A Marine's Promise to God: A Memoir of Vietnam

By David L. Ray

Life-threatening, near-death experiences are common subjects for books or television; usually these focus on a single experience in one persons life. A Marines Promise to God, by David L. Ray, follows the author on his tour of Vietnam in 1970, through more than ten near-death experiencesduring which he never even received a wound. He was the squad point man, notorious for being the most dangerous combat role. The marines around him were wounded and killed, but Ray survived by the power of prayer and the promise he made to God, which he has done his best to keep.

As Ray chronicles his path to joining the Marines and discovering the chaos of the life of a Marine grunt in Vietnam, he introduces readers to his experiences of life with his company and in the bush. The narrative follows Ray as he works day and nighttime missions and patrols, finds his place, and sees moments of extreme violence and sadness.

David L. Ray is a living example of the power of prayer, divine protection, and overworked guardian angels. Time after time, when the shooting and explosions had stopped, Ray realized that not only was he still alive, but he hadnt even been hit. To this day, he has never forgotten what God did for himand he has never forgotten his friends who fell while serving their country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512736298

David L. Ray

After playing two seasons of college football, David L. Ray joined the United States Marine Corps in May of 1969. He survived his tour in Vietnam, inspiring his writing, and then returned to Northwest Missouri State and graduated. He and his wife have two children and live in Fort Dodge, Iowa. This is his first book.

Book preview

A MARINE’S PROMISE

TO GOD

A MEMOIR OF VIETNAM

DAVID L. RAY

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Copyright © 2016 David L. Ray.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-3628-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3629-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016905322

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/4/2016

CONTENTS

You Know You’re A Marine Grunt When –

The Summer Of 69

The Promise

Things Usually Happened Really Fast

Fast Rewind About Two Months

Welcome To Mike Company

My Squad

We Had A Worthwhile Mission

How I Got The Point Man Job

Atlas Gets Hit

My First Look At Enemy Dead Before The Story At The Beginning Of This Book

Rick Watts And Me

Our First Kia’s (Killed In Action) After I Joined Mike Company

The Story At The Beginning Of This Book

When I Started Smoking

Firebase Bushwhack

Time To Do Some Laundry

Battalion Operation

A Letter To Home

The Rope Bridge

Picnic Anyone?

Fourth Of July Celebrating

The Guys In Our Squad And Platoon

Moving Our Base Camp To LZ Ross

The Creek Bed Shootout

The Grenade Duel

Trying To Determine Which Civilians Were VC Sympathizer’s

The NVA Tea Party

The Death Of Sergeant Eiland

Antennae Valley

Firefight Cheerleading

Firebase Ryder

Itching For A Fight

Humping Down From Firebase Ryder

Mike Company’s Worst Day Of 1970

Sniper Valley

A Bad Day For Alpha Squad

Bad News For Bravo Squad

A New Platoon Commander

Malaria Or Not

I’m Ready For R & R

I’m Medevaced And The Seventh Marines Get Pulled Out

Bad News In The Mail

I’m Heading Home

Now More Than 40 Memorial Days Have Gone By

Mike Company Gets Congressional Recognition

Mike Company’s Killed In Action In Vietnam

You Know You Were A Grunt In The Marines Or Army When –

Glossary Of Words

Dedicated to the memory of my parents,

Bill and Ruth Ray.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE A MARINE GRUNT WHEN –

You have been wearing the same unlaundered clothes 24/7 for a couple of months.

You haven’t slept in a bed for several months.

You haven’t shaved for a few days -- and neither have the

You wash your clothes in the river while you’re still wearing them.

Your boots have never seen polish

Your palms have nicotine stains from cupping your cigarette after dark.

You shave out of the steel pot of your helmet.

You use little balls of C-4 plastic explosive to heat your C-rations.

You keep 400 to 600 rounds (bullets) of ammunition with you.

Your closest companion 24/7 is your rifle.

You haven’t had a cold drink in almost two months

Your pack and other gear you have to carry weighs as much as your older sister.

All they’ve given you to eat for a couple of months is C Rations and a can of Dinty Moore stew from home which is to die for.

You know it wasn’t a straw that broke the camel’s back it was a can of machine gun ammo.

The guys who have showers and beds to sleep in are at the Bob Hope show and you’re still in the jungle.

THE SUMMER OF 69

I graduated from high school in 1967 and went to Northwest Missouri State University on a football scholarship. If I had not had the scholarship, I might have joined the military, because there was a part of me that wanted a piece of the Vietnam war. My friends and I had grown up in the shadow of our fathers and their participation in WW II, and I didn’t feel that I should necessarily have it easy while my fellow Americans were fighting a war. But I loved football and with the scholarship, I chose to go to college.

I played two seasons of football but let my grade point drop below a C, so at the end of the fall semester of 1968, I got suspended from school for a semester. In those times the draft was Johnny on the spot and Uncle Sam was saying he wanted me. It looked like I was going to get a piece of that war after all.

I joined the Marines in mid May 1969 on the 90 day delay plan, which meant I wouldn’t have to go to boot camp until mid-August . It was my intent to live life to the fullest for those three months. I took every opportunity to have fun with friends and family, while working two jobs.

In August my brother Gary and I headed off to western Oklahoma to visit friends of ours, the Whitakers. Paul was the minister at a church on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Previously, he’d been our minister at the Martin City Baptist Church in the south suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. Gary and I were there for a couple of days and then I headed out for San Antonio, Texas on my own, to get with some of my relatives on the Ray side of the family.

On the way to San Antonio it was over 110 degrees. Without air conditioning in the car I was using 4/80 air conditioning: four windows down at 80 miles per hour. Once in San Antonio, I spent most of my time with my cousin Jim Ray who was the same age as me. We had some good times including some drag races. He had a Chevy Chevelle with a 396 CI engine and I had a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere with a 383 CI engine and a big Hurst floor shift. We were fairly evenly matched and I am not sure we ever declared which car was the best.

From there I headed out to New Mexico then north into Colorado where I went to the Royal Gorge. After that I went further north into Wyoming, then east to Scottsbluff, Nebraska. From there I went to Omaha and spent the night with one of my college football teammates, Dan Troshynski. We had some good laughs talking about our experiences together at Northwest Missouri State. The next day I headed home to spend a few days with my parents and other relatives and friends before heading to Marine boot camp.

During those three months I was trying to live life to the fullest. I knew in the back of my mind that this could be the last summer of my life. By the grace of God it wasn’t, but for several Marine friends of mine, which I would meet over the next several months, the summer of 1969 would be their last summer to ever spend with family and friends.

THE PROMISE

This book is a testimony to the power of prayer. To be a grunt (infantry) in the jungles of Vietnam with the Seventh Marines was a very dangerous proposition. To make matters even worse, I would be assigned the position of squad point man for about six months. While I was in Vietnam, there was some heavy duty praying going on by me, and back home there were the prayers of my mother and father—Ruth and Bill Ray—my brother and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, and fellow members of my home church, Martin City Baptist Church,. I learned