Phone Calls Home

I don't know about you, but I love hearing the stories of what God is doing in the lives of our soldiers who are fighting around the world. Recently, my Minister of Instrumental Worship (orchestra guy) shared the following story with me. This is not one of those passed around the Internet stories with faulty origins. Jeremy, is actually the son of a co-worker of my orchestra director's father. Does that make sense? Okay. Just read the story below. It's pretty cool. It makes me think of battles in biblical times.

I haven't updated you recently on my son Jeremy, who is serving with
the 82nd Airborne Army Division in Afghanistan. He has been involved
in many firefights with the Taliban as he and his buddies are high in
the mountains near the Pakistan border and are attempting to stem the
flow of Taliban recruits from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

He called me 10 days ago and said that he thought he was going to die
in a firefight the day before. His 5 man patrol met up with another 5
man US patrol to make camp for the evening. After establishing a
perimeter defense around their camp, they eventually ate dinner and
settled in for the night.

All at once, enemy small arm fire and rocket propelled grenades began
pouring into their camp from the hills surrounding them. Jeremy is
the Fire Control guy and he dove into the Humvee to get to his radios
to call in some artillery fire on the enemy. Unfortunately, neither
radio worked, either because of technical problems or being destroyed
by small arms fire. With a night vision camera, they scanned the hills
around them and counted 75 enemy raining fire upon them. 75 against
10 is a tall order, even for the 82nd Airborne.

Jeremy said everyone started firing back with everything they had.
The battle went on for over 3 hours. Jeremy said he manned a machine
gun on one of the Humvees and fired until he eventually ran out of
ammunition. They could see the Taliban moving toward the camp to
attempt to overrun the small group of men. Jeremy said they all threw
all the hand grenades that they had with them, then began firing their
last weapons available, their rifles. Eventually, Jeremy's supply of
ammunition dwindled from 12 clips to just 1. He had 30 rounds left
and decided that he would save the last one for himself because he
chose not to be captured and tortured by the Taliban. He said he knew
that he only had a few scant moments left and he was praying to God
for all that he was worth as he carefully shot his last ammo.

Then, miraculously, all firing ceased....both from the Taliban and our
guys. As the soldiers waited, the sun began to peak over the tops of
the mountains as a new day was beginning. Jeremy said that,
afterwards, they came to the conclusion that the Taliban must have
thought the U.S. soldiers would call in an air strike on them once
daylight appeared. Who knows what really happened... I believe God
answered prayer and supplied a way out for our guys that goes beyond
human explanation.

Eventually, Jeremy and his guys walked through the hills where they
had returned fire and found the bodies of 30 Taliban troops. I was
fighting tears as I asked Jeremy how many brave American troops lost
their lives that night. He started crying and said, "Not one, Dad.
No one was killed, no one was even injured! All of our equipment was
destroyed by enemy fire, but not one person was injured!" Praise the
Lord! Jeremy said, "Please ask everyone back home to continue praying
for us! It is, by far, the best protection we have!"

Folks, no one is THAT bad of a shot! This is proof to me that angels
were protecting our troops that evening, just as millions of Americans
are praying! Please, please, keep it up.... Our heroes are depending
on you to be Prayer Warriors! Thank you so much for your
faithfulness!

Pretty cool, huh? Now, get off of your computer and go pray for our troops!