Avalon Chronicles #179: "I Sing to the Glory and Goodness of God"

 In a recent church service I attended there was posted on the screen the words to a hymn. The line that stood out to me was "Sing to the Goodness of God." I began to have recollection of the horrific day in my Dak To Special Forces camp on June 17, 1967 when the enemy mortar attack began at 4:30AM. An enemy force of regular army North Vietnamese communists had entered South Vietnam from their protected sanctuary in Cambodia. The unit had ambushed two of our Special Force patrols and killed several of our Green Berets. I was in the camp undercover setting up South Vietnamese Montagnards (native mountain people) to spy on the enemy in the area to our west toward Cambodia. My operation was shut down and our camp was in danger of being under constant siege. My commanding officer in Saigon 280 miles away was to have arrived at 0930 hours by air to remove me from the camp. I was not there when he arrived. For some time after the church service I could not remove from my mind the picture of my being flat on the ground in the camp. I began to tear from the events of that morning. 

Racing through my mind was what happened to me when I survived a mortar round hitting the ground a few feet to my left rear, amputating my left leg below the knee and fracturing my right leg in five places (later also amputated). Looking back, I should be dead, but, by the Goodness of God, I survived. I teared because I realized my Lord God allowed me to live. It was terrifically horrible. However, I felt no pain! My God did not allow me to suffer. It could have been pretty painful. Green Beret combat medic Sgt. St. Lawrence reported, "Cpt. Clark was bleeding to death with both femoral arteries severed and many other wounds. I had no clamps/instruments of any kind with me. I used my fingers to clamp down on the bleeding and hung on that way until another Green Beret appeared and we took him to the A-team medic Jimmy Hill's bunker, where he received morphine." Air Force gunships rained fire on the enemy and the attack ceased. The hospital did not have enough of my blood type and a call out to the Special Forces camp and air base brought 20-25 men in to donate for my transfusions.

I survived! It was not easy ever or since, fifteen months in hospital, twenty surgeries, fourteen weeks in a psychiatric ward, 150 or so stitches, but I lived with prostheses for both legs and psychiatrists for several years. It was only by the GOODNESS OF GOD that I can today write about it. He watched over me and healed me. Yes, I believe in the Goodness of God! That Goodness is available for all. Seek it.