But God in Mercy to us fought our battle, and tho' we were but few in number, and suffer'd to be defeated by our enemy, yet we were presrev[ed] in a most wonderful manner, far beyond our expectation and to our admiration for out of our Regiment there were but 37 kill'd 4 or 5 taken captive, about forty seven Wounded & Oh may I never forget Gods distinguishing Mercy to me, in sparing my Life, when they fell on my right hand, and on my left, and close by me, they were to the eye of reason no more expos'd than myself.
Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteExcellent reminder of the attitude that used predominate in American society.
I also note that cowardice in combat was dealt with severely, as it should be.
The last sentence hits closer to home than many of us wish to remember,but cannot forget. I wonder how or if this young soldier was allowed to finish the war.In my days (1965) cowards were either promoted or given cushy jobs as remf's with better chow and clothing that did not have time to wear out before being issued more sets of jungle fatigues and boots. I wore out a $120 pair of Cocran jump boots and bought a set of jungle boots and fatigues from an enterprising Viet Cong and was never issued any from government stores. We finally went to AnKhe and stole all the supplies the VC had in order to equip our platoon/ company and was ask to turn them in at discharge. I of course had given mine to another trooper who had none and told the gov. to FO.
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