A Mother Prays

This is a paper that my grandmother wrote many years ago. I hope you enjoy reading it.

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How well I remember the evening of May 3, 1967! I was thoughtfully preparing a meal after a day of teaching when the solitude was interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone. It was my oldest son calling from Camp LeJune, South Carolina.

Paul had graduated from Iowa City High School with honors. He had attended our Lutheran College in Fremont, Nebraska, on a football scholarship. He had decided the ministry was to be his future. After a year there, he was undecided so he returned home to enroll in the University of Iowa. There he met Dr. Wood and became interested in pharmacology. Then he received his draft notice. So bravely and hopefully did he volunteer for the Navy because he was promised schooling in pharmacy after basic training. About eight months of this training was all he had before he was sent from Portsmouth, Virginia, to Camp LeJune to train for service in Vietnam.

I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. "Mom, my group is slated to leave for Vietnam. A bunch of the guys are going to Canada instead. What would you and Wilfred (his step-father) think if I went along?" How could a Mother decide a son's future? Of course, I'd rather have a live son in Canada than a dead one in Vietnam. But would that happen to him? Surely God would answer my prayers and protect my son.

I couldn't answer the question he asked. I asked others, like "How soon are you to leave? Will you get to come home first? Where will you be stationed in Vietnam?"

Finally, he asked the question again. I found words this time. "I don't know, Paul. Will you call me back in an hour? I must have time to think about this."

Wilfred would not be home for some time yet. He had to work late. I felt panic. Panic like I had never experienced before. Mothers and teachers are supposed to know all the answers; aren't they? Here I was---both mother and teacher---and I didn't know the answer, and didn't know how to go about figuring it out. So much depended upon that answer. A son's future. I prayed for guidance.

The hour was almost up when the phone rang again. I trembled as I raised the receiver. My dear son's voice again. "Mom, don't worry. I am coming home. I'll be there tomorrow night. I can't go to Canada with the guys. Don't cry. I'll see you soon and explain everything." My son---a man now---making his own decisions.

He came home for a very short ten day visit.

His first letter from Vietnam was written May 22, 1967. He was stationed with the 3Bn, 1st Marines, 1st Mar Division, fifteen miles south of DaNang at Marble Mountain. He was separated from his group in Okinawa. He wrote, "I am very lonely now. If I had to do over, I'd not get on that plane in Cedar Rapids. It is hot and dusty here. You hear firing in the distance every now and then. I keep asking myself why I am here, and I get no answer.."

I decided to find out everything I could about this place called Vietnam. I knew so little about the land or its people. I found very little had been written about this country, but writers were beginning to be aware there was demand for this knowledge. I purchased every book as soon as it was published. But I received most of my information from my son. We exchanged letters as often as possible. He sent maps and tapes.

He described life in Vietnam as he saw it:

    June 7, 1967 letter---I am sitting outside a destroyed pagoda in a defensive perimeter. It is 0800 here and the people are starting to work in their fields. We are sitting next to a lake with a villa around it. Some old man is fishing with a net right across from us. Two little boys are on their water buffalo weeding the rice paddies. We are right at the foot of the central highlands west of DaNang. They just had an air strike in the mountains and the surface of the lake was shattered by the concussion. It is starting to get hot here already. It was about 130 degrees yesterday. Good weather for bananas and pineapple. We ate pineapple with our supper last night.

    June 22, 1967 letter---I am sitting under my poncho on a plat of land laden with punji pits and surrounded by rice paddies. We came out yesterday on a 8-day search and destroy mission. We are in jungle and fields. Tonight at 9:00 I am going out on a special mission.

    To answer your questions: 1. A line company is a front line of battle troops. We operate in platoons with two corpsmen to a platoon. We are the primary line of resistance to the enemy. 2. I am assigned to the platoon as a medical aid. I fix up all the people who get shot, etc. About fifteen minutes ago, a man stepped into a punji pit and the spike went about 1 1/2 inches into his foot so we med-evacuated him. We call in helicopters. There was a fire fight last week in which I had to fix up a man in the middle of a rice paddy while bullets were kicking up dirt around us. I have never been so afraid in my life. 3. Living conditions in the field are terrible. The bugs are terrible. When we are in the field we don't have water to shave and wear the same clothes for 6-12 days. We get to swim in the river every now and then.

    I may be put into a village to treat and teach the people. The chief in charge of us is trying to get me into one. I hope he can because that would be in a pacified area.

    August 7, 1967 letter---We were on a local operation the last two days. It was a rough one. We had six casualties. Two men hit a mine and were evacuated the first day. Last night we got hit by rifle grenades and automatic weapons fire. Four people were hit by shrapnel. I got put up for a purple heart because I got shrapnel and concussion on the left knee. The diagnosis is contusion to the left knee. It isn't serious. I am walking. We are going on another division size operation against NVA down by Chu Lai in a couple of days. It is going to last 14 days. It is all jungle down there. -----

About this time I began to feel other pressures. My husband had an enlarged heart. He had been advised that when the heart became half the size of the lung cavity he would have severe problems with it. The doctors confirmed our fears. The heart [was] very large by now. He must have his teeth pulled. No longer could our family doctor do the work. He must seek medical aid at the University Hospital.

I was worried about my husband. But I felt something was happening to Paul in Vietnam. Perhaps it was extrasensory perception. The day Wilfred came home from an examination at the University Hospital about two o’clock in the afternoon, I knew my feelings and fears were real. A man from the Navy and a man from the Marines came to the door. I can not remember asking them in. I was stunned. We were sitting in the living room. They were telling us that my son had been shot while on Operation Cochise. Yes, he was alive! We would receive a telegram soon. We would be hearing from him soon also. He was in First Hospital Company, Chu Lai, South Vietnam.

In early September, my husband was hospitalized. His teeth were pulled and he had numerous examinations for his heart problem. He hoped for surgery. Finally, we received the prognosis. It was too late for surgery. He was to die a terminal death at the hospital.

Paul was recovering at the hospital and we were hearing from on a regular basis.

I begged the doctor to try surgery on Wilfred since he so wanted to try to live. Dr. Erhart broke into tears the day I explained to him that I would never blame him if the operation failed. I so wanted him to try, to do something for my husband. Through tears, he told me that God didn’t want us to die like that. He had known my husband all his life, had gone to school with him, and he knew how bad his heart was. He simply could not perform surgery under those conditions.

So-- I had a husband dying in Iowa and a son recovering in Vietnam. Recovering for what? Another mission on Purple Mountain? Oh, God, where art thou? Hear my prayers.

Wilfred’s dying wish was to see Paul again. The doctors contacted the Red Cross. With the aid of a senator, a Chaplain in Vietnam and many Red Cross people, we were able to get Paul back here in early December. Wilfred passed away January 1, 1968.

Due to mixed-up records, etc., the Marines never sent him back to Vietnam. He was stationed in the San Francisco Bay area for the rest of his enlistment.

Did God really answer a Mother’s prayers? Did God really plan for me to gain a son in exchange for losing a husband?

    ---Mary E. Dolezal