“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” Proverbs 3:5

Col. John Trumbull was amazed that his white “headdress” did not make him more of a target that bullet-ridden day at Newport in 1778. He experienced what many soldiers, mariners, and pilots have encountered ever since: the mystery of survival. Trumbull did not understand how he made it after being so exposed to danger and seeing bullets and cannon blasts blow off men’s arms in his path. Like many before and after him, he turned to God for answers.

Trumbull’s story has been repeated throughout history. And during Vietnam, another young man encountered the same phenomenon of protection. “Vic left for Vietnam on March 22, 1972, for a year tour as a crew member aboard an AC-130 gunship,” his wife Bonnie Reid explained.

Their first child, Sherry, was only six and a half weeks old at the time. Less than three months later, on June 18th, Bonnie and Sherry went over to a friend’s house for dinner. Vic’s college roommate from Texas A&M; University and his wife had invited them.

“We had finished dinner and I was sitting on the couch with Sherry when I had a strange feeling sweep over me. I excused myself and went home with Sherry. (It was already Sunday, June 19th in Vietnam),” Bonnie described of the prompting. She didn’t know until later why she had suddenly become so disturbed.

“Unbeknownst to me, Vic had been on a mission and his plane was hit by a surface-to-air Missile, lost a wing, and was blown apart. There were fifteen crew members aboard the plane and only three got out alive—Vic being one of them.” The area, a remote spot at the time, was covered by the North Vietnamese army, who beat the trees to try to scare survivors out of their hiding places. The AC-130 flew its missions at night.

“Vic was not supposed to be on that flight since he had flown the night before. The guy that was supposed to fly took himself off flying status because a Buddhist Monk told him something was going to happen. The person they tried to get to replace him was downtown, so they went and got Vic out of bed to fly,” Bonnie explained. “Vic found a downed tree that had a hollow area beneath it. He crawled under it and covered himself with leaves, etc., to conceal himself. This was after he dug a hole and buried a picture of me and Sherry, and his Aggie ring, so if he was captured they would not find them on him.”

Although one of his two radio transmitters did not work, Vic was able to use the other one to call the aircrews searching for him. He helped them to pinpoint his location, which was unmapped at the time. Eighteen hours after his plane went down, Vic Reid was rescued. And like John Trumbull two centuries earlier, he experienced two miracles beyond his understanding that night: surviving a plane crash and being rescued.

PRAYER: Your ways are mysterious, Lord, and beyond my understanding. I seek to trust you with life’s mysteries.

Best selling author and columnist Jane Hampton Cook, http://www.janecook.com/, is known for making history both memorable and relevant to today’s news, political events, and issues of faith. A former webmaster for President George W. Bush (1999-03), Jane is the author of Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War, a 365-day devotional chronicling the story of the nation’s founding from the viewpoints of 20 key players.

Publisher: Living Ink Books
ISBN-10: 0-89957-042-9
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©Jane Hampton Cook, used with permission.