“I have done things that haunt me in the night so you can sleep in peace. I have been away from my family a long time so that yours can be safe. I have sacrificed a lot of my life so that you may live free. I have done these things because I have sworn an oath to my country. And I will live by this oath until I die because I am and always will be an AMERICAN VETERAN.” –Unknown American Hero

After his last swallow of beer in the airport grill, he flashed a boyish grin, walked up the ramp, and disappeared into the plane. I drove out of the parking lot while the airplane sailed into a blue sky, taking my little brother on a journey toward a jungle in Vietnam. Tears eased down my cheeks and plopped on the steering wheel as I craned my neck for one more glance at the shiny aircraft growing smaller, then becoming a dot in distant clouds.

Our soldier was young and unsettled. Was he ready to fight? Was he ready to die if that was his fate? Mom and I woke up every morning with a prayer on our lips. “Please God, take care of him, let him come back home alive.” We knew that people died every day in Vietnam, and we wondered if God would answer our prayers.

Months later, in a foxhole tunneled out in the midst of thick jungle brush, my brother crouched low, as the Viet Cong approached. He gripped his weapon and prepared to aim, but fear paralyzed him when he realized his gun was jammed. Trapped inside that hole of slimy water, filled with bugs, bullets zinged overhead, and footsteps inched closer. His heart-beat throbbed in his ears and temples like loud drum-beats, while huge drops of sweat plopped down on the useless gun.

This was it. He was going to die!

As his life passed before him, he remembered how mamma prayed on her knees beside the bed. From that image, my brother began to whisper: “Please, God, Help!” As his words silently passed toward the heavens, a strange thing happened.

An awesome presence came into the bunker, like a soft breeze, hovering over the foxhole, surrounding, hiding, and protecting the young man. The fear disappeared and was replaced by perfect peace, as the enemy turned away.

Later on, a bullet ripped through my brother’s rib-cage, barely missing his heart. a helicopter moved in and rescued him in the midst of the enemy fire. After several months in the hospital, he recovered, went back into the jungle in the heat of battle, and survived once again.

Months later, we watched him step out of another airplane and walk toward us. The boyish grin had disappeared, replaced by the forced smile of a man who had witnessed too much pain and death. Nevertheless, he was alive because God heard our prayers.

“If you are living in freedom anywhere on earth today, it is because of the United States military,” says Dr. Robert Jeffress, in his book “Praying for America.” He reminds us that in World War 11, the American military played a key role in stopping the Nazis and their allies from imposing their brutal reign far and wide. In the Cold War, Korean War, and the Vietnam war, Americans stopped the Soviet socialists and Chinese communists from taking over the world.

And in recent years, the American military has fought back radical Islamic terrorists who have attacked the West. The United States has continually protected people all over the world from losing their freedom.

May God greatly bless the brave men and women who have served our country.