I was a USMC corporal who served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966. My tour of duty was very intense. I survived a mortar attack, and I survived shrapnel wounds in my head, leg and back. I was shot several times and I still have three of the bullets in my body to prove it. I am the recipient of two Purple Hearts, but these honors pale in comparison to what I experienced one lonely night in the jungles of Vietnam.

The horrors of Vietnam were such that I lost all faith in God and I could not come to terms with the enormous suffering, pain. and screams for help from my fellow soldiers. With all that was happening to me and my companions in Vietnam, the only thing that appeared to be constant was pain and death.

How could a loving God, I thought, possibly allow this to happen? Where was He when you needed him? How could I believe in such a fantasy?

Then, one dark and lonely night in the jungles of Vietnam, it all changed for me when, out of nowhere, God came to my rescue and the rescue of my platoon.

While walking in the jungle, I was “on point;” that is, first in line of a seven-man patrol in the thick of the night. My job was to take about 12 steps, then stop and listen to determine if I could ascertain the presence of enemy combatants (Vietcong or North Vietnamese army) in our area of patrol.

After some time on patrol, taking the usual precautions of 12 steps, stop and listen, I was about to reenact this technique when something miraculous happened. After four steps, I was suddenly stopped by a benign force that made me reconsider what I was about to do. A strange premonition overcame me and I knew I had to follow it. As if by suggestion I extended my hand into the darkness and let it lower itself down, intuitively, until it was about six inches above the ferny floor of the jungle. All this was happening by mere intuition. I was not afraid, but was possessed by a calm confidence.

That’s when I felt a trip wire that was connected to a grenade, the pin of which was extended half-way out. Had we kept going, following the usual technique of 12 steps, stop and listen, we would all have been killed. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, that my men and I were being protected by an unseen force.

I knew what to do. I reaffixed the pin to the grenade and removed the wire, thus avoiding a terrible disaster to the entire platoon.

For the first time in a long time, I took a deep breath and thanked God whom I had denied for sparing our lives. This miracle that brought me to a sudden stop, that led me to find the trip wire and the grenade, and that enabled us to avoid a disastrous booby trap in the middle of the jungle, made me reassess my entire life. I was never the same after that.

God, I learned, was not the cause of Man’s inhumanity to Man. That was the result of man’s abuse of free will. To preserve our free will, God could not interfere. His Son, who freely died for us on the Cross, was there suffering with all of us, including our enemies who were inflicting so much pain on us and we on them. The irony is that I found God in the middle of that dark jungle. He spared us in spite of the suffering we inflicted on each other in opposition to His Holy Will. If only Mankind would take to heart the teaching of Jesus to love one another as He has loved us, war would lose its purpose, and its destructive actions would cease.

—John C. Manning, USMC

John C. Manning is happily married to his beautiful wife, Deborah. He lives in Mobile, Alabama, and is very active in his local Church which he designed and helped to build. He took me out to dinner when I was giving a Cross Mission in his Church, and told me this remarkable story. Spiritual encounters or little miracles, such as John’s, are not rare in the lives of people of faith. I want to thank John for sharing with us his remarkable testimony.
Fr. Hugh Duffy