One man was heard to make the comment, "Why should we care
what happens to them; they don't even cry for their own.” At that point she
turned to them and said in broken English that there was no need to cry for
them because “my parents knew Jesus.” One American started to cry and then it
was contagious. Soon, 40 hard-core trained killers were down on their knees.
The indigenous personnel, coming themselves from a spiritual background, had
also recognized the spirituality of the moment and wept alongside the
Americans.
For
most of these men, their lives had been changed forever. The decision was made
then and there to do the right thing despite the great risk to themselves. They
took the little girl with them to a safe area.

Poem
Poem
Poem
Poem
Poem
Poem