My favorite Bible verse
is Joshua 24:15; "And if it seem evil unto you
to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye
will serve; whether the gods which your fathers
served that were on the other side of the flood,
or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye
dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve
the Lord." The reason this is my favorite
verse is because it is my prayer for my
children, their children, their children, their
children and all who follow after them, that
they will serve the Lord.
Desmond Doss received the Medal of Honor in
WWII, serving as a medic with the 77th Infantry
Division in the Pacific. Desmond is a
dedicated man of faith. As a non-combatant, he
never carried or even touched a weapon, yet he
saved the lives of many soldiers. He is credited
with saving seventy-five men on the Maeda
escarpment on Okinawa . On the back of his
Medal of Honor card, you will find the
Scripture, Proverbs 3:5-6; "Trust in the Lord
with all thy heart; and lean not unto thy own
understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct thy paths."
Rudy Hernandez received the Medal of Honor
serving as an infantryman with the 187th
Regimental Combat Team in Korea . Rudy was
severely wounded protecting the lives of fellow
soldiers. On the back of his Medal of Honor
card, you will find the Scripture, Romans 1:16 ;
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus
Christ."
These men offered their "advice for life" in the
Eagle series books, VALOR and A Gathering of
Eagles. I was so impressed with the
courage, faith, and humility of these men that I
decided to place Scriptures on the back of my
business card. The first Scripture, my
favorite; is Joshua 24:15.
Recently a medical student who is also a
commissioned officer and West Point graduate,
visited me, seeking advice about a career path
in medicine, the military, and faith.
One of his
questions was: "How do you share your faith with
others in your medical practice and in the
military?"
I pulled a business
card from my pocket handed it to him, asking him
to look at the back of the card and said, "Let
me tell you a story…"
A number of years ago I wrote several articles
for the Journal of Military Medicine about
combat trauma. Most of the articles were
case reports. In 1990, I evaluated a
number of x-ray examinations of a veteran who
had one of his legs amputated twenty years after
he was wounded in Vietnam . The amputation
was due to complications of osteomyelitis, a
chronic bone infection, complicated by cancer.
The case was unusual so I decided to contact the
patient to see if he would be willing to let me
use his exams in one of the articles. Over time
I misplaced his contact information. About
fifteen months after I first saw the patient's
x-rays, the contact information surfaced on my
desk from below piles of "need-to-do" notes.
Remembering the case, I decided to call him.
I called his home and his wife answered. I
explained who I was and why I was calling, and
asked to speak to her husband.
Her response was,
"He is in the hospital right now…If you go to
his room, I'm sure he will talk with you."
I thought, "Wow, what a
coincidence!"
I headed to his room thinking about the
coincidence that he should be a patient in the
hospital on the very day that I called to see if
he would let me write his story. When I
got to his room I introduced myself, explained
why I was there, and asked him if he would be
willing to let me write a case report about his
injuries for the combat trauma series. He
listened to my request and after a few moments,
responded.
"Yes, you can write
about my case, but there is one thing I want you
to do for me. I have one favor to ask
before I will allow you to write the story."
When I heard the
statement, I wondered if he wanted to be paid
for being included in the series.
With some trepidation I responded, "I will try.
What is the favor?"
"I want you to
find the doctor that took care of me in Vietnam
" he said, "the physician that saved me from
having my legs amputated. I was never able to
thank him for saving my legs and I want to do
so."
I thought about the impossibility of his
request. How do you find a physician
twenty years after he took care of a patient in
Vietnam ?
I asked, "Do you
know his name and where he is from?"
He responded, "I don't
know his first name, and I'm not sure how to
spell his last name; but he was an Army Captain
and he had a southern accent. "I wrote down the
last name, thinking to myself, "There is no way
I will ever find this guy."
I headed to my office, wondering how many
physicians had been in Vietnam and how many
thousands of injured patients were treated. I
concluded that this could be a very interesting
article but it would never get written, let
alone be published.
As I thought about how
I could locate the physician, I decided to call
the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and ask
if they might be able to locate an orthopedic
surgeon with possibly an incorrectly spelled
last name. I called information and found the
ACS telephone number. I then called the office,
explained my dilemma, and requested their help.
The secretary pulled up
the computerized registry and responded, "There
is no orthopedic surgeon with a name similar to
the name you have." I thanked her for her effort
and hung up the phone.
I wondered if the spelling of the name was
correct, or if the physician had stopped
practicing medicine. Was he even a member
of the ACS or was he still living? After a
period of time, I decided to call the office
again and ask if they had any surgeon in any
specialty with a name similar to the name I was
given. When I reached the office, I
apologized to the secretary, asking her to do
one more search before I gave up. She
opened the alphabetical membership list.
After a few minutes she
responded, "There is one physician with a name
similar to the name you are looking for. The
name is spelled differently and I doubt that it
is him because he is a neurosurgeon. He does,
however, live in the south."
She gave me the office
number; I wrote it down and immediately called
the doctor's office.
The receptionist answered the phone and I
explained why I was calling. She told me that
the doctor was out of the office but maybe I
could reach him at home. When I called the
home, the doctor's wife answered, and once
again, I explained why I was calling. She
told me that her husband had served in Vietnam ,
but she did not know where or with what unit.
She asked for my phone number and said that she
would give the message to her husband when he
got home.
It was the end of the workday so I headed for
home. Later that evening I received a call
from the physician. I explained why I had
called and asked if he was ever involved in the
care of a soldier in Vietnam who had sustained
severe bilateral lower extremity injuries…and
was he the physician that made the decision not
to amputate the legs of the young soldier.
He hesitated for a
moment, and then responded, "Yes, I'm the guy."
I related the story and the reason for the call.
I told him the veteran had always wanted to
thank him for saving his legs and asked if he
would be willing to talk with the veteran…I
waited, hearing no response but the sound of
muffled crying.
He finally responded,
"Yes, please call me tomorrow at the office."
Excited, I hung the
phone up in disbelief. I could not believe the
good luck! In one day I had found the
doctor and he was willing to speak with the
veteran. It was obvious that more than
good luck was involved.
The next morning I visited the patient and told
him that I had found the doctor, and that he
would be able to talk to him later that morning.
The patient came to my office in a wheelchair, I
placed the call, the physician answered, and I
handed the phone to the veteran. As he
said hello, I left the office to give him some
privacy, but I could hear both men crying,
trying to talk over sobs and tears.
Two weeks after this episode, a man stopped me
in the hall of the hospital as I was getting on
an elevator.
He said, "You do not
know me, but I want to thank you."
I asked, "Have we
met?"
He told me he had been
the roommate of the patient who I interviewed
about doing the article. He further
explained that he wanted to thank me because he
was able to share his faith with the patient.
Apparently, the evening of the day that I first
visited the patient, he noticed the Scriptures
on the back of my business card. The patient
then showed the card to his roommate, asking,
"Will you help me find these verses in the
Bible?"
The man then told me,
"Because of the Scriptures on your card, I was
able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with
someone…I just wanted to tell you the rest of
the story and to thank you."
God sometimes works in
mysterious ways… "As for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord."
By COL Jim Coy, (Ret)
Author of: A Gathering of Eagles and VALOR
coyjv@socket.net
http://www.agatheringofeagles.com/
All rights
reserved. Reproduced with permission of author
