15 - God's providence: the warning!
As I mentioned earlier, I was assigned to the 516th Personnel Services Company stationed in Cam Rahn Bay, Viet Nam. A few months after we arrived, the First Sargent of the 516th decided he wanted to transfer to an Army combat company operating out of Danang and asked if I would like to transfer with him to the combat company and assume the position of Company Clerk.
Danang’s topography has mountains, hills, coastal plains, and marine areas and is a pretty place. Danang itself dates back to 142 AD but its more recent history is that of a French colonial port that retained (in 1967) characteristics of the French colonial period.
Even though Danang was an active war zone, I am a fairly adventurist type and would certainly have been interested in making the transfer; except for one thing. Before the First Sargent approached me, God had given me a warning.
The warning came in the form of a dream; like a video clip. As I watched the “video”, I saw myself running down a woodland trail with some other service men in a hilly wooded area when a machine gun opened up on us. I watched as I was hit in the leg. The “video” then switched and I saw myself walking with a cane and and a life-long crippled leg. The dream ended.
When the First Sargent approached me with his proposal, I remembered the dream and wondered how best to respond. After discussing it with him, I told him I would think about it. Afterward, I decided that I would say neither yea or nay; and, if I was transferred anyway, so be it. The First Sargent took my lack of response as a “no” and did not approach me again. What I did not know at the time but learned later from my commanding officer, a W-4 (Warrant Officer), the First Sargent had approached him about it and he had told the First Sargent that he would not permit me to be transferred unless I personally agreed to the transfer. Absent the warning embodied in the dream, I suspect I would have agreed to the proposal that the First Sargent brought to me. After all, I volunteered to the draft board, stated my duty preference to be Viet Nam, and that I wanted an MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) as infantry.
Knowing this, God intervened to warn me and, because I listened, I finished my tour of duty outside of the combat zone and without injury. Coincidence; not likely…all the more so as you “follow the dots” and walk with me through the rest of he experiences described within this website.
Notes
What do I make of the event in which God gave me a warning while I was at Cam Rahn Bay?
That God is aware of the future. That God, being aware that I would have agreed to the First Sargent’s request to transfer with him into a combat infantry company and being aware that the transfer would result in a life-long crippling injury to me, moved the Chief Warrant Officer to forbid my transfer unless I agreed to it and moved me, through the dream, to be wary of the transfer and to not agree.
As the scriptures note below, God does utilize dreams to warn people.
Some scripture examples….
Genesis 20:3-7 (KJV) “But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou has taken; for she is a man’s wife. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. And God said unto hin in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live; and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.”
Daniel 4:4-5 (KJV) “I, Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house, and flourishing in my palace: I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me.” Read the complete story of this dream, its warning, and its consequences in Daniel 4:6-37.
Matthew 2:12 (KJV) “And being warned of God in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.” Read the whole story in Matthew 2: 1-15
I suspect that down through the years, God has spoken to many people through dreams but because such things are ridiculed by many, they are rarely acknowledged.