As a young manIn my youth I looked for any REAL evidence of God; but, I never found it. So when my time came for great adventures in life I decided to go for high adventure, since I saw nothing beyond this life. Being unable to protect myself fully as a kid I went into the US Army to learn what I needed to fix that. While there I also made a job of trying to lick my fear of heights by going into the paratroopers. Nine and a half jumps later I am more than ever afraid of heights, to the max. However, I learned more than I should have regards learning to protect myself & others.
When I went to Vietnam I was a radioman for a second louie in an infantry unit of the 101st Screaming Eagles. While there things started to happen I could not explain the way I understood things to be. One of them was particularly special in hind sight.
Cantu'itive - An Incident In Three Parts
Shortly after our combat missions began the enlisted men in my unit started coming back after missions and debreifing ourselves of all that happened. Unfortunately most guys don't see a whole lot in combat since they are usually laying down trying to keep from getting shot. Therefore when we returned we got to tell each other what all happen out there.
No matter what was said the conversation kept coming back to the question we all had to think about ever waking minute while there. Who was going to be the first to die in our company. Many men were killed and wounded in all of our companies accept mind. Oh, we had many wounded in those early days, but no one in our company died for 11 weeks after arrival in country.
Two weeks after arriving in our Cu Chi base camp much was spoken of by everyone about the dream of one Florentino Cantu'of our company. He said that he would be first to die in our company. He also said that he would be shot in the neck, and he would bleed to death. Eight weeks later he died exactly as he had predicted. He was shot lightly on his neck just enough to open his jugular vain, but without any other real damage to his neck. However, try as they could he bled to death in four minutes.
Thirty years later, to the day, I went down to Larado Texas to tell his family the full story of his death. His parents did not speak english so his sister tranlated for me. As I finished with his story I mentioned to them that before I had left California to go to Texas I phoned a guy I thought had been one of two guys that ministered to Cantu' in those final minutes. However, he told me he wasn't one of them. He said that that day he was working the log bird charged with finishing the night defensive position clean up. He told me that just as we all left the NDP for an assault on a village next to our NDP, that Florentino stopped to ask if he had any water. The guy tossed him his cantine with just a good mouth full of water in it. He then tossed it back to that man when done.
Five minutes later he was dead.
As I told of this happening Florentino's mother blanched. She nearly went out. I asked what was wrong. His sister said that his mother had lived in mortal fear for thirty years that her son had gone to his grave thirsty.
Well, needless to say that very instant all three incidents slammed together into a single event.
