Category Archives: death

May 27, 2008 · 5:24 pm

18th Surgical Hospital Quang Tri 1968–Remembering a Tragedy

I didn’t find his name at the Wall last Sunday.  Although I was with him his last seconds on earth, I never knew his name.

We ran him in on a litter into the receiving ward at 18th Surgical Hospital at Quang Tri that summer of 1968.  He was pale from heavy loss of blood.  He looked to be about twenty, thin with sandy hair.  They all seemed to be thin and about twenty.

We got him on a table.  The nurses started cutting his clothes off of him.  And there it was–a blue little mouth of a bullet entry hole in his abdomen.

“How did it happen?” someone shouted.

“They said he was packing to go home tomorrow.  He was putting the pistol in the bag when it went off.”

The surgeon appeared at the table.  He examined him for an instant, then he cursed and yelled, “Gimme some adrenalin in a big syringe.”  The nurse handed it to him and, he cursed again and stabbed the young man in the middle of his chest pushing the clear fluid into his heart.

He worked like a whirling, sweating madman for another minute or two.  He pushed on his chest and issued a dry crying curse under his breath with every movement.  I should have been drawing some blood in order to cross match some for him, but I just stood there staring into the doctor’s eyes the whole time.  All of us just stared at him and not the patient, for we all knew that we could do nothing until hope sprang forth from the face of the doctor.   And it didn’t.

The doctor said nothing.  He turned around and went to the next table where a young thin man was writhing in pain.  I looked down at the young man with sandy hair.  His face was a powdery greyish white color, his skin cold.  I turned around and went to the next table to draw some blood.  And that was the last time I ever saw him.

I thought upon this tragedy as I slowly and reverently walked by the Wall.  I read many names who died hoping to somehow get back to “the World.”  Maybe I read his name today.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock, Spec. 4/ Medical Lab Tech/ 18th Surgical Hospital / Pleiku, An Khe, Quang Tri, Vietnam, Sept. 1967-Sept. 1968

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April 10, 2008 · 4:57 pm

“All Is Vanity” Without the Holy Spirit

     Without God’s Spirit dwelling within us, we are only a member of the walking dead who spend a few nightly whispers with loved ones and then bury our dead and wait to be buried in turn.   

     Without the Spirit of God that makes alive whatever it touches and lives in, we are just as good as dead.  Without His Spirit, we walk around breathing borrowed air into the lungs of an incredibly delicate and fragile shell.  And our  shell  will in a few moments, comparatively speaking, go back to dust from where it came, and our brief stint at self-glory here on earth will not be  remembered anymore.  Every thing that man says and does without the Spirit of God is vain and of no profit in the final analysis.

     But, if we ask Him, He will grant us a portion, an earnest, a down payment of His Spirit.  And that Spirit will come into us to replace that old heart and spirit, and it will grow like a tiny seed in a large garden, and we will come alive.  We must water it with our prayers and feed it with our study.  And that little portion of His Spirit will grow up into a full-fledged son or daughter of the King.  And we, the sons and daughters of God, will someday be transformed in a twinkling of an eye, and we “will be changed” when immortality will come down out of heaven to swallow up our shell that can die.

     Without His Spirit, we are the walking dead doomed to dust, unremembered, in the tombs of time.  But with His Spirit dwelling within us, we are destined to be His sons and daughters, sitting with Him on His throne–immortals whose legacy is neverending.              Kenneth Wayne Hancock

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March 9, 2008 · 9:29 pm

Re: “No Atheists in a Foxhole”

     Lurking way down in every human being’s heart is a knowledge that God exists.   Anyone who has tasted battle, who has belched up that bile of fear as the shells explode and lead whizzes past their head, knows.  Anyone who has stared Death in its grotesque face, who has come a whisper away from their own demise through car wrecks, muggings, beatings, fires, drownings–these know there is a God.

     How do I know?  Because without exception, these all cry aloud, “Oh, Lord!  If you would just help me out of this jam and let me live, I’ll serve you.” 

     It’s built into us.  This knowledge that we are to serve and love and depend on our Creator is in our genes.  When faced with our own annililation, we immediately go to God as a child to their own father without thinking or rationalizing about it.  We don’t say, “Well, let me see.  I wish I could believe in God at this present dangerous juncture in my life.”  No.  We cry out to Him from the very core of our being, our heart in utter desperation, pleading to the only One that we know deep down can save us.  And then we offer a last ditch deal, saying we’ll serve Him if we make it out of this mess.

     And He so many times “for His name’s sake”* delivers us from the specter of death, knowing that most humans will not keep their end of the bargain immediately.  For when Death is escaped for the moment, we humans go back into our sweet intoxicating delusion that we are immortal and we are okay, and, hey, that was no big deal, had it covered all the time.

     Humankind is its own greatest witness that there is a God that they should be serving.  No, it is a fact: There are no atheists in a foxhole.    Kenneth Wayne Hancock

*{God’s name in the original Hebrew means “The Self-existent One is the Savior.”  Because of what His very name means, He will save us–“for His name’s sake.  Transliterated into English, Christ’s name in Hebrew is “YAHSHUA.”  This was the Hebrew name of our Savior, which was the same name of the Patriarch Joshua, which is His name anglicized.  The name “Jesus” and “Joshua” are used interchangeably in the New Testament.}
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