Gospel Story Finder

President Harold B. Lee told of a great educator, Horace Mann, who “was the speaker at the dedication of a … boys’ school. … In his talk he said, ‘This school has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars; but if this school is able to save one boy, it is worth all that it cost.’ One of his friends came up to [Mr. Mann] at the close of the meeting and said, ‘You let your enthusiasm get away with you, didn’t you? You … said that if this school, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, were to save just one boy, it was worth all that it cost? You surely don’t mean that.’
“Horace Mann looked at him and said, ‘Yes, my friend. It would be worth it if that one boy were my son; it would be worth it’” (“Today’s Young People,” Ensign, June 1971, 61).

Now, in closing, I want to share with you the story of a man who lost his sense of priorities at an early age.
President Hugh B. Brown, as a young soldier in World War I, was visiting an elderly friend in the hospital. This friend was a millionaire several times over who, at the age of 80, was lying at death’s door. President Brown related:
As I stood by his bedside and thought over various parts of his life . . . , as I thought of his divorced wife, of his five children, all of whom were estranged, and none of whom cared enough to come to the hospital to see him, as I thought of the things he had lost which money could not buy and noted his tragic situation and the depth of his misery, I asked him what he would do if he had the privilege of living his life over again and could start it with the wisdom which had come through the years, what he considered the real values in life as he stood near the end of it. . . .
This old gentleman, who died a few days later, said to me, “As I think back over life, the most important and valuable asset which I might have had but which I lost in the process of accumulating millions, was the simple faith my mother had in God and in the immortality of the soul.”
The old gentleman asked me to get a little book out of his briefcase and gave me the page on which he had marked a poem, and then he said, “You asked me what is the most valuable thing in life. I cannot answer you in better words than those used by the poet. Will you read them to me?”
That was the dying testimony of a man who was born in the Church but had drifted far from it. That was the brokenhearted cry of a lonely man who could have anything that money could buy, but who had lost the most important things of life in order to accumulate this world’s goods. [Hugh B. Brown, Continuing the Quest (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1961), pp. 33–34]

I was asked to speak at a stake conference. But I thought I wouldn’t have time to prepare since I had school assignments coming up.
While I was still deciding if I’d speak, there was a general conference. Elder Carl B. Cook taught, “Exercising faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, helps us overcome discouragement no matter what obstacles we encounter.”
I remembered how the Lord had helped me fulfill my responsibilities in the past. When I connected my personal experience with Elder Cook’s testimony, I understood that I would be empowered to accomplish my stake conference talk without fear.
I testify that when I feel anxious or fearful, Christ will inspire me through the words of prophets and other Church leaders, the scriptures, and the people around me.

1 Tomorrow would be Father’s Day, and Jimmy, Henry, and Bob were busy making cards for Dad. Jimmy was trying to think of something special he could do for Dad.
“How do you like my card?” Henry asked as he held up a piece of paper with a picture of a boy and a lawn mower drawn on the outside. On the inside Henry had printed:
Happy Father’s Day!I will mow the lawn.Love, Henry
2 “I like it,” Jimmy said. He wished he were as old as Henry so he could draw nice pictures and use the lawn mower.
“Look at my card!” cried Bob. His card had a picture of a shiny car pasted on the outside. Inside he had printed:
Happy Father’s Day!I will wash and shine the car.Love, Bob
3 “That’s nice,” Jimmy said. Bob was ten, and he was big enough to do lots of things.
Jimmy used a yellow crayon to color a sun in the blue sky on the outside of his card. “I wish I could think of something to do for Dad too,” he said as he bent over his card.
4 “Maybe you could bring in the paper every afternoon,” Henry said.
“I do that all the time anyway,” Jimmy replied. “I want to do something special.”
5 “You could try to find the nozzle for the water hose,” Henry suggested. “When Dad was washing the car this morning, he couldn’t find it.”
6 Henry and Bob picked up their cards and crayons and left Jimmy all alone.
Jimmy tucked his card inside his shirt pocket and put away his crayons. Then he began to try to find the lost nozzle for Dad.
7 He went out to the garage and looked on all the shelves, in the corners, and even inside Mother’s watering can. He looked inside Dad’s tool box and behind his own toy box. But he couldn’t find the nozzle anywhere.
8 Jimmy looked again at his toy box. Maybe I should straighten it up a bit, he thought. So he carefully took all of his toys out of the box and put them on the floor. Then one by one he replaced them—all except an old pair of cowboy boots with the toes worn out. As he picked the boots up, something fell on the floor with a clatter.
What a surprise! There on the floor lay the lost nozzle.
9 The next morning Henry and Bob gave Dad their Father’s Day cards, and Dad was very happy.
Then Jimmy handed Dad the hose nozzle and his card. On the inside of the card, Henry had helped him write:
I will help find things!Love, Jimmy
10 Dad laughed and put his arm around Jimmy’s shoulders. “I have one boy to help me keep the lawn mowed,” he said. “I have another boy to help me keep the car shined. And I also have a boy who finds things for me. This is a happy Father’s Day.”
Jimmy was happy too. Finding things is a very special kind of gift, he decided.

I had given our third-row seats to the missionaries and their investigators and resettled my little family in the very last row. I didn’t know my nine-year-old daughter, Tracy, was planning to bear her testimony that fast Sunday for the first time.
Three times during the meeting, Tracy stood up and began to walk toward the pulpit. Each time, someone else also arose and Tracy rushed back to her seat. The hour was growing late. I told her, “Honey, you have to keep going. You can’t give up.”
After the next testimony, she took a deep breath and began the long walk. But the next person to stand up was the first counselor in the bishopric, who thanked the congregation for sharing their testimonies. Tracy kept walking.
The organist began the introduction to the closing hymn. Tracy kept walking.
As the congregation sang, Tracy kept walking.
Tears streamed down my face as she took a seat beside the bishop’s counselor. He put his arm around her and whispered in her ear. Then, before the benediction, the counselor announced that one more testimony would be borne that day.
Tracy bore a sweet testimony—that of a child who had not been baptized, even though all her Primary classmates had. She alone had not entered the waters of baptism, because her father—who was not a member of the Church—had not given his permission.
Tracy remained steadfast. Praying that she would be granted the desire of her heart, she “kept walking.” She never gave up.
That same bishop’s counselor who put his arm around her at the testimony meeting later conducted the baptismal service for Tracy and her younger sister. Never have I seen children more aglow.
But that baptismal service was not the end of the story. In June 1999, Tracy’s father was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church. One year later, Tracy’s smile glowed brighter than ever when her family was sealed for all eternity in the temple.

In 1994 a horrific genocide occurred in Rwanda. Between 600,000 and 900,000 people were killed in a matter of 60 to 90 days.
Eventually, the Church established a branch in the capital city of Kigali. The branch was doing well—without full-time missionaries. In 2011 we were serving in the Africa Southeast Area when we learned, sadly, that our registration as a church with the country of Rwanda was invalid, which meant that we were functioning illegally as a church. We also learned that our meetinghouse, a converted two-story home, was not appropriately zoned to hold Church meetings. The Area Presidency, in consultation with our first contact in the Quorum of the Twelve, made the agonizing decision to close the branch. Our members were no longer able to meet for Church meetings.
Lawyers in Kigali, Salt Lake City, and Johannesburg, South Africa, began working fervently to resolve the problems. All the while, the Saints kept asking when they could meet together again. Months went by without resolution or progress.
After about 10 months, we flew to Kigali to visit those Saints and try to buoy up their spirits. Before we did, we asked that the matter be placed on the temple prayer roll of the weekly meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.
The Tuesday before our scheduled trip from Johannesburg to Kigali, we were notified that, in a surprising move, the government had granted the Church provisional registration in Kigali. Then on Thursday of the same week, the zoning commission granted an exemption from the zoning ordinance. The Kigali Saints could once again meet in our building without violating the law.
This was miraculous! Members were quickly notified that the branch would be meeting on Sunday. We arrived on Friday and invited members to come to church. When Sunday came, all the members—all of them—and many of their friends came to church. They arrived early, eager to be together again. As the sacrament was blessed and passed, we all experienced an extraordinary renewing, refreshing, and cleansing spirit.
We remember, in the meeting, wondering why we did not feel this same spirit every week as we partook of the sacrament. We looked around at the Saints and realized that they had come hungering and thirsting for the sacrament. Their faith, diligence, and patience brought all of us blessings. We pledged that whenever we again partook of the sacrament, we would remember this experience with the Kigali Saints. We committed that we too would hunger for the blessings of partaking of the sacrament.

Although he always believed, Enoch was always eager to learn and know more about the gospel. It was at age 14, when his mother gave him a Bible, that he read the New Testament for himself that Jesus became real for him. The joy of the personal relationship he now felt with his Saviour filled him with a desire to share that joy. So as a teenager he took advantage of opportunities to go on visits with the full-time missionaries. This allowed him to continue building his own relationship with God while helping others develop one for themselves.

The boys’ main assignment was caring for cattle and wagons—hitching, unhitching, feeding, shoeing, corralling, guarding, and mending harnesses. This work provided Zeb with some unexpected adventures. One day, according to his diary, “I was helping to shoe an ox, and witnessed the mosquitoes and horse flies driving off the horses and cattle, and in gathering the animals we kept what is called the dog-trot for about a mile. I finally caught a horse and jumped on him, and with considerable difficulty I succeeded in getting the animals back to camp.”

Due to his autism, my younger son was afraid of being in large groups and meeting new people, but the ward welcomed us with open arms and did everything they could to accommodate our needs. The members set aside a special room at the back of the chapel just for my son, and they fulfilled our request to avoid making eye contact with him until he felt more at ease. Even when one of my children would disrupt sacrament meeting, we were treated with the utmost respect and kindness.
I saw my sons unfold in the warmth of the ward’s embrace. They quickly made new friends, and my sons even started to attend Primary classes on days that I was unable to attend church.
We were eventually baptized, a memory that still brings tears to my eyes. At the baptismal service, the ward members—understanding my children’s fear of crowds—tiptoed into the back of the room after the boys had been seated to avoid frightening them. Afterward, we were offered a mountain of congratulatory sweets, and the love in the room was so palpable that my sons remarked, “I want to be baptized again!”

After dinner they had a special family night. Dad showed them a black-and-white picture.
“This is Joseph Francis, your great-great-great grandpa,” Dad said. “He came to the United States with his family when he was 13 years old.”
Dad talked about how Joseph sailed from England and then worked in a factory to earn money to cross the plains. Benjamin couldn’t believe a boy who was just older than he was had done so many hard things.
Then Mom shared a story from her family history. “My mother, your grandma Hunsaker, met the missionaries when she was 13 years old. When she prayed to know if their message was true, she felt the Holy Ghost tell her to be baptized. Because of her decision, I grew up knowing about the gospel. My mother is a pioneer because she set a righteous example for others to follow.”
Benjamin liked that. Maybe there were ways he could be a pioneer! He was still thinking about it when Dad said it was time for the closing song and prayer.
“Now we can have the treat!” Sammy said. Mom handed everyone a cookie, some candies, and a few other yummy things. She showed them how to make wagons with marshmallows like white canvases on top.
“These wagons sure taste good,” Sammy said as he took a big bite. “I’m glad the pioneers went to Utah.”
Go to “Family Night Fun” to see how to make your own wagons!
“And I’m glad we don’t always have to make our own butter!” Benjamin said with a laugh. His life was different from the early pioneers, but he knew they all had one thing in common: they all believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said it was a time that required having “a constant consciousness of the well-being of those around you.”1 Most of us experienced fear and worry due to the uncertainty caused by COVID-19. The confinement forced us to stay home to prevent all physical contact with others. In addition, this gave great opportunities to our family to express our love, to serve, and to minister. And we are grateful that we have sometimes made a resolution, as a family, to forget about ourselves for the benefit of other people. We ministered through technology, calling people we considered most affected by the crisis in order to comfort them and to hear about their needs. At times, it was just a few texts or social media messaging.
To prepare for the quarantine, like many people, we stocked up on basic items, and even some cash. But we learned that our desire to serve enabled us to reach out to others either on our own initiative or through their solicitation. Although we did not know how long the confinement would last, we didn’t hesitate to donate food and at times money from our small reserves, to a few families and people who were in need (of course, while taking necessary health precautions). The Savior’s instruction given to His new disciples whom He had chosen and called among the Nephites comforted us: “For, behold, ye are they whom I have chosen to minister unto this people . . . Take no thought for your life, what you will eat, or what you shall drink” (3 Nephi 13:25).
No words can express the reward we received. Just as for the widow of Zarephath whose flour was not lacking, and oil did not decrease (see 1 Kings 17:16); our little supplies at home did not dry up. We felt a sense of comfort and tranquillity during this difficult time and a sense of confidence that all would be well for our family. A brother wrote to us a little later: “I’ve been thinking about you today since the morning. I am realizing how your little acts of care and love strengthen our lives and give us the energy to continue with a happy heart. That counts. Thank you for these small means that your life abounds of during your services. You are listening. Please know that your little actions make a difference. Thank you.”

After the temple was dedicated in 1958, many Saints gathered to the temple from across New Zealand and the Pacific Area to receive their endowment and sealing. For example, when Vaha’i and Sela Tonga of the country of Tonga heard that a temple would be built in New Zealand, they made plans to attend the dedication. Despite financial hurdles to travel, Vaha’i and Sela were the first couple to be sealed in the Hamilton Temple.

We had a wonderful experience as part of our humanitarian projects.
Brother Eric Graffe, who assists us with our projects, told us about a drinking water problem on the island of Tahaa. We quickly set up a video conference with Madame Patricia Amaru, mayor of Tahaa.
To our astonishment, she began with a prayer. We then asked her what their priority needs are. With tears in her eyes, she confided: “You must be the answer to my prayers, because just yesterday we had an urgent problem. And I’m powerless to solve it.”
She went on to explain that the drinking water distribution network is outdated, making it difficult to supply water to a large part of the island.
So we headed off to Tahaa to see what was needed. As water is one of the priorities of humanitarian projects, we decided to put together a dossier that we would submit to the branch president. If successful, this substantial project will bless the lives of over 2,000 people.
Once we had finished visiting the facilities, Madame Amaru regretted leaving us, as she had to attend a meeting “with a young man from your church who is going on a mission”.
It was in fact a vigil during which the future missionary was to open his call letter. We asked her if it’s a member of her family. “No!” she replied. “But I go wherever I’m invited.”
“Then we’ll be delighted to accompany you!”
When we arrived, we found a branch filled with love for this young future missionary who had lost his mother a year earlier. What’s more, he’s the first missionary from this branch . . . in 40 years!
The branch president asked to the mayor and her husband to address a word. They both gave “parent” advice, encouraging him to be obedient and respectful, to remain humble, and especially not to stay there (Salt Lake City Mission) after the mission.
Before we left, we learned that this couple, who are very close to the people of their community, had recently attended the dedication of the meetinghouse. What’s more, during the seven-month construction period, they welcomed the entire branch into their home (not the municipality’s premises, but their own) for Sunday meetings!
It was with hearts overflowing with love and gratitude for such generous and humble people that we set sail again to leave them.
Unquestionably, we declare that our Heavenly Father watches over His children tenderly, that He sent us to Tahaa to serve them, and that the Church is the means by which this might be done.

I would hope someday that our great-grandson Mark and others of our posterity would have similar spiritual experiences and that they would feel the spiritual power and influence of this gospel. I hope that Mark and others will have opportunities such as I had when I was in the temple when President Spencer W. Kimball received the revelation regarding the priesthood. I was the junior member of the Quorum of the Twelve. I was there. I was there with the outpouring of the Spirit in that room so strong that none of us could speak afterwards. We just left quietly to go back to the office. No one could say anything because of the powerful outpouring of the heavenly spiritual experience.
But just a few hours after the announcement was made to the press, I was assigned to attend a stake conference in Detroit, Michigan. When my plane landed in Chicago, I noticed an edition of the Chicago Tribune on the newsstand. The headline in the paper said, “Mormons Give Blacks Priesthood.” And the subheading said, “President Kimball Claims to Have Received a Revelation.” I bought a copy of the newspaper. I stared at one word in that subheading—claims. It stood out to me just like it was in red neon. As I walked along the hallway to make my plane connection, I thought, Here I am now in Chicago walking through this busy airport, yet I was a witness to this revelation. I was there. I witnessed it. I felt that heavenly influence. I was part of it. Little did the editor of that newspaper realize the truth of that revelation when he wrote, “… Claims to Have Received a Revelation.” Little did he know, or the printer, or the man who put the ink on the press, or the one who delivered the newspaper—little did any of them know that it was truly a revelation from God. Little did they know what I knew because I was a witness to it.

My family was very poor while I was growing up, and we moved so often that I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Even though we faced a lot of hard times, we were rarely sad, but we were often hungry. I remember one day that was particularly rough at home. There was no food and my parents were arguing, so I left the house.
I went downtown to the local mall to try to entertain myself. I immediately went to one of my favorite stores, a candy shop with barrels of taffy and other goodies. My eyes caught on a tree made from breadsticks which were twisted, braided, glazed, and cooked to that perfectly baked, tan color.
My stomach growled as I realized that even though I was hungry and the delicious bread was right in front of me, I would never have it. I wanted to steal the bread; hunger and desperation were the obvious reasons, but I also felt fed up with not having a fair chance in life. I felt like no one cared about me, so I wanted to steal from society to let it know that it had failed me.
I tried to decide how I could steal the bread. I was 20 steps away … 15 steps away … 5 steps away. The decision was coming up. I was either going to take it or not.
But then I had a sudden, fleeting thought to ask God for help with my problems. I was frustrated, because I knew that God had seen me hungry, lonely, and tired before. Why was this situation any different?
“Things won’t change,” I thought. “God won’t answer me. Why would He help me now when He never has before?”
All I wanted was to satisfy my hunger with that bread. After all, it was only bread; what would it really cost the store? Why is it a big deal?
Then it hit me. I would be the one paying the cost of my anger and regret. As I passed the bread, I brushed it with my shoulder. I decided I would try one last time to do things God’s way.
I walked over to the warm food court, one of my favorite areas of the mall, and sat down at a long table. I had done the right thing, but I was still hungry. And I was in the same spot as before. I sat alone at the table and felt the heavy silence for at least an hour.
As I was sitting, lost in thought, I heard footsteps coming from behind me. Someone came up behind me and put a big plate with a double burger and fries in front of me. He patted me on the shoulder and walked away without saying a word.
I turned around and realized that it had been one of the restaurant workers. He silently returned to his job and never looked back at me. He didn’t want to be acknowledged, but I recognized him as a boy named Tim from school.
I was stunned as I looked down at my double burger. This was not just bread. It was a full meal.
Earlier, it seemed so much easier to just believe that there is no God and to take the bread. But now there was no denying that God knew me and my trials. Before I ate, I made sure to spend time thanking God for the food and for Tim.
I learned a lot about brotherly love that day, and I wanted to help others in the same way Tim helped me. I know that God was aware of me. He inspired Tim to share food with me to fill my physical hunger. And He answered my prayers and helped me feel His love so I could be spiritually filled as well.

Certainly President Spencer W. Kimball was not ambitious to be President of the Church, but when the call came, unexpected as it may have been, he was ready. He never slipped off his shoes while the game was still on—not ever.
Let me cite just one example of that preparation which started many years ago, when President Kimball was the age of many of you. When he was 14 years old, a Church leader visited a conference of the stake over which his father presided and told the congregation that they should read the scriptures.
President Kimball, in recalling that experience, said: “I recognized that I had never read the Bible, [so] that very night at the conclusion of that very sermon I walked to my home a block away and climbed up in my little attic room in the top of the house and lighted a little coal-oil lamp that was on the little table, and I read the first chapters of Genesis. A year later I closed the Bible, having read every chapter in that big and glorious book. … It was formidable, but I knew if others did it that I could do it.
“I found,” said President Kimball, “that there were certain parts that were hard for a 14-year-old boy to understand. There were some pages that were not especially interesting to me, but when I had read the 66 books and the 1,189 chapters and 1,519 pages, I had a glowing satisfaction that I had made a goal and that I had achieved it.
“Now I am not telling you this story to boast,” President Kimball concluded, “I am merely using this as an example to say that if I could do it by coal-oil light, you can do it by electric light. I have always been glad I read the Bible from cover to cover” (Ensign, May 1974, 88). In this and a thousand other ways, young Spencer Woolley Kimball silently and efficiently prepared, never dreaming of what lay ahead.

In February 1993 Lamjav Purevsuren became the first native Mongolian baptized in the country. Purevsuren grew up in western Mongolia in a round, felt-lined tent called a ger. His family’s major challenge was providing for their animals during Mongolia’s harsh winters, when temperatures regularly fall as low as 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Several times during the year, the family would dismantle their ger and move elsewhere to find new grazing pastures.
Purevsuren met Elder Stanley Smith when he took Elder Smith’s marketing class at the Mongolian National University. “My classmate Tsendkhuu Bat-Ulzii and I were curious why this American professional would come to Mongolia,” Purevsuren recalls.
“Elder Smith told us about his church and invited us to attend, but he gave us an apartment address. We were very surprised!”
Purevsuren and Bat-Ulzii attended the small service with the missionary couples and agreed to hear the discussions. Both men joined the Church, and Bat-Ulzii was eventually called as president of the Ulaanbaatar Tuul Branch. Total membership in the nation now exceeds 550, with three branches in Ulaanbaatar, one branch in Erdenet, a city of 44,000 located northwest of the capital, and one branch in Darkhan, a city of 65,000 located north of Ulaanbaatar.

During World War II he had served in an infantry battalion in an area where constant combat covered the earth with blood, pain, and death. His squad was commanded by a sergeant who had earned the hatred of his men through extraordinary harshness. One terrible night a mortar shell exploded not far from the sergeant, critically wounding him. The commanding officer stopped a dilapidated truck that often passed by to pick up the wounded and dying and take them behind the lines to be cared for or buried.
The squad watched the fate of their dying leader from a distance. Not one went to help him. The officer asked for a volunteer to carry the man to the truck and accompany him behind the lines. No one volunteered.
Then, after something of a pause, Brother Thamas stepped forward. “Moved by compassion,” he told us, “I decided to carry the unfortunate fellow and go with him on his trip. I took care of him the best I could during his long and painful ride.
“I returned later in search of my squad. When I reached the front, I learned that fierce bombardment had wiped out a large number of men on the awful night of my departure. Not one man from my squad had survived apart from myself. And then I understood. I thanked God for having moved me to compassion. He saved my life and gave me a chance to hear the restored gospel.”

It began as an ordinary day, but by second period I felt as if my entire life were coming apart at the seams. I didn’t get a role in the school play, it seemed like all my friends were avoiding me like the plague, I felt incompetent in almost all of my classes, and I felt inferior to everyone I came in contact with.
I had no excuse to feel this way. I knew I was blessed with a happy family, a nice home, plenty of friends, and many talents. I have never been insulted or brutally teased; why should I feel so bad about myself now? I’d had other roles in school plays … why should this one matter? But for some reason, it did matter, and my head and shoulders slumped lower and lower as the day dragged on. Between classes, I wrote in my diary.
“I feel of so little worth. It’s one of those days when you turn to people for sympathy, and they don’t seem to care. They almost just shrug as if to say, ‘You deserved it’ or ‘I have better things to care about.’”
By fifth period, I was still trying to pull myself together. I tried to remember a scripture that would help me, but it didn’t work.
At the close of fifth period, I finally decided that I would be polite and friendly to everyone I saw. Just as I was about to leave the room, a girl entered with a sunny smile that I remembered from seminary that morning. Michaela had given a devotional in seminary about pulling through the rough times and the storms of life. She handed out treats: peppermint marshmallows. I mentioned the devotional to her, and how interesting I thought the homemade marshmallows were. She smiled and pulled a spare set of treats and a paper with a quote from her book bag, handing them to me. Her smile alone brightened my day, but it went far beyond that.
As I walked down the hallway, reading the handout, I had trouble catching my breath. On that small sheet of paper was the scripture I had tried so earnestly to remember.
“Peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment” (D&C 121:7).
There was also this thought: “Remember that no matter what you are going through, there will always be someone there for you!”
Tears sprang to my eyes. Those simple words brought me comfort and taught me something new. Logically, doctrinally, I suppose I’d always known that God loved and cared for me, but this time I felt it personally.
My heart felt full. I knew that He really does love me, and He wants me to be happy. Even though nothing was really and truly wrong, He still cared, and I could bring my problems to Him—great or small.

As I once again set foot upon the field and walked once more a jungle path, in my mind I heard again the stutter of the machine gun, the whistle of shrapnel, and the clatter of small arms. I saw again the bronzed, youthful faces of friends who “gave the last full measure of devotion” (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address). And I thought of one in particular and one day—a single day, April 3, 1966, Palm Sunday, the Easter season—42 years ago almost to this very day.
Our infantry battalion had been in Vietnam for several months. I was a lieutenant, the leader of a rifle platoon. We were involved almost constantly in combat operations. That day dawned with our battalion deep in hostile territory. Very early we sent out a reconnaissance patrol of about 10 men. One of them was Sergeant Arthur Morris. Several of the men were wounded in a firefight, including Sergeant Morris, who received a slight flesh wound. Eventually the men of the patrol limped back to our lines.
We radioed for a medical evacuation helicopter. Loading the wounded men on the chopper, I urged Sergeant Morris also to get aboard. He demurred. Again I urged him. Again he demurred. Once again I admonished him. Once again he refused. Finally I said, “Sergeant Morris, get on that chopper.”
He looked at me, his eyes earnest, pleading. “Please, sir,” he said, and then these words that will forever haunt me: “They can’t kill a tough old bird like me.”
The entire scene is etched in my mind like a battle tableau: the jungle clearing; the impatient, throbbing rotor blade of the helicopter; the pilot looking at me expectantly; and my friend begging to stay with his men. I relented. I waved away the chopper with its lifeline to Tomorrow. Before the sun had set that very day, my dear friend Sergeant Arthur Cyrus Morris lay dead upon the ground, felled by hostile fire. And echoing in my mind over and over again, I hear his exclamation, “They can’t kill, they can’t kill, they can’t kill …”