Tales of miraculous rescue come in all shapes and forms. They turn up in religion, mythology, and ordinary life. They stir our imagination, our gratitude and perception of reality. Such encounters can be personal but sometimes the supernormal assistance affects major events and large numbers of people. Joan of Arc is perhaps one of the most spectacular examples of the latter. Both Joan’s and the story I’m about to recount involve hearing voices.
A student of mine in a class on the philosophy of mind, a police officer, was a veteran of the Vietnam War. In 1968 he was with the U.S. Army ‘s 101st Airborne Division, a combat soldier in a reconnaissance platoon. John C. was sent to Bien Hoa, located near the Mekong Delta. The base he was stationed at was a low combat zone but not immune to the occasional rocket attack. The assignment felt like a holiday to most of the men, at least until February 13, the day before Valentine’s Day.
It was 2:30 in the morning when the air raid siren woke John up. The base was under rocket attack and all personnel had to take shelter in the bunkers adjacent to the barracks. By the time that John got out of the barracks the bunker he was supposed to use was already packed to capacity. He glanced around quickly and decided to get down behind a reinforced partition just outside the entrance to the bunker. He made the move and peered back into the bunker. Three light bulbs glowed dimly over the crouched soldiers. A nervous pall settled over the men as the sound of rockets landing nearby began to fill the bunker.
Barely a few moments had passed sitting on the reinforced partition when John heard a voice cry out, “John, get back here!” Looking toward the rear of the bunker, he was unable to see his friends, the smoky yellowish light blinding him. He called back, “Who’s that?” “John! Come back here!” the voice replied. The voice was clear and authoritative.
“I’m alright!” shouted John, annoyed because he couldn’t see who was calling him. Then the voice cried out again, and more urgently. This time he impulsively went back into the barrack as far as the first support beam. “Okay?” he shouts, but no one says anything, except once more the voice commands him to move to the next beam. “Okay?” he shouts again. This time the voice was silent, so John squeezed into a seat. Wondering why he was unable to recognize the voice, he glanced back at the reinforced partition. “He’s in my spot,” John thought, and turned to ask the guy beside him for a cigarette. As their eyes met they heard the sound of a rocket. They could tell by its clear whine that this one was going to land nearby. The next sound was a high-pitched whistle—the last sound before a direct hit.
John told me that he remembered a tremendous ball of flame explode directly where he had been sitting a few minutes earlier! Then a powerful force struck him and he blacked out. He opened his eyes to find himself covered with sand and iron planking. He was treated for a bump on his head and a cut on the knee. All the men sitting in front of him were dead, sixteen in all. John walked around in a daze asking who kept calling him. Nobody, and nobody heard anybody calling him. More uncanny, the intelligence behind the voice apparently knew exactly where John had to sit to escape the fatal effects of the rocket.
John explained to me that his mother prayed for him with great insistence. He wondered if his mom’s prayers had anything to do with the voice that saved his life. I’ll end with the last note I received from John, in which he wrote: “I often think about the tall, thin, blonde sergeant who sat where I first sat, and who was obliterated by the rocket. I feel as if my life is on loan and really belongs to someone else. I would like to repay this gift but don’t know how.” At one point he admitted to me that his mom embarrassed him by how often she prayed for him. She often told him not to worry about anything, in short, that she had him covered. Home from Vietnam, he was no longer embarrassed by his mom’s prayers for him.
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