GOD, DEATH, AND SURVIVAL IN VIETNAM

On the battlefields of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, God seemed to favor the winner. The Vietnamese believed in Ancestor Worship. Every village had its god to protect it. The Montagnard tribes followed animism, appeasing the spirits in the land. Statues of Buddha stood tall, and monks in orange robes moved like shadows through the temples. My comrades, too, worshipped each other in their way. The Army Chaplains came through, holding services, and some men knelt. I remember finding a brother, wounded, praying for life — only to die.

Death did not care about belief, race, color, or language. It took us all. The Kingdom of Souls took everyone, and the Angel of Death worked without rest. In the eleven years of the war, more than 58,000 Americans died, along with three million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians.

Belief in something after this life was a comfort, but it was a thought quickly slipping away in the heat of combat. The hereafter was a passing notion when we moved toward the abyss daily.
I came to see the only guidance we had in those moments was the choices we made — and even then, the devil’s hand often seemed to sit on our shoulders. I came to believe science was the answer to sickness. That good government and education were the answers to security and poverty. And wise parents were the true architects of a good life. But none of it was perfect. None of it stood up when the storm came…