By Andrew P. O’Meara, Jr., West Point ’59

I confess to being a slow learner. It took me several years of fighting Communism to recognize the priceless gifts we have received as citizens of this great land we love in the USA.

I have come to understand that it is only in the absence of virtue that one can fully appreciate the beauty of faith, love, freedom, and truth – all things we take for granted as American citizens. It was in the fight against communist invaders from North Vietnam that I first came to know the meaning of evil.

The peasant armies of North Vietnam had come south to wage a ruthless war spreading Communism. Their murderous conduct in the Peoples’ War rid the countryside of those Karl Marx had deemed unworthy of life. Communist political power came from their guns as they murdered middle-class merchants, farmers, teachers, village chiefs, as well as nurses and doctors, who staffed village clinics of the Saigon Government.

During the winter of 1962-63, I was fortunate to be stranded in a tiny Vietnamese village of impoverished farmers for several weeks. The village was on the outermost edge of civilization in the dense jungle forests north of Saigon in South Vietnam. We were awaiting the start of a large combat operation deep into the jungle to a place designated Rang Rang. The place was desolate, with only the steel girders of a French bridge that once spanned a steep gorge over the river below.

My unit had completed an operation in the Central Highlands and was returning to Saigon when we received an order to RON in Dong Xaoi. We were told to spearhead a large operation into the Communist Safe Area of Rang Rang. Having already spent six weeks of combat operations in the jungle, our modest supply of clean clothing had already been soiled through extended use. We were left with only the stained clothing on our backs that had been repeatedly soaked in sweat as we carried out the day’s orders.

As an American volunteer from the Seventh Army in NATO, I served as an advisor with the Army of Vietnam (ARVN). Suffering from the hubris of one incredibly blessed by Western Civilization, I served under the mistaken impression that I possessed gifts to share with those less fortunate than I.

It was an absurd prejudice for a young Lieutenant, a member of a mechanized infantry company on extended combat operations far from base camp with only a tiny cargo pack of dirty underwear, smelly socks, and a stinking towel to my name. We hadn’t bathed in weeks, and I smelled even worse than my Vietnamese comrades, who were better acclimated to the heat and humidity.

As a Christian raised in the Roman Catholic Church, I had asked the soldiers who befriended me to tell me if, by chance, there was an opportunity to attend Mass in any remote Catholic village we occupied. They approached me early one morning with the word Mass was about to begin in the village of Dong Xaoi

I approached the church. It was a small, unpainted structure of hand-sawed wooden planks with a corrugated sheet metal roof. I entered the Church with an M-1 rifle in one hand and my steel helmet in the other. I knelt in the last row and kept some distance from other worshipers because I smelled like a soiled veteran of brutal campaigns.

The altar boy whispered in the Priest’s ear that the American had entered the Church. The Vietnamese Priest stopped saying mass. He returned to the last bench and insisted I come forward to the front of the congregation. Embarrassed, he seated me in the first row of benches before proceeding with the Mass.

They were the members of a Catholic village from the Red River Delta who had fled North Vietnam when the French departed in 1954. They were spirit-filled Christians who had the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was all new to me. I had never heard of the Baptism of the Spirit.

It was an epiphany that left me spellbound. Their faith is shown mine by a country mile. I didn’t understand, but I felt the joy and love that filled their humble Church. They taught me the splendor and meaning of faith.

I, the overconfident American advisor, learned the meaning of genuine belief in a crude, humble shack, on the outer edge of civilization in the dense jungle regions north of Saigon. Their faith out shown mine by a country mile.

Below is a picture of Lieutenant O’Meara with Vietnamese friends from that faith-filled group of worshipers.

Two years following my brief visit to Dong Xaoi, the Communist peasant soldiers of North Vietnam attacked and overran the village, massacring everyone. Men, women, and children were all savagely murdered. The Communists were taking revenge against poor people whose only crime was the great faith that had taken them on the long journey from the Red River Delta to South Vietnam.

The American Left (Maoist college professors) called our campaigns in Vietnam immoral. It was beyond belief. Our efforts to save poor peasant farmers from communist slavery were immoral — a crime against humanity — that made American soldiers like me out to be war criminals. It was beyond comprehension that helping poor farmers survive a communist invasion from North Vietnam was somehow immoral.

God bless them. They taught me the most important lesson I will ever know – true faith. They have allowed me to understand virtue, faith, love, and freedom.

I have attempted to repay their kindness, although I can never repay them for their precious gift of faith. Nonetheless, every day, I try to display the gifts of virtue and love I found two generations ago in the distant jungles of South Vietnam on the far outer reaches of Civilization.

So that is who I am.

Saving Americans from the Communist devils is the best way we can serve our Lord and Savior and this great land we love. Our Alma Mater at the U.S. Military Academy has done so much to secure American freedom; we cannot let it be destroyed.