LIEUTENANT FLYNN

THE RADIANT GUIDANCE PROJECT

LIEUTENANT FLYNN

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THE SHADOW OF DEATH

Psalms 23:16

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for his name's sake.

Even though I walk in the valley

of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil;

for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life;

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

LIEUTENANT MICHAEL C. FLYNN

Michael is an empowered Catholic Christian who is powerfully involved in his diocese in a large southeastern city. He and his wife of many years have three children who have achieved various graduate degrees and are well situated with their own families. As of Christmas 2009 he is the Senior Vice President of Business Development for a Fortune 500 corporation. A staunch American of Irish descent, he is respected by all who know and know of him. He related his encounter during an intense weekend Catholic men's retreat. We shared a common bond forged by leading soldiers in combat during our nation's attempt to keep the lamp of liberty burning in the Republic of Vietnam. His story is a of his divine encounter in the pitch darkness during a desperate battle with hostile forces greatly outnumbering the dwindling ranks of his infantry platoon at the foot of Nui Ba Den - the Black Virgin Mountain - in Tay Ninh Province, Vietnam.x

BACKGROUND

I am what some would call a "cradle Catholic." My Irish-American parents were proper Bostonians who gently placed me in parochial school for my first eight years of Catholic education, and a Jesuit College Preparatory school through the 12th grade. The Jesuits captured me - body and soul - for high school, college, and graduate school. Somewhere along that Jesuit road I became sidetracked in my faith. Actually de-railed is a better description of my faith life.

I was awarded a Masters in Business Administration and a Regular Army Commission as an Armor Second Lieutenant on 22 June 1968. The very next day my childhood sweetheart and I were married in Boston. Our honeymoon immediately followed as we drove with our worldly possessions to my first Army assignment. From that moment on I was ensconced in the Army's great green machine. On June 30th I reported to Fort Hood, Texas and was assigned as an Armor Platoon Leader with the 2nd Armored Division while I waited for orders to attend the Armor Officer Basic Course (AOBC) at Fort Knox, Kentucky. At that time there were only Second Lieutenants and Majors at Fort Hood because all the other officers were in Vietnam. It was like waiting to be called from a crowded waiting room in the Dentist's office. My came after about five weeks. It's all a blur after that.

Fort Knox, the home of the Armor Branch, hosted me for a greatly abbreviated Armor Officer Basic Course. Almost every training session began with the instructor announcing, "this is normally a three week program of instruction. However, we 're going to give it to you in four days because you are needed in Vietnam ASAP" (as soon as possible). After hearing this mantra repeated with every new training segment, I was masochistically happy that I accepted a Regular Army Commission, for no other reason than to have more training before attempting to lead soldiers into battle. With the Regular Commission came orders to learn to jump from perfectly good airplanes (Airborne school), and to learn to exist without sleep, food or comfort in an environment of constant sensory overload. Both of these experiences are stories in themselves, but definitely not related to a divine experience. Looking back from my experiences in Vietnam, however, these two Army schools not only saved my life but also the lives of many of the soldiers under my command.

Orders to report to an Infantry Battalion in Vietnam were handed to me along with a tiny orange and black patch alerting the world that I was now a certified RANGER. Fifty mimeographed copies of my orders authorized 14 days of leave (the explanation that accompanied the leave note was chillingly similar to the redundant advice during Armor Officer Basic Course - "You would normally have thirty days delay in route, but combat arms officers are in demand in the Vietnam Theater of Operations!" - and then directed me to report fifteen days hence to McCord Air Force Base near Tacoma, Washington for a flight to Vietnam. After a stomach turning flight with stops in Alaska, Japan, and Guam, the Flying Tigers Boeing 707 touched down in Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam on 31 January 1968. Prior to landing the flight crew advised my fellow travelers and me to get off of his aircraft as quickly as possible and to head for the bunkers at the edge of the runway. The pilot said he would not shut down his engines because the airport was under rocket and mortar attack.

Immediately after exiting the aircraft my senses were assaulted with sensations that have not vacated my memory since: Heat - the contrast between the air conditioned cabin and the tropical heat took my breath away; Stink - I didn't know what was being burned in those countless little black barrels, but the aroma was and remains mind-blowing; Terror - We didn't know it at the time, but the Tet Offensive had just begun and there were people very close who were trying to kill me in the most brutal way possible with rockets, mortars, and small arms fire; Confusion - As the only officer on the flight I was "in charge" of the soldiers who had accompanied me, and just as ignorant as them about what was happening; and Focus - The heat, the stink, the terror and the confusion gave way to a total recognition of the responsibility I had for the soldiers who were looking to me for leadership.

My first Vietnam combat mission was accomplished. In the reasonable security of a bunker I was advised by a Captain personnel officer that my two week, in-country orientation and basic training would be canceled because Platoon Leaders were required in the field immediately. This was an all too familiar refrain. One hour after setting foot on Vietnamese soil, I found myself in a C7-A aircraft flying over a hostile landscape to report to the Commander of the Infantry Battalion that would be my address for the next 360 days.

I was assigned to a U.S. Infantry Division deployed near the city of Tay Ninh. I recall shaking in my boots with nervous tension (fear?) while standing at attention in front of an Infantry Lieutenant Colonel who would have made John Wayne shake in his boots. He commanded the Infantry Battalion to which I was just assigned. After a few words of welcome he ordered me to report to Charlie Company to lead the 2nd Rifle Platoon.

Welcome to Vietnam, Lieutenant! 360 days to DEROS!

SITUATION

Before the sun set on that first day in-country I became "Miracle Worker Two-Six." My Company was Charlie Company, with the radio call sign of "Miracle Worker." The Company Commander - my boss - was a Captain and his call sign was "Miracle Worker 6." Since I was the leader of the second platoon of Charlie Company, my radio call sign became "Miracle Worker 2-6." Our mission was to patrol the area near the Michelin Rubber Plantation near the town of Quan Loi. The area was thick with rubber trees all in a nice row. There were open areas which were cut by streams and bushy vegetation. Contact with the VC was light. Contact with the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) was moderate to heavy at times.

After a few months dealing with situations in the red dirt and rubber trees of Quan Loi, my company made a combat assault into a very hot landing zone in the shadow of Nui Ba Den - Black Virgin Mountain - in Tay Ninh Province near Vietnam's border with Cambodia. This was a giant green cone - a massive piece of tree-covered granite, soaring up out of the endless rice fields and jungle into the clouds. To millions of Vietnamese who live in its long shadows, it is a political symbol - a source of cloudy legends and enigma. To the pilots of our supply birds it was initially a navigational marker and then a gnawing mystery. The mountain's appearance had an air of the supernatural about it. When low-ceiling clouds blanketed the floor of Tay Ninh province, and rain slashed its rice paddies, helicopters would land in clear weather at the U.S. Army signal stronghold on the bald and dusty mountain top. When the entire horizon ringing the mountain was clear and cloudless,its peak would generally be cloaked in a dense cluster of gray clouds and damp fog, forcing the small, isolated garrison of soldiers to huddle under ponchos and flimsy wooden structures.

My platoon was assigned part of the company's area of operation about two clicks (2,000 meters) south-east of Nui Ba Den. We were told to dig our positions just inside a tree / brush line surrounded by low bushes and rice paddies.

At about 0400 hours we began to take mortar rounds and .51 caliber machine gun fire in our positions on a line from Nui Ba Den to our position. We could not see the NVA, but we could hear bugle calls and shouting. I called the artillery unit for fire support and they began firing 105mm rounds in the general direction of the as yet unseen enemy. This preparatory fire kept up for about 20 minutes. We began taking a few casualties from the mortar shrapnel.

At about 0440 hours we began getting 122mm rockets slamming into the area around our position - and a few inside our little stronghold. One hit directly on a hole (fox hole) which until that moment was home to two of my soldiers. They were more or less vaporized. The incoming sounded like trains flying overhead and became very intense.

According to my watch, it was almost exactly 0500 hours when the indirect fire ceased and the bugle blowing and shouting increased. Our artillery 105s wee firing illuminating rounds and in the stark light we saw a large number - maybe 150 to 200 - of NVA soldiers running toward our position. We began pouring small arms and mortar fire on them - and our artillery began dropping their high explosive rounds all around us - and sometimes on top of us. The rest of our Company was also under attack and could not come to our aid.

Somehow, we held the NVA off for about 30 minutes. They fell back to regroup and their mortars and rockets began screaming into our position again.

My platoon's position resembled a squashed oval with the long sides facing north-west and south-east. The strongest side was the north-west position facing Nui Ba Den. This was also the primary direction of the NVA attack. It appeared as if the 122mm rockets were coming from the south-east slope of the mountain, about 2 clicks away. My CP (command post) was a hole roughly in the middle of the north-west side of the platoon position. Our positions had no overhead cover, but did have some sandbags as parapets.

The artillery's illumination rounds had run out. The gun birds (Huey Cobra and UH1B helicopters carrying mini-guns, rockets, and 40mm grenade guns and illumination flares) had basically gone back to refuel and rearm. The Division's aviation company was supporting the whole company and another of our battalion's companies that night. We were not the only platoon in heavy contact. The MedEvac birds couldn't get to us because we were a "very hot LZ (landing zone under heavy fire).

ENCOUNTER

All of this was just to say that it was darker than the inside of a goat. Between incoming rockets and mortars and the roar of our friendly artillery blasting the ground around us I could still hear a voice shouting, "Help me. For God's sake, help me!" It was a weak voice with a distinctly African-American accent. There was no doubt in my mind that it was one of my soldiers calling me for help, even though I didn't recognize his voice. Obviously, the soldier was seriously wounded. The NVA small arms fire coupled with the .51 caliber machine gun fire and the mortars and rockets made sticking my head up, let alone crawling out of my hole, a deadly proposition.

I could tell by the sound of the voice and the scraping sounds directly in front of my fighting position that the wounded soldier was trying to crawl to the sound of my voice. He finally gave out a deep sigh. I could hear and feel him slump to the ground - exhausted and near death.

The incoming was getting very intense and it seemed as if the gooks were getting ready for another frontal attack directly to our position. For whatever reason I snaked out of my hole and crawled out toward the position from where I last heard the soldier's voice. I was perhaps fifteen or twenty feet from my hole when I reached out and touched the soldier's hand. I clamped my hand around his wrist and pulled him back with me toward my hole. I recall getting the toes of my boots inside the edge of the hole and using that as leverage to pull the soldier closer to a point where I could use both of my arms to grasp his upper arms.

I heaved him into the hole with almost superhuman strength. I recall him sliding in the mud and flying into the hole on top of me. He was a heavy man and he landed on me with such force that my body was flattened into the mud at the bottom of the hole. A mortar round exploded on the forward edge of my position - exactly where my head had been about one second earlier. The blast was tremendous. The shrapnel wounded my radio operator. The full force of the explosion and the shrapnel impacted the body of the man I had just pulled into the trench. I could feel his body react to the blast. He became dead weight on top of me. The cramped space of my position prevented me from leveraging him from on top of me. I heard my radio operator reacting to his stomach wound - and for the moment I was helpless to do anything for him. The soldier I had pulled on top of me was so heavy I couldn't budge. Just then three or four gooks reached our position and fired their AK's into the hole - spraying bullets at all of us. I could tell that my radio operator had been hit a number of times, but was still alive. The gooks moved on to other positions, and my soldiers took them under fire. I finally muscled the soldier's body to the side. I knelt on his back and fired my M-16 at the NVA who had overrun our position.

Within minutes the helicopter gun ships arrived over our position and began to hose the NVA soldiers who had breached our perimeter and those who were rushing hell bent to join them. Between this glorious event and the heavy fire from my troops, the attack was turned back.

The sun was beginning to show itself. The MedEvac helicopters were on their way and would arrive at first light. In the dim light of an awakening day I sat on the body in the hole to tend to the wounds of my radio operator. He would recover and become a good friend and neighbor in civilian life. I crawled out of the hole to check on all of my soldiers. After taking two or three steps I turned around to give some encouraging words to my radio operator. Looking in the hole I was shocked to see that the dead soldier - the one I had drug into the hole in the middle of the battle - was gone.

"Where the hell is that soldier," I asked Red.

"I don't know, LT," he replied. He said he noted the body right next to him but was watching the sky become lighter and then "saw a flash - like a flashbulb of a camera - as I got out of the hole. Then the body wasn't there."

I am certain that this was my guardian angel. If not for him Red and I would certainly have been dead in the bottom of that hole before the sun came up.

CONVERSION

What changed for me after that? Well, I had been raised a Catholic, with a Catholic education from the first grade through graduate school. However, I sort of slumped away from my religion during college and had little use for it when I was going through the Army training schools prior to Vietnam. I did go to Confession before heading to Vietnam and believed myself to be as ready to face my final judgment as I'd ever been before in my life with the possible exception of the day of my baptism as an infant.

After the experience in the hole with my Angel I knew for certain that there was a spiritual force looking out for me. You see, not only did I have proof that there was something out there in the spiritual world, but that there must really be a loving God, and that this supreme being thought enough of me as an individual person to actually intervene in a situation and save my life and the life of my radio operator.

I became a very spiritual man after that. My faith was strengthened and I assertively share God's love and word with the people with whom I come in contact. I am not a preacher. I believe that people will know that I hold the Lord in my soul when they witness my behavior on a daily basis. You recall that in the Gospels we are advised to insure that people know we are followers of Christ by the love we have for one another. From that moment on I have behaved in such a way as to share my love by the love I show my fellow man.

INSIGHT

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