During the Vietnam conflict I commanded a battalion of naval construction men. When we arrived in Vietnam, I made a tour of the construction sites we were to assume responsibility for. With me was the commanding officer of the battalion we were relieving. This individual had a history of being in aircraft accidents, which was a source of amusement and conversation among the men.
Our tour proceeded smoothly until shortly after our helicopter lifted off from the last site for the return to our base camp. We were quickly enveloped in a dense fog, simultaneously losing the use of the aircraft's compass and developing radio difficulty. After a few minutes our pilot found a fair-sized river and began to fly along it, although we had no idea which river it was. We were deep in the delta region of Vietnam and well over enemy territory, so we were all quite concerned.
As I realized the seriousness of the situation, I turned in prayer to some of the spiritual truths I had learned in the Christian Science Sunday School. From II Timothy, I prayed (1:7), "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." I soon found the spirit of love replacing fear. As I continued to pray, I could more clearly feel that God's omnipresent love not only surrounded us in the helicopter but was being expressed on the ground below us. I felt assured that wherever we had to land, God's love and care would be present.
