The most combat that we saw at Long Binh while I was there was the incoming rockets that seem to always fall just before dawn. The VC never gave up trying to hit the ammo dump and fuel storage areas.  I shall never forget the horror of the sound one of those things made as it exploded.  I did my time in Nam by filling thousands of sand bags in the extreme heat, pulling guard duty on the perimeter, and making phone patches back to the "world."

Soon after arrive home in April of 1970, I began to feel some what guilty about not having done more in the war effort.  I was plagued with what has been called "Survivors' Guilt."  I began to regret every praying for deliverance from the First Air Calvary. Why? Because someone had to take my place at An Khe. Someone's son.  Someone's husband.  Someone took my place.  Did he make it home?  That feeling of guilt stayed with me for a long time, even postponing my decision to go to the seminary.  It took thirteen years to move beyond the feeling of guilt and shame.  In 1983 I left my job with Delta Air Lines and began working on my divinity degree at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.  In my second year at Emory, I worked as a volunteer chaplain for Nam Vets of Georgia.  It was there that I finally got relief from the guilt I had been suffering.  I was discussing my feelings one day with a veteran that I was taking to the VA Hospital.  He heard my story and asked me, "Did you d! o everything you were told to do in Nam?" I replied, "Yes. I even was awarded the Army's Commendation Metal for Leadership."  He continued, "So, you are telling me you did all you were told to do a when you were told to?" Again I said, "Yes.  Even to the point of winning Soldier of the Month and Soldier of the Quarter competition several times." This combat veteran looked at me and said the words that set me free from my pain.  He said to me, "Then, my friend, you have done everything I have done.  I did what I was told and nothing more.  We are equals."  An interesting note that I would like to end on is this: in twenty-one years of preaching and pastoring churches I have had only one Viet Nam veteran under my pastoral care. Even though that has turned out to be the case, I still believe I would join again if I had the same set of circumstances placed before me as a young man.

I will never forget the marriage I helped "perform" while in Viet Nam.  A young soldier was engaged and wanted to meet his fiancée in Hawaii, but her father would not allow it unless they were married. We must remember that was 1969 and most people did not "get the cart before the horse" in those days.  We had a Red Cross Priority call set up.  The young lady's pastor was on the other end, and we had the groom in the MARS station.  The pastor made me identify the young man to his satisfaction, and he began the ceremony.  The groom would say his vows and then "over."  The bride would then say her vows and say "over."  The pastor pronounced them husband and wife over the radio and they were allowed to meet in Hawaii. 

Another interesting event was the morning a young man ran into the station with a Red Cross Priority in his hand.  He had gotten word that his wife had just delivered his son.  The Bell Telephone operator got the hospital, got transferred to the labor and delivery floor, and directly to the nurses' station.  The nurses were so impressed with what we were attempting to do that they got the baby boy and brought him to the telephone.  They gave him a little pinch and he began to scream!  His daddy was so excited he kept yelling to us, "Hey, MARS operators, do you hear my son? Do you hear my son?"

Just for the record, I would like to erase any notions in the minds of our children and grandchildren who may one day read the history of MARS in Viet Nam, that your fathers and grandfathers were, in fact, "men." We were just as interested in coming home to your mothers and grandmothers as anyone of this new generation would be.  I am sure that the World War II veterans were no different as evidenced by such a large number of births following their arrival back home in 1945.  They created for the world what has become known as the Baby Boomer generation.  We thought like our dads.  We did our part to keep a steady stream of children coming into God's world.  I will never forget how we used to wait for the skip conditions to build up enough for phone patching.  We had our antennas pointed across the North Pole and down to the "world."  We spent our time chit-chatting between ourselves waiting on a MARS station in the States to break in and say, "OK, AB8USA, we have you 5-9 in Phoenix, give us your first listings."  I want to take credit for creating what was called our "Sex Contest" ran each morning on the air while waiting for the skip to roll in.  The contest would always work the same way.  Different "contestants" (always female nurses) from the different field hospitals would call on the "land line" and present themselves as willing contestants to win a free phone call home.  The contest judge would be some poor fellow off in the boonies.  Each MARS operator would coach his contestant as to what to say, and how to say it, in hopes of presenting the winning contestant for the morning.  The wonderful "angels of mercy" would say anything they were told in hopes of getting to talk with their mom.  When the contest got too close to call, (which was always the case) each contestant would get a second chance at convincing the judge to declare her the winner. They would often drop their voices to a whisper, breathe heavily into the phone, and moan and groan in such a manner that even a seasoned operator would blush! 

Years later I was in a meeting in North Carolina and we had a special guest speaker to come to the microphone to talk about her life and give her testimony.  At one point in her presentation she held up a "boonie" hat with a silver bar and several unit buttons. Not only had she been a nurse, but she had been a nurse at one of the Evac hospitals in Viet Nam.  I immediately burst into tears, she spotted me and said that she knew instantly that I was a Viet Nam veteran.  After our meeting we had a wonderful conversation in which I must have told her thank you a dozen times or more.  She had given so much.  I felt so humbled just by being in her presence.  May God bless every woman who volunteered to serve along side us in this war!

Wonderful memories and friends. I could do a Power Point Presentation for my experiences..

There is a publication with the title "Calling Home From Vietnam".. I am quoted in remarks to the publication. Please contact me and we can chat more about this.

I feel there will never be an time like this and what MARS meant to so many... Just think of what that 5 minute call was like???????

This means so much to me and I will help anyway I can.....