To: My Loved Ones
From: Dad & Grandpa Pratt etc.
Re: Continuation of personal life in a distressed world
Interesting story before I type Dad’s memo. I was thinking of Dad’s poem about I can’t and could not recall it clearly. I looked on google and found some similar but then a few more words and bingo it came up! Something in my head said to read the paragraph above the poem and it was like a hug from Dad. A sweet tender mercy that touched my heart. I hope you enjoy the poem and we can live by it’s words. Dad sure did!
“On days when I wonder how I can keep going, I remember the words of a poem that one of my favorite high school teachers, Richard Pratt, taught me years ago:”
I can't—a poor, pale, puny imp
Too lazy to work and from every duty does shirk.
I can—a giant, unbending he stands.
And he can conquer who thinks he can
In spite of the throngs who doubt him.
Memo 127
War has cursed the earth since Cain slew his brother Abel, yet the Father of us all uses war, “He certainly doesn’t cause them, wicked men must bare that responsibility,” but He brings to pass his great purposes of eternal peace by allowing wars to happen. Certainly man has been taught peace and love. And to physically restrain wars could only be done by removing free agency from the earth and that God will not do. And to physically refrain would be war.
Many miracles happen during war time. I’ve recounted some in the past. Many more will happen as wars escalate in frequency, ferocity, and brutality until the Lord comes at which point the war-mongers will be removed from the earth and only peace loving, peace practicing people will remain.
Starting with the Revolutionary War our nation has been involved in (I’m not sure of the number) ten or twelve conflicts. Half or more of them in my lifetime including World Wars one and two. Which are labeled the most destructive of history.
I was too young to serve in World War I and too old for all the rest or engaged in an occupation that made me draft free such as farming in the case of World War II. I’ve had mixed feelings of both relief but also regret that I missed that experience.
I think of my boyhood friend and our family farm hand, August Auckarook. Born in Russia about 1900, witnessed the awful Russian Revolution and the loss of his entire family therein. Escaping to America, drafted into the United States army, serving with great distinction in France and Germany. Buried alive by an exploding shell and before he suffocated unburied by another shell and severely wounded. He died as a result of those wounds by his mid-twenties. However he lived four or five years after and worked on our ranch. Then four or five years ago, he came to me from the World of Spirits and asked to be baptized and given the Priesthood so that he could be called on a mission to serve his people in that Paradisaical glory where the departed spirits live.
Or my friend Bill Ames we were home teaching companions in Wenatchee, Washington Branch about ethe same age and same number of children. The President assigned us to work with a young family who were leaving the church and joining some Pentecostal group. We set up an appointment with them. We arrived at the designated time only to find that the husband had gone fishing to avoid us. After an unsuccessful half hour with his wife in which she treated us very coldly we got up to leave with no intention of returning. As we started to leave she warmed up slightly and said. “Before you go administer to my sick daughter. She has been diagnosed with cancer and given only six months to live.” we thought what a strange request from someone leaving the church. We told her we would leave it up to the girl, whom of course we knew. We were ushered into a back bedroom and there lay this beautiful little nine year old. They had taken her out of school and were trying to make her as comfortable as possible at home. We explained to that sweet baby as best we could that Jesus could heal her and explained the administration procedure. Her eyes lit up and she eagerly asked us to give her a blessing. We did and left. Two or three days later we called back and found that the child was back in school and free of cancer. The mother coldly informed us that the doctor must have made a wrong diagnosis and closed the door in our face. Now I mention this to bring me up to the real story of Bill.
Bill was studying to be a doctor and enlisted in the Korean War as a medic. He was soon promoted and placed in charge of a group of medics. One night after a fierce battle the valley floor was covered with the dead and wounded. The wounded, moaning and crying out for help. Bill was ordered to wait 'til dark and then they would have a chance to bring out the wounded with less casualties of their own as the enemy still had the area under their control. But the full moon made so much light that Bill's men would be fired upon every time they tried to enter the area. Finally Bill told his men to lay low for a few minutes and he would be back.
Withdrawing to where he could be alone, he raised his hands heavenward and by the power of the Holy Priesthood, commanded a black cloud to form in the cloudless sky and hide the moons light. Almost instantly the moon was hid and the darkness such that they could only be guided to the wounded by their distress calls. And of course the enemy couldn't see to fire on them. As soon as they finished removing all they could hear, the cloud disappeared and no further efforts could be made in rescuing anyone but Bill felt that they had gotten them all.
Bill returned safely got his degree and moved to Canada to practice. He visited me a couple of times here in Provo. I assume he is now dead as most of my generation are.
Then there was the young man from a Southern Idaho town serving in the army in Vietnam. At that time after one year of service the soldier was sent home for a month and then returned to duty. For the last four or five nights before coming home for his thirty day rest he had a recurring dream. In the dream he was leading a patrol of four or five men into enemy territory. Coming to a turn in the jungle trail, he was shot by a sniper in the heart and killed instantly.
He had a great reunion with his family, told only his grandmother of the dream and told her he would not be coming back. Shortly after he had returned to his unit he found himself leading a patrol as he had dreamed. As he approached the turn in the trail, he thought, “no use trying to avoid it”, and pushed on, a shot rang out and he was shot right on the heart by a high powered armor piercing bullet. It knocked him flat on his back and he lay there hurting terribly. He thought, “so this is what being dead is. Then he thought, “but I was taught in primary that you don't hurt when you're dead.” He reached up to his tunic pocket right over his heart and pulled out his tiny serviceman’s Book of Mormon. They are about three inches by five inches and one half inch thick There was the bullet. It had penetrated about half way thru the book, about three eighths of an inch and stopped on page three hundred eighteen, Alma Chapter 44 and had slightly indented the word God in verse four which reads:
“Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith.”
He returned home safely at the end of his second hitch and of course carried his much cherished Book of Mormon.
The Korean War took place in the early 1950's and was a scourge indeed. Utah was represented in that struggle by the 213th Field Artillery from Southern Utah. It was composed of about six hundred men. They came mostly from Richfield, Cedar City and Fillmore. They were engaged in several terrible battles yet all of them returned home alive.
We also had the 1457th Engineer Battalion who performed a decade before the Korean War. This was in the first war with Iraq. Engineers are in the most hazardous areas of wars. They go before the regular troops clearing the way, therefore they suffer the heaviest of casualties. They are always the most decorated of any troops. When they were gathered at Kuwait to come home it was discovered that all were present, all were alive; not one was killed. In fact when the government heard of it they sent several high ranking officers to Salt Lake to inquire about it and to express national gratitude for their service.
But the most interesting of them all I've saved for the last. It's the story of a man from Vietnam. He is a small man physically but a giant spiritually. In his home town, Saigon; which is the capital of Vietnam with near two million residents he was known among the church members as the “good shepherd of Saigon.”
Barely five feet tall he weighed sixty eight pounds when inducted into the Vietnamese Army. The minimum weight was supposed to be seventy pounds but they took him anyway. His rifle was taller than he was. He fought for over two years in the front lines and not even wounded. He said he was too small for a target. He finally was promoted to Captain and assigned to non combat duty.
Some where along the line he came upon a U.S. Soldier with a stalled motor bike. Speaking good English he asked if he could help. He soon had the bike going and as the soldier got on to leave, he asked, “by the way what do you know about the Mormons?” “Tay” had never heard of them and answered that he was Buddhist. Soon he was a member of the church and then became the president of a branch of two hundred fifty members or more.
Oh! His name was NGUYEN VAIV THE later when becoming an American he changed it to “THE VAN NGUYEN” for their custom is the reverse of English in that their sir name is first. His name is pronounced “TAY VAN WIN”.
In his near forty years in Vietnam he never knew peace, war was the way of life and his youthful years were ones of constant loss of family members. He remembers his childhood with great love. Listen to a description of his home and marvel. He described it as half of a building about twenty five by thirty feet divided in half making it a sort of duplex each side being one room about fifteen by twenty feet. The floor was just dirt, hard packed dirt. There were no glass windows and only the exit door with a glassless window with wooden bars. The end opposite the door was partitioned off by a bamboo curtain behind which his father and stepmother slept, no furniture. He and a sister five years older slept together during his early years on a mat. There was a home made stove of sorts made of mud and all the walls were of dried mud, nothing painted and he has fond memories of that as a happy home. Even tho his mother died when he was only two and four or five years later his father was shot while coming home from work. Their stepmother abandoned them taking everything that was loose. An uncle and aunt moved in to take care of them, each dieing within two years followed by a grandmother who also soon died and another uncle and aunt who also died.
Then at the age of 10 and 15 years they alone and dependent on supporting themselves he and his fifteen year old sister, “BA” made a pact to always take care of each other. Which they have faithfully kept.
At this early age, ten and fifteen, they either starved or took care of themselves. They decided to go into business for themselves. They sold their half of their home and had a much smaller one built. How could it be much smaller? With the few dollars left they rented an outdoor stall in the open market place. Getting up each morning before daylight, they would walk four or five miles out into the country, buy all the produce they could carry and sell it in their stall. In the evening they ate their one meal of the day, of whatever they had left over. They succeeded and in a year or two hired a helper.
Then his sister married and Tay could return to school. Here he excelled especially in languages. (I wonder how “BA” found time to be courted, but she did.) She was also very upset with Tay joining the church and herself has remained a Buddhist.
Tay writes to her regularly and remembering their covenant to take care of each other sends her, in his words, “a little money”.
Today things are very desperate in that country since it fell into the hands of the communists. Starvation is the way of life. Many live on as little as five to ten dollars a month and what they can raise.
Today “BA” with her husband and children still live in the same area in the same kind of house, one that she and Tay built. Now at sixty five, Tay lives in a nice home in Salt Lake City with his wife “Lien My Le” (Leen). They have three grown children and grandchildren. Tay is an agent for the FBI and serves as a translator in several languages. At conference time the church uses him to translate and broadcast conference and often at other occasions.
How did his success all happen. He gives all the credit to his Heavenly Father and his church membership.
At the end of the war as Branch President he helped many of his Saigon branch to escape to the point that he was captured and spent three years as a prisoner of war in a “re-education facility” where the treatment was more than brutal. Tay's 135 fellow prisoners appointed him as cook to help him from having to participate in the inhuman hard toil they were forced into. They never had enough to eat. One day he was allowed one chicken and a few wilted vegetables. Imagine that for 135 hungry men. To divide the chicken equally he ground it up into fine pieces and put it in the soup, mostly water. Each got one cup as their main meal and usually the only meal of the day.
He finally escaped and after four years was reunited with his family. His three children didn't even know him. And somehow they and the branch members wound up here in Provo, Utah. The branch was reorganized here in Provo with him as President. At his release I was blessed to follow him as President and he served as my clerk and translator. So I've heard these stories from his own mouth, and he is indeed my brother.
He has also written a two hundred fifty page book of his miraculous experiences and how the Lord has preserved his life for so very many times. The name of the book is “When Faith Endures” you will find it a gripping story. And is available at LDS book stores.
These stories are about people who in the face of great odds turned their lives over to God and he helped them to move forward. Turn your lives over to our Heavenly Father and live the gospel for it is true!
My love always,
Dad, Grandpa Pratt etc.
