The Revolution Today: Not Knowing - Jane Hampton Cook

“In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3:6

"Not knowing. Not knowing how badly hurt he was, not knowing how he was doing, not knowing what the next step would be,” is how Bonnie Reid described the hardest part of learning her husband’s plane had been shot down in Vietnam in 1972.

“I wasn’t notified when Vic was taken to the MASH unit in Da Nang until Vic called his father who was at Webb Air Force Base in West Texas. His dad called my dad and my dad told me,” Bonnie recalled. She was told Vic had lost his leg. And although the greatest miracle was Vic’s survival, their ability to speak to each other while Vic was in the hospital at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines was also remarkable.

“Unable to get a call through to him, I called a general at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, who was the father of one of Vic’s classmates. His daughter and I were also good friends. I explained the situation to General McNabb and he sent a priority message to the Clark Air Force Base hospital that Lieutenant Reid was to have an immediate line to call me stateside,” Bonnie said. Vic and Bonnie were then able to talk, which brought her great relief. It turned out Vic had not lost a leg. Instead, shrapnel had severed ligaments in his left foot.

“Fortunately, I never received a phone bill for all of my calls to the Philippines. Unbeknownst to me, someone who worked at the phone company knew my dad and took care of it for me. As you can imagine, the bill would have been huge,” Bonnie said with relief. Vic spent a month in the hospital and then went to Thailand to finish his required days in country.

“Once I was able to talk with him, it was better. I actually had a calm about me. I had total faith that God would not let anything else happen to him. It was clear to me that God had saved Vic for a reason. After all, out of fifteen crewmembers on that plane, only three got out alive. God had to have had a reason He kept Vic alive,” she said.

“Over the years it has been made clear to me that that was correct. Vic has touched so many lives with his testimony. I remember vividly when we were stationed at Castle Air Force Base in Merced, California, and we had one of Vic’s students over for dinner. This young man told us he was an atheist. I asked him why and his reply was simply that he did not believe in a God. I told him about Vic’s experience and explained that there had to be a God and why I believed so. That young man became a Christian.”

Like Col. John Trumbull after the battle of Newport in 1778, Vic and Bonnie Reid turned their worst “not knowing” moment into opportunities to acknowledge God and the miracle he had worked in their lives.

PRAYER: I salute you today, Lord, and acknowledge your presence in my life and the lives of others.

Best selling author and columnist Jane Hampton Cook, http://www.janecook.com/, is known for making history both memorable and relevant to today's news, political events, and issues of faith. A former webmaster for President George W. Bush (1999-03), Jane is the author of Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War, a 365-day devotional chronicling the story of the nation's founding from the viewpoints of 20 key players.




Publisher: Living Ink Books
ISBN-10: 0-89957-042-9
$16.99

©Jane Hampton Cook, used with permission.