In my book soon to be published, there is one incident that I want to tell you about.  It happened on one of the trips to Honduras when I was taking medical teams there to treat the people in remote parts of the country.

After getting up at daylight, having breakfast, loading up the vehicles, and then treating the multitude of people in that heat and humidity, my doctors and nurses and dentists and the others were just exhausted by 4:00PM.  I would send them back where we were staying to rest up and get ready for the next day.

However, Onelia, my super lady evangelist and I would stay at the site of that day’s clinic to show the Jesus Film that night.  We would rest and recuperate while waiting for it to get dark.  Usually a family or a single mother would want to fix us a dinner.  It was most often the same thing, stewed chicken with tomatoes, rice and beans.  They seldom fried the chicken because they were just too tough.  They needed to be boiled.

On this one particular evening on what was the 4th or 5th trip down to Honduras, a nice couple wanted to fix us a dinner.  They had designated a particular young rooster for the dinner, but the problem was that they could not catch the rooster.  They chased it round and round and over and under all the structures there.  As it got later and later, Onelia finally pulled out a 10 Lempira note and said it would go to the young person who could catch the rooster, for there was quite a crowd of youngsters gathered there.  That did it.  In nothing flat that rooster was caught and in the pot.  The chicken stew was quite good with tomatoes and peppers and the seasonings that they use.

We showed the Jesus Film with great results.  Many men and women came and stood under the string of lights that we would turn on after the film.  They wanted to have God in their life, and were counseled by Onelia.  Finally, we eventually got back to where we were staying.  There was one waitress at the eating place there who was so very special.  She knew what we were doing with the Jesus Film each night, and she would stay to give us a treat like a bowl of homemade ice cream upon our return.

About that time I noticed that my watch had quit.  I knew that there was no way I could get another battery for it in that coastal town, and as “Jefe” in charge of everything, I just had to have a watch.

I went to my room where Bill Smith, the pastor of the sponsoring church was rooming with me.  He had caught some kind of really bad virus or flu.  He had been in bed all day and was so ill that he could not walk or hardly even talk.  I explained to him that I just had to have a watch and did not know what I was going to do.  So all Bill Smith said was:  “OK”.

I have mentioned before that this guy was not like other pastors.  Other pastors will talk about sawing off the limb and having God catch them, but Bill Smith would really do it.  And God would really catch him every time.  Some of those catches were unbelievably spectacular.

I went into the back to my room to use the facilities and wash-up.   But Bill got out of that bed, crawled to the door, and down the three steps and when I came back into the room, he was crawling back into the room through the door.

He reached up, handed me a watch and crawled back into bed.  I said:  “Where in the world did you get this watch?”   And all he said was:   “In the grass”, and promptly seemed to pass out again.  That’s all he said.

The watch was wet from the dew on the grass.   It had a nice black expandable band and the face was in both English and Spanish.  So, you could say that was quite a coincidence, but I could say how did he know where it was in the grass, and how did it get there?  Folks, that was as much a tangible a miracle as one would ever see or imagine.  One that you could touch and feel.

I only told one trusted Christian friend about it back in Dallas; for I figured no one else would ever believe me.  And you know, the battery in that watch lasted for over 5 years.  I figured it was never going to stop.  I wore it most of the time, and that friend still calls it my “miracle watch” to this day.

If you would like to see more stories like this, go to my site and scroll to the bottom and put your email in the box on the Texas flag……… http://www.truetexantales.com

I just had the overwhelming compulsion that I was supposed to go to Russia.  My father and I had sold the Russians several groups of Santa Gertrudis cattle, but I did not need to go there.  They always came here for those purchases. 

Also, in the early 1970’s most people from here were not especially welcome there.   If you drew a chart of Russia’s meanness and their efforts to take over the whole world in the name of Communism, that would have been the time when the graph of meanness on the chart would have been at its peak.  But I thought I should go.

Even though we had sold them cattle, you didn’t just apply for a visa and go on your own.  That would have caused all kinds of suspicion and consternation.  But I found a way (or was shown a way).  There was a man from Houston who was getting together a small group of people to go to Russia for a “Cultural Tour”, mostly to listen to the Russian symphony orchestras and to particularly watch the Russian ballets.  Russia had a long history in these areas and Communists were still proud of those traditions.  In fact, in those days there, that was some of the only entertainment that they had.

So, my wife and I joined this cultural tour.  A few of the people were from Houston and a few were from Dallas.  We were to go to Moscow and St. Petersburg (called Leningrad under the Communists).  

When you fly across Russia you realize just how huge that country is.  As we were flying for hours and hours, I was thinking:  How in the world could the Germans ever think they could conquer a place this huge.

In the early days of the 1970’s one of the first things you learned was that almost nothing had been built since the Communists took over in 1917.  Most of the municipal buildings used by the Communist government are old palaces and the homes of formerly very wealthy people from pre-revolution days that have been converted to other uses.  Even the main department store in Moscow was a converted palace.

The hotel where we stayed in Moscow was directly across the street from the huge Red Square.  It and the room’s furniture was pre-1917.  Our room even had a grand piano in it from those days.

Another thing that you had heard about and were now experiencing was that the government and the KGB controlled everything.   They did not even check any of our luggage or belongings upon entering the country.

Their attitude was that if you brought in anything that you shouldn’t, they would know it because of their tight control.  The floors on our four-story hotel were not very large, only a few rooms, but at the head of the stairs on every floor was a tough looking lady at a desk who just watched everything.  Just for spite, I started leaving my room key with her whenever I left.  She just kept it for me.  She never said a word.

Another thing that you learned was that nothing worked.  There was a small leak in my bathroom under the sink.  I was told by the economics’ head of the US embassy in Moscow (with whom I had a most interesting visit) that I could come back years from now and that leak would still be there. 

Our group did attend cultural events.  One in particular was a “big deal”.  Their most famous ballerina, their Prima Ballerina was about to retire.  The ballet “Anna Karenina” was written just for her.  It is based on the Russian novel by Tolstoy.  She was going to dance it one more time and then it would never be danced again until after she died.

This was one of the biggest events in Moscow in many, many years.  The wives of all the top officials in Moscow were there, dressed in their finest.  However, I need to tell you about “their finest”.  See, only recently every woman in all of Moscow had received a new coat from the government.  The Russians love fur.  But these were all cloth coats of different colors, but with only a fur collar.  So, the wives of all these top officials could only have and wear these cloth coats with their fur collars; and they were no better than those same coats that the peasant ladies had gotten also.

We were given the best seats in the house.  They were the very center seats in the first balcony.  Sitting next to my wife was Mrs. Storey Stemmons from our group, whose husband had been the brother of John Stemmons.  The big Stemmons Freeway leading into downtown Dallas is named after them.  Mrs. Stemmons had on a full-length mink coat with a gorgeous sable collar.  My wife had on a crimson dress with a wide gold belt and a full-length mink coat.  I took a picture of all those hundreds of officials’ wives down below looking up and staring with envy.

In my book I tell much more about Russia as it was in those days.  I tell about visiting in the Kremlin with the head of all animal husbandry in Russia who had been in Texas buying our cattle, and how I got lost inside the Kremlin and wandered into places that I never should have been.  I also tell about meeting with some of their top leaders in the Kremlin and what they sincerely wanted from me, and also how I was officially detained by the KGB before leaving.

But who I really want to tell you about are two older ladies from Houston who went with us.  At that time you could buy Russian rubles at a bank in the US for 17 cents.  However, the Russians required you to pay $1.83 for each ruble there.  They for sure did not want you to bring any rubles into the county from the outside.  It was an automatic 8 years in prison if you were caught with contraband rubles.  You didn’t even have a hearing.  You just went.

However, these two ladies had brought a huge amount of rubles into Russia with them.  They had brought them in their boots, in their coats and stuffed into all kinds of places.  Like I mentioned earlier, the Russians did not check you upon coming in.  Their attitude was that they had such control over their country that they did not need to check you upon entering.   Later, these ladies informed me that all this money was for the Underground Church in Russia.  That is all they said, except that……I was the one who was to pass all that money to the Underground church!!!!

Also, like I said earlier, I did not know why I thought I was compelled to go to Russia.  Now I knew that this is probably why.

I did not know anything about the Underground Church.  I did not even have a clue about where you might find it.  I knew that the Russians had closed most all the churches and made atheist museums out of them.  I had seen some of those.  I also knew that they did have one Baptist Church in Moscow so that they could brag about having “religious freedom”, but I did not even have a clue about where it was or how to get there.

So, it was early-afternoon, and I just told God:  “If I am really supposed to do this, You had better take over!”

And, so help me, and I cannot begin to explain it, but from that moment I was not in control of my own thoughts or my own actions.  I walked out of the front of that hotel and down the street for about half a block.  There across the street, in English, was a sign over a store front that read:  “Tourist Information”.

I went in and asked this lady how one could get to the Christian Evangelical Church in Moscow?  She said not a word but wrote this address down on a yellow slip of paper.  I walked out into that wide street in front of our hotel, which was directly across from Red Square and the Kremlin, as I mentioned before.

I got several taxies to stop, but when I showed them the address, they all shook their heads, no.  Then I looked over right in front of the hotel and there was a large black sedan with a fellow sitting in the driver’s seat.  I showed him the address and he motioned for me to go back out and get a taxi.  I tried several more taxies with the same lack of success.

I still cannot explain any of this, but I was just being led what to do.   I went back to the big black sedan and said:  “I think you are supposed to take me here”.   He looked at the yellow slip of paper and motioned for me to get in.  Off we went, way across Moscow.  Every time we stopped at a stoplight, I noticed people starring at this big black car.  Finally, we arrived at the church.  I went in and was greeted by folks that spoke English.  After some conversation they informed me that in a little more than an hour, they were going to have a full church service, and that I should get my wife and come attend.

I went back out and the black car was still there.  I told him what I wanted in English, and he took me back to the hotel.  But he never uttered a word.  I got my wife and he took us all the way back to the church.  They had us sit on the side of the balcony on its front row so we could look down at the congregation.  It was packed full.  And what was so interesting was that as they read the scripture from the pulpit, the people would hold their bibles up as high as their heads and the people behind would furiously copy the scripture.

When they sang, they did the same thing with the song books, and the people would furiously copy those words.

When this nice fellow came to escort us out, I could not believe it when these words came out of my mouth:  “I need to find the Under Ground church people.”  He looked at me and continued down this long hall.  There were no windows or doors along that hall, but abruptly he stopped and pushed on a wooden panel of the wall to our right and it just opened up.  There were all these young people in there.  I knew instantly that I had contacted the Under Ground  Church.  I was brave enough to explain to them that I had money for them and that I needed someone to go with me to receive it.

A nice young man went outside with me and my wife.  There was that big black car, patiently waiting on us.  I don’t know if the guy was KGB or what, but it didn’t seem to matter.  I asked him if I should pay him anything and he never said a word.   I did reach over and stuff 20 rubles into his upper coat pocket.

We got back to the hotel and I went up to the ladies’ room while the young man waited outside.  They had been taking a nap and were still a little groggy.  I couldn’t seem to get through to them so I finally said:  “I have come for the rubles!”  They both put their fingers up to their lips to shush me.  But I thought, oh really, there is no one listening to us.

They stuffed all those rubles into a shopping bag and handed it to me.  I walked right past that lady at her desk at the head of the stairs with no problem.  I handed it to the young man outside and he faded into the huge after work crowd.

Instantly, I was back into control and making my own decisions and actions again.

We were to have an early dinner so that we could attend another cultural function inside the Kremlin that night.  The two ladies were a little late coming down to dinner; and, wow, did they look shaken.  They said that no more and 15 minutes after I left their room, a KGB officer and some of his guys knocked on their door.  They said that in his long leather coat, he looked just like one of the German Nazi Gestapo officers from a WWII movie, and that he was even holding his cigarette backwards in his hand just like the Nazi’s in the movies did.

They had heard my words.  They searched every inch of that room, but found no contraband rubles, of course.

But then, mirabile dictu, at almost midnight when we got back to our room, the phone rang.  Like, I don’t know anybody in Moscow.   Who could possibly be calling? 

This deep voice answered in quite good English and thanked me for our “interest in the Church of Moscow”.   I immediately realized that he was talking so very officially and that I was supposed to “read between the lines”.  He had once been out of the country to attend a Christian conference, so it was OK for him to call and talk to me.

Still talking very “officially” he wanted me to know that everything was cool and it was mission accomplished!

The Texas Rangers are an elite law enforcement group.  They were originally started to protect the early settlers from the Comanches Indians on the frontier.  Then they were assigned to protect the people along the Mexican border from raids by bandits coming across from Mexico.

In my soon to be published book, I have a whole section on the Texas Rangers with some of their amazing true tales and exploits.

For many years I had a large office in downtown Dallas in the Adolphus Tower.  It had lovely parquet wood flooring with lush deep green carpeting.  There were big green leather chairs and beautiful western art on the walls by famous western artists.  I had a faithful secretary who could take short-hand dictation and could check the accuracy of complicated bond and stock prices.  I also had two young male assistants who traveled across the country finding specific real estate for purchase.

A few blocks up the street was a large, famous gun store.  It was across the street to the north from the Dallas police station.  Lawmen from all across Texas would come there to buy their guns which were priced at a large discount to them.  It was so interesting to visit there since when some old gun collector would die, his widow would not know what to do with all those guns.  However, this store would buy the whole collection and exhibit it.

I would sometimes go up there on my lunch hour and visit.  On one particular day, while I was there, Captain Clint Peoples come in.  He had just retired from being head of the Texas Rangers for many years.  The people at the store made a big fuss about him being there.  However, as head of the Texas Rangers he talked to almost no one in the media, and was still not accustomed to talking to people.

At that time my father was President of Central Freight Lines which just dominated the LTL freight business across Texas.  One reason that businesses liked to use Central was that it was the only large freight lines business in the whole United States that was never in a union.  Most all in the US were dominated by the Teamsters Union, controlled by Jimmy Hoffa and his thugs.

Central Freight Lines was a particular challenge to the Teamsters, being the only one not in their union.  They continually put enormous pressure on Central to get them into their union.  And in those days, the Teamsters would not fool with a National Labor Relations Board election to get them in, which was the proper legal process to go through.  They would just kidnap the President’s son and hold him until they got a union.  If it was taking too long for the company to capitulate, they would start sending back ears and fingers to accelerate the process.  As the son of Central’s president, that is why I had to carry a gun for much of my early life.  It was another reason that I liked to visit that famous gun store.

Anyway, as I mentioned, the folks at the store were so thrilled that Captain Clint Peoples had come in.  They implored him to please wait for a little while.  They explained that Captain Will Fritz had just retired and was living in a hotel suite just down the street.  They wanted to go get him.

So, I decided to wait too, and see these two famous lawmen visit with each other.  You have heard that name…….Will Fritz, but you can’t remember where.  Well, he was the Captain of the Dallas Police Detectives when Kennedy was shot.  He was the one who arraigned Oswald when he was taken into custody…….the only one who talked with him.

You have also seen the film showing Will Fritz many times.  He was the fellow in the white hat just to the left of Oswald when Jack Ruby shot him in the basement of that Dallas Police building.

Anyway, I was not disappointed when Fritz came into the store to meet-up with Captain Peoples.  Peoples knew that Fritz would never talk to the media about anything associated with the assassination, much to their consternation.  They always wanted to know what Oswald may have told Captain Fritz.

So, Captain Peoples said:  “Will, are those people still bothering you?”  

“Oh yea, Clint.  A few weeks ago the Washington Post said that if I would not answer their questions, they were going to have me investigated by the FBI!”

To which Peoples said with dripping sarcasm:  “I’ll bet you were just scared to death weren’t you, Will.” 

Those two old dudes were so very entertaining.

However, here is what I wanted to tell you:  When the store folks went to get Will Fritz, everyone walked off and left Captain Peoples and me just sitting alone on couches across from each other.  It was rather awkward, so I thought that I should introduce myself to Peoples.  But he stopped me!

He said:  “Don’t bother, I know you Ronald.”

“You know me Captain Peoples???”

And he said:  “Son, I have protected you your whole life, but you never knew it.”

I was so overwhelmed that I almost cried.

Later I realized that Waco was Captain Peoples home-town and Central’s headquarters, and that it was a matter of principle with him that those Teamster thugs would never kidnap and harm me. 

This is a short excerpt from my new book that is soon to be published.  If you would like to see more stories like this, go to my website………www.truetexantales.com     Also, be sure to scroll down to the Texas flag and put in your email.

For many years I had a lovely office in Downtown Dallas.  It had much space, dark green plush carpet, a big conference table, nice leather chairs, and lovely western art on the walls.  I had a great secretary who took shorthand, and two different young male assistants.

However, since I lived in the Denton area, the commute could be quite burdensome, especially on hot August days.  Occasionally I stopped at a Shell Station in Denton for gas.  I usually used a large Buick sedan for the commute.

On one August afternoon I was in my GMC Suburban from the ranch on the way home.  Since it held 40 gallons, I did not need to stop for gas very often.  On this one afternoon it had plenty of gas, but as I passed that shell station the Suburban on its own volition just changed lanes and pulled into the back of the gas station and parked itself not at a gas pump, but in the back of the little Shell building………all on its own.  It was in control, not me. 

I sat there for a few minutes, wondering what in the world this was all about.  Such had never happened before.  I knew that they sold bread there in the little building, so I decided to just go in and get a loaf of bread.  I selected a loaf from the rack and got in line to pay for it. 

In those days it was just before we were able to pay at the pump.  It was still necessary to go in and pay the cashier.

The cashier, who I had seen a few times before, was a quite attractive red-haired young lady.  As it came my time to pay, she looked up and when she saw me she just brightened up with a big show of emotion.  She said: “Oh, you came!”   To which I replied:  “Was I supposed to come?”  She then said that she had been concentrating all afternoon intently that I would come.  So, I replied: “Why me?”   She then said that she had noticed the fancy American Express Card that I paid for my gas with.  She said that no one else had one like that; to which I asked:  “Why did you care?”

She then related how she had spent two semesters at the University of Texas at Austin but had fled away from there to Denton to get away from the drug crowd that she had fallen in with.  She said that she had now decided to go back down there and join her old crowd.  She said that she needed to lease a car to get back there but found that she could not unless she had a credit card.  She wanted to ask me if I would loan her my American Express Card so that she could lease a car.

I told her that I understood, but that I did not think that going back to Austin to rejoin a drug crowd was a very wholesome thing to be doing.

At that point she hung her head and haltingly said that she agreed.  She then said:  “I know what I should be doing.  I should be going to Dallas Baptist University and getting a nursing degree.”

Bing!!!

She had no idea that I was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Dallas Baptist University.  I asked her if she lived near there, and she said that she lived in walking distance in an apartment.  I got her address and told her to meet me at 8:00 o’clock the next morning in front of her apartment.

The next morning I took her down all the way to Dallas Baptist University.  We walked straight into the President’s office.  He was a very powerful man.  He had been Chief of Staff to the President of the U.S. in the White House.  He had been Senior Vice President of one of America’s largest oil companies and was still on the Board of Trustees for Billy Graham’s Evangelistic Organization.  He was a man of experience and action.

I told him that his girl needed to be enrolled there and that she did not have much money.  He did not ask us to go around to the different departments and wait in line to get her enrolled.  He had a senior person from each office come straight there to us…..from the Registrar’s office, the Financial Aids office, from the Academic Deans’ office, the Student Residence’s office, and all the others.

In less than an hour this young lady was enrolled in Dallas Baptist University, had financial aid help, and had her first semester’s class schedule.

Two years later I saw her again at a university function.  She was doing great.  She was a member of two Christian Service organizations and making good grades.  Later I learned that she had graduated with honors and was engaged to a fine young man.

You can say that it was my imagination that my Suburban took control of itself and pulled into that Shell station and parked itself behind that little building.  But I swear to you that it did it all on its own to my total astonishment.

This was one of the most incredible men who ever lived in the United States.  He so loved this country, and spent his life trying to make sure it stayed on the right course.

He was born October 8, 1890 and named Edward Vernon “Eddie” Rickenbacker.  When he was still quite young, he raced four time in the Indianapolis 500.  They called him “Fast Eddie”.

When the First World War broke out he was sent to France and since he was such a famous driver, his first assignment was to be the driver for General Pershing.  However, he wanted to get into the action, and got transferred to the Air Service.  Whatever organization Rickenbacker entered, he soon “went to the top”.  And he soon became commanding officer of the 94^th Aero Pursuit Squadron.  Germany’s Red Baron was dominating the skies there, but his squadron was responsible for destroying 69 enemy aircraft, the highest number shot down by any American squadron.  Flying over 300 combat hours, Eddie Rickenbacker personally shot down 26 enemy aircraft, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his exploits.

He wrote a book about his flying activities in that war.  It is called Fighting the Flying Circus.  Here is just one little excerpt from it:  “… three-quarters of an hour of gasoline remained … and no compass.  Then I thought of the north star!  Glory be!  There she shines!  I had been going west instead of south ……Keeping the star behind my rudder I flew south for fifteen minutes, then … found myself above the River Meuse…….. picked up our faithful searchlight and ten minutes later I landed …..As I walked across the field to my bed I looked up …..and repeated most fervently, ‘Thank you my God!'”   Eddie was a very Godly man!

In his flying exploits he miraculously escaped death so many times.  In his book here is what he wrote about those times: “I want to make it clear that this escape and the others were not the result of any super ability or knowledge on my part. I wouldn’t be alive today if I had to depend on that.  I realized then, as I headed for France on one wing, that there had to be something else… I had seen others die, brighter and more able than I. I knew there was a power. I believe in calling upon it for aid and for guidance.  I am not such an egotist as to believe that God has spared me because I am I.  I believe there is work for me to do and that I am spared to do it, just as you are.”

When he came back to the US, he started his own automobile company.  Before he sold it, he created many technological innovations such as the first four-wheel brake system.  As I mentioned before, whatever he tried, he would go right to the top.

In 1927 he bought the Indianapolis Speedway where he had once raced.  He then went to work for Eastern Airlines and then actually bought the whole company.

The Great Depression was about over and the country was healing, but when Franklin Roosevelt became president, his anti-business, Socialist policies put businesses back in a tailspin.  Rickenbacker violently opposed those Roosevelt New Deal policies as creating a “socialized welfare state,” which drew criticism from the liberal media.  Yes, they were liberal even back then.  In fact, Roosevelt’s administration even ordered NBC Radio not to broadcast Rickenbacker’s remarks.

When Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court, Eddie knew that such would destroy our Democratic Republic, just like it would now.  He went on an all-out crusade to stop it.  He recruited enough Democratic Congressmen to succeed in stopping it.

He wrote way back then:  “Freedom is not a physical object. It is a spiritual and a moral environment … The evil of liberalism is its emphasis on material things and its disdain for the spiritual and moral resources that we call liberty.  The liberal would sweep aside the constitutional restraints upon government in a blind rush to supply food, clothes, houses and financial security from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave for everybody …”

Rickenbacker explained that liberals view people collectively, while  “… the conservative knows that to regard man of a part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.”

He went on to add:  “A government that is large enough to give you all you want is large enough to take all you own first.”

In 1942, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson asked Rickenbacker to go on a special mission to the Pacific to inspect our military bases.  Flying from Hawaii to New Guinea to meet with General Douglas MacArthur, the plane’s inadequate navigational equipment resulted in them being hundreds of miles off-course.  Out of fuel, the plane ditched in the ocean, October 21, 1942.

For 24 days, in almost hopeless conditions, Eddie Rickenbacker and seven others drifted aimlessly on the open sea.  Lt. James s Whittaker wrote a book about their ordeal.  He wrote that they shivered wet all night but baked in the burning sun all day, and fought off sharks.  When all seemed lost, they pulled their three little boats together and had a pray meeting.  They recited the Lord’s Prayer together and then Private Johnny Bartek got out his Testament and  Col. Adamson read from the 31st through the 34th verses of the sixth chapter of Matthew: “Therefore, take ye no thought, saying: What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For these are things the heathen seeketh. For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Rickenbacker was deeply impressed by those verses and told all there that God was going to take care of them.  They would have all given-up if he had not kept encouraging them.  However, things became so bad that Lt. James Whittaker wrote:  “Col. James C. Adamson … suddenly raised himself over the side of the raft and slid into the water. Quick as a flash, Rick had him.”

Rick, as they called him, was not going to have any quitters among them.  He had them read that passage from Mathew again, and suddenly a big sea gull came and started flying above them.  They all prayed that it would land so they could eat it.  Sure enough, it landed right on Rickenbacker’s head.  They had food from the sea gull, and used part of it for bait to catch fish with a hook that they fashioned from a keyring. 

 Whitaker wrote that they prayed again and that I looked over to the left. A cloud that had been fleecy and white a while ago now was darkening by the second.  While I watched, a bluish curtain unrolled from the cloud to the sea. It was rain – and moving toward us! Now everyone saw the downpour, sweeping across the ocean and speckling the waves with giant drops.

Rickenbacker shouted out thanks to God.  And Whitaker wrote:  “Another minute and we were being deluged by sheets of cold water that splashed into our parched mouths and sluiced the caked salt off our burned and stinging bodies. We cupped our hands to guide the life-giving rivulets down our throats …We soaked and wrung out our shirts until all the salt was washed out of them. Then we saturated them again and wrung the water into our mouths.”

Eventually a Navy ship found them in that empty part of the Pacific. 

Rickenbacker began radio broadcasts to encourage the people of our country.  He wrote in another book:  “I pray to God every night of my life to be given the strength and power to continue my efforts to inspire in others the interest, the obligation and the responsibilities that we owe to this land for the sake of future generations – for my boys and girls – so that we can always look back when the candle of life burns low and say,  ‘Thank God I have contributed my best to the land that contributed so much to me.'”

One woman wrote in after listening to one of his radio broadcasts:  “We listened to your radio broadcasts and now we know why you were saved, as we have needed someone in this good country of ours who was not afraid to speak their convictions …… The history of our country shows that in every crisis God has always produced a man strong enough for the time and we feel strongly that you were the man for this time.”

Eddie Rickenbacker died July 23, 1973.  Jimmy Dolittle, of the famous Dolittle’s Raiders, spoke at his memorial service at Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church.

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This is a part of one of the chapters of my new book which is soon to be published.  I hope you will buy a copy when it comes out.  Also, if you think others on your contact list would like these stories, do forward my site to them…… www.truetexantales.com …… and suggest they sign-up for the site on the Texas flag.

This was one incredible woman.  She was born in Missouri but wound up with her husband and two young children in Sherman, Texas.  At the very worst part of the great depression, her husband just left her and the children.  She figured that if they were not going to starve, she had better get a job. 

She went downtown and walked around the square.  She picked out the store that she liked best and went in and asked to see the manager.  She made it into his office and presented her case.  The manager said:  “Let me see if I have got this right, lady.  There are a host of people outside desperately wanting a job.  So, you walked around the square and picked out my store to come and work for.”   Mary said:  “That is correct.”

The manger explained that he didn’t need any more employees and that besides, he had a list of job applicants a “mile long”.   However, Mary was quite insistent, and finally proposed to work for no salary, only on commission.  The manger was so taken-aback by this that he just agreed.  So, she went down to work.

On that very first day, Mary observed that most everything in the store had a price that ended in 95 or 98 or 99 cents.  She knew that women in those days most all mended their own clothing and were always needing another spool of thread.  So, she put the tree with spools of thread up by the cash register, and had the women take their change in spools of thread which were priced in those days at one cent per spool. 

The manager was so impressed that he hired her to a regular job before the day was over.

She then moved her children down to Dallas and studied to be a CPA.  She became the bookkeeper/accountant for a prominent furniture store.  At that store she observed that women would come in and buy a whole complement of furniture, but that they had no idea about what colors in their home would look best with the furniture, and especially what accessories would dress-up the room to go best with the furniture.  Those thoughts never left her. 

She eventually got a job with a fellow who was selling such accessories on the “party plan”.  In “nothing flat” she had 500 women in her pyramid group.  When the owner refused to pay the money and bonuses she had earned under the plan since it was so large, she left and formed her own company. 

She named it Home Interiors and Gifts.  She then needed a loan to furnish the capital to grow her company.  She went around to most all the banks in downtown Dallas with no success.  Finally, one banker was so intrigued with her, that he made her the loan.  Later, when she was putting millions of dollars into that bank’s coffers, was he ever glad that he had decided to have faith in Mary Crowley.  She stayed very loyal to that bank.

She not only recruited a multitude of ladies to work for her direct selling company, she was so influential with her powerful personality, that she influenced those ladies to totally remake their lives for the better and become close to God.   Those ladies’ husbands loved her too since she insisted that her ladies take special care of their husbands in all ways.

Mary was especially noted for her “sayings” that she would give her ladies to inspire them.  The company even had a little book of her sayings printed.  It has a powder blue cover with gold writing on the cover. 

Mary would tell those ladies, all across America, as she pointed at them:  “Ladies, you be somebody; God didn’t have time to make a nobody!!!”

She trained her friend Mary Kay Ash how to do direct selling.  Mary Kay concentrated on selling cosmetics and skin care products.  They made an unwritten deal with each other that Mary Crowley would never sell cosmetics, and Mary Kay would never sell home interior products.

As a reward, Mary Kay would have her best producers get one of her pink Cadillacs for a year.  However, Mary Crowley more concentrated on “mink”.  To her mink represented success and “having arrived”.  Over and over she would tell her ladies……..”Think Mink!”  She became famous for it.

Mary had special philanthropies that she gave too, such as her Cancer Research Center, but on top of all that, she gave away approximately 8 million dollars every year to various other special causes, like putting certain young people through Dallas Baptist University with a full scholarship.

Mary just didn’t fool with the trivial.  One of her famous sayings had to do with problems that would keep most folks up at night worrying about them.  Mary would say:  “I am not going to worry about that tonight.  I am going to turn that over to God to handle and just go on to sleep.  He is going to be up all night anyway!”

She was particularly interested in Dallas Baptist University and its high academics set into a Christian context.  That is where we first met.  I can’t really describe it, but we became so closely bonded together.  It was out of the ordinary and most unusual.  When she went off that board, having served her allotted terms, I am sure that is why I was asked to be Chairman of the Board of Trustees, when I was way too young for that job.  Whatever Mary wanted, she usually got. 

 On quite a few occasions, Mary Crowley and Mary Kay Ash would have me to lunch at some big prominent luncheon spot in Dallas.   They would have some specific project that they would want me to handle.   But on those occasions, there would be 50 or 60 other women in there having lunch.  They would all be watching these two famous and well known ladies sitting on both sides of this young man and earnestly talking to him.  It was quite obvious that they would really like to know what those two well known ladies were telling him.

Mary was so important to that company.  When a big group of her ladies would be having a meeting somewhere in America is was imperative that she be there.  No substitute would do.  As a result, they had two Fan Jet Falcon’s and a compliment of pilots to be sure that she got there.  The 2nd Falcon was just in case the first one may have some problem to keep it from flying that day.  Mary was quite low-key as respects showing off, but her people insisted on those jet Falcons.

Late in her career she built herself a new house in one of Dallas’ “Silk Stocking” areas along Inwood road.  I went there many times, but the first time, her house-warming occasion, was most impressive.   “Everyone” was there.  I distinctly remember visiting with Tom Landry (coach of the Dallas Cowboy’s) and his wife.  Mary took me on a tour of it.  I have seen some big closets.  I have a big closet, but I have never seen one like the one in her bedroom.  It was so long, that when you looked down it, past all that plethora of fur coats, it was like the two sides came together in the far distance.

Out back of the house on a little island in the creek she had built a private chapel.  What I remember most about it was the high-backed chairs that Billy Graham had given her for it.  They had come from a nunnery in Europe where the nuns would kneel in the seat of the chairs for their morning and evening prayers.

So, folks, I have gone through all this about Mary to just relate one little story concerning the theme of my new book. 

At the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas in the late 1970’s there was this monster, prestigious dinner to honor a famous dignitary.  All manner of people were there, including the President of the United States.   Among several parts of the program, toward the end, Mary was to speak for a short time, W. Clement Stone, who founded and was President of the Combined Insurance Companies of America and the founder of the Positive Mental Attitude Movement, was to speak for a short time, then the President was to speak, and finally Mary was to give a prayer to finish off the evening.

In order to accommodate all the dignitaries at the head table, they had constructed five levels behind it.   Each level had continuous tables for eating with chairs behind them.  By the time you got to the fifth level it was really high.   I estimated at least over a full story in height.

I was placed in the next to the top level.

Mary now had cancer again.  Most people there knew that this was probably the last time they would ever be seeing her in a public setting.  The night before the dinner Mary called me.  She knew that this was probably the last time she would ever be able to greet all the people there who would want to come up to see her.  She also knew how tough and protective that her son could be…….that as soon as she was finished, he would just grab her and whisk her out. 

She told me that the moment she finished her prayer, she wanted me to be standing right there beside her to shield her and make sure that she would be able to greet all those dear well-wishers.  Mary said:  “Ronald, you be right there beside me when I finish!!!  Do you understand???”

So, the evening progressed.  However, there was one near tragedy.  Most of us had heard W. Clement Stone’s standard life story speech several times.  But now he was really “up in years”.  When he got up there in front of that mike he was speaking again as he had done so many, many times.  He just started into his standard speech.  We all knew that it lasted nearly an hour.   No one wanted to wait an hour to hear the President.  I was just cringing.  The Master of Ceremonies for the evening didn’t know what to do.  There was only one person there who could gracefully salvage the evening,…… Mary Crowley.  Bless her heart, she slipped up there, put her arm around old Clement and led him back to his chair.  I thought I could hear a sigh of relief across that whole vast audience.

But I had my problem.  How was I going to be able to get down from my perch to be standing beside Mary just as she finished her prayer?  Particularly how was I ever going to be able to get past all those Secret Service guys who were guarding the President.  To come down those stairs while she was praying was going to look so out of place, which is exactly what those guys would be looking for.

The plan that I devised was to step up to the top level and walk behind all those people eating on the top level and go all the way down to the end and get down those end stairs someway.  Ringing in my head were Mary’s words:  “Ronald, you be there!!!”

So just as she started her prayer, I stepped up to the top level and started along behind the people there.  I looked down and saw how very far it was to the concrete way down below.  I remember thinking, there should be some kind of railing here.  This is dangerous. 

I hadn’t gotten but a very short distance when for some strange reason this big fellow just lurched back in his chair.  I wasn’t expecting or anticipating such.  He just toppled me off.   I was headed down, head first, toward that distant concrete.

I don’t expect you to believe what happened next.  I can’t even believe it.  But so help me God, it is absolutely true.  I just floated all the way down.  I landed prone on my back as lightly as a feather.  I have never ever felt such an absolutely peaceful feeling in my whole life as while I was floating down……..no broken neck, no broken leg!.

Now I was on the same level as the speaker’s rostrum.  I walked around that built up structure, past two Secret Service guys, trying to look like I belonged there as best as I could.  I was not stopped, and just as Mary finished her prayer, I was standing by her side.

Folks, please believe me.  That floating descent was no accident!!!

We have known for a long time that ultra-violet light kills bacteria and viruses, but harms humans.  That is why the New York City Subway subjects its cars to such light every night when no humans are there. Many hospitals bath their operating rooms with such light at night when humans are absent.  Dr. David Brenner, an Oxford-educated physicist at Columbia who applies quantum mechanics to radiation therapy, had a friend die from a superbug caught in the hospital. He became determined to stop such from ever happening again.

Brenner went into the ultra violet light spectrum and found what he calls  “far-UVC”.  It is ultraviolet light in the spectrum of 222 nanometers (technically 205-222 nanometers).  It won’t penetrate human skin or eyes but still kills most all bacteria and all viruses—both on surfaces and in the air.  Healthe Lighting is already manufacturing devices that look like airport metal detectors. They kill any virus or bacteria on your body as you walk through.  The Miami Dolphins have installed the technology that does this job in their indoor training facilities.   Healthe’s multi-level system is designed to inactivate the Covid-19 virus in the air, on players’ lockers, and even on their uniforms—and it’s all completely safe, researchers say.

Right now, installations are relatively expensive, and production is backlogged.  But there is a solution which doesn’t require more research.  Within a few months, the company says it will be able to produce simple LEDs that emit the proper wavelength. They will likely be expensive at first, but like anything involving technology and chips, costs will fall quickly, enabling wider use. (Today it would take $20,000 to equip a 2,000 square foot bar as one of the most popular one’s in NYC has done. The LEDs will drop that price dramatically). COVID-19 is devastating restaurants and bars because people are in such close proximity.  But these LEDs will be easy to put on the walls and ceiling, or even in regular light-emitting lamps on each table. When somebody coughs or shouts and unknowingly spreads a virus, the far-UVC light will kill it. Will it be perfect? No, if you are kissing someone with COVID-19 or another virus, you may still catch the bug. The light doesn’t go past your skin or eyes.

Can you attach a small strip on every seat in a stadium?  Of course.  Plus lighting in airports, trains, planes, hotels, in fact, just about everywhere people congregate. Yes, if you gather at a big outdoor event with no far-UVC lighting, there would be no protection. But (and this is a big but) infection potential should be lower after enough of the virus has been killed. And we are not talking just about COVID-19. We are talking about all viruses, including new ones. David Brenner’s vision of killing superbugs in hospitals (which caused 49,000 people to die last year in just the US) is in reach. This is simply amazing. It will usher in a new area of health, saving lives, and significantly improving economic productivity. We are now in reach of curing the “common cold” that has been dreamed of for so long. Since you can’t patent UV light, other companies are working on this too. That’s great; nothing like competition to spur innovation. This is wonderful news for mankind.

Ron

 

For many years I took 60+ member medical teams down to very remote parts of Honduras……..doctors, nurses, dentists, optometrists, pharmacists and just willing volunteers.  We treated multitudes of people who had never seen a doctor or dentist or had access to a pharmacist or optometrist and probably never would for the rest of their life.  We would usually set-up in a school that would let-out for the one or two days that we were there.  Many times, out in the jungle, it would only have a dirt floor.

This old optometrist went with us on every group that I took down there. He was very competent and extremely effective. Among his clientele in the Dallas area was a large group of airline pilots. He would give them eye exercises to strengthen and adjust their vision so that they would be able to keep flying without needing glasses. In his office he had all the optometrist’s lenses and instruments, but he really did not need them. He could write a very accurate prescription for glasses without having to use all those instruments.

Dr. Youngerman looked just like his name sounds, very German, fairly short, even down to the little goatee.  Most times he was my only optometrist. He was just incredible under all manner of hardships and circumstances.

I had an engineer friend who worked at Bell Helicopter. He had an instrument that could read the prescription in any pair of donated glasses. He would spend all year going through thousands of pairs of donated glasses and affixing their prescriptions to each one. I don’t think he ever went with us on the trips, but he was so very helpful.

We would take the glasses down in suitcases on the plane and wherever the eye clinic was, a group of lady volunteers would open the suitcases in a room next to where Dr. Youngerman was doing his work in his cubical that we would make for him. He would have each patient take the prescription that he wrote for them in to the ladies and they would search until they found the right prescription. Then before the patient left, we had a lady with a device for heating the plastic frames of the glasses to fit them properly to the patient’s head. If the glasses were wire frames the lady could just bend them to a proper fit.

But here is what I want to tell you about.  On the very first trip down there, after working is some very remote spots, we did our clinic in a school in the central area of the town of Tela.  It is the port from which United Fruit ships its bananas out to all over the world.  At Tela and its whole surrounding area there is only one doctor.  He has one little hospital, but is not set-up to do operations or even close to any kind of sophisticated medical work…..not even one real Registered Nurse.

However, as we ended that trip in Tela, we ran out of reading glasses, completely. And you know that is what most patients need. Later, we learned to buy enough reading glasses so that we would never run out again. We brought plenty of reading glasses, but that did not help us at that moment on that first trip.

I never knew how religious Dr. Youngeman was. I never knew what church he went to or if he ever went at all, but here is what he did. After they ran out, he went into the room with the suitcases of glasses and called all the lady volunteers together. He did not have any prayer with them. He just told them: “Ladies, I am going to keep writing prescriptions for reading glasses, and I want you to search in all these suitcases of glasses and see if you can find just one more pair.” And he just waked out.

Well, the rest of that day and for the next two days, each time, they kept finding just one more pair, all day long…..for real. It got so “spooky” for the ladies that they would not even talk about it. Folks, I consider that a real, tangible manifestation of God’s power and intervention.

But that is not the end of that story. Dr. Youngerman was a member of a men’s service club that met every month in downtown Dallas. As you know, they usually have speakers at those meetings.

A few years later, as program chairman, Dr. Youngerman asked me to come be the speaker for one of their meetings. Of course, I told those men about the reading glasses and what happened, and they were very amazed.

However, after the meeting, Dr. Youngerman took me aside after everyone else had left and said: “That is not the most amazing thing that happened that day on that trip.” So, after saying “really”, I asked him to explain. He related how that morning the mayor of that town had come in to get his eyes checked. Dr. Youngerman wanted to make a good impression on the mayor, for he knew that we needed permission to show the Jesus Film on the main square in that town, and that we also wanted permission to show it in their high school one night, also.

So, Dr. Youngeman related how he proceeded to check the Mayor’s eyes.  And he said that in his whole career he could not remember ever having a patient with so many unusual and difficult problems with their eyes……just a mass of problems. He told the Mayor that he was going to go ahead and write him a prescription, but that he doubted that he could get such a prescription filled anywhere in Honduras, that he would probably have to go somewhere like Miami, Florida. The Mayor thanked him and went out. So, I asked what was so spectacular about that.

Then Dr. Youngerman related how after lunch he was walking through the room with all the suitcases of glasses and happened to glance over at one suitcase with a very long strip of paper attached to one of the glasses. It was the long prescription that the Bell Helicopter engineer had written for it. Dr. Youngerman said that when he read down it, every single item, verbatim, was exactly the prescription that he had written for the Mayor. He had them call the Mayor to come back. He put the glasses on the Mayor, and he could see perfectly. He went out praising those amazing Americans.

Dr. Youngerman said: “Ronald, you would have to be in my business to realize the sheer, almost impossible mathematical possibility of that ever happening by accident.” So, I found out how what I considered God’s spirit power was once again manifested in actual, tangible form when it was needed in that remote place.

General Curtis Lemay was by far the most important person responsible for the US winning WWII. We knew that we had to destroy Germany’s production capacity to ever defeat them, but we were bombing them and losing large numbers of bombers and men and destroying practically nothing. As leader if one of our major bomber units, Lemay was very distressed about this. God waked him in the middle of one night and put into his mind the amazing innovation of how to bomb effectively. When he told his men how they were going to now bomb, they thought they would all be killed. Many wrote home saying: “Mama, I ain’t coming home”. I explain the details in my new book.

Lemay told them that he would be flying the lead plane. His innovation was so effective that the whole 8th Army Airforce adopted it withing two weeks and we eventually destroyed Germany’s ability to make war.

At that point we had put almost no bombs on Japan. We now had the B-29, but it really needed two more years of testing to fly into combat. Because of the horrific jet stream winds over the Japanese islands and bombing from above 25,000 feet, we were hitting almost nothing. That was when the military leaders in Washington sent Lemay there to make “effective bombing happen”.

Once again he became very, very distressed. They were flying that long distance and losing so many planes from technical problems and hitting almost nothing. Lemay knew how desperately critical it was to destroy Japan’s ability to make war; for It was being estimated that we would lose at least one million men upon the planned invasion of Japan’s home islands.

Yet, again God waked him in the middle of the night and put into his mind what to do. The Japanese AA shells all had fuses put into them at their factories set for 25,000 feet. It would take them at least two weeks to change them to a lower altitude. Lemay calculated that they did not have AA guns of any quantity to shoot at lower altitudes. They called him “Iron Pants”. He walked into their briefing room and the “ten shun” was called out for them to jump to attention. And when he told them that they would be bombing Tokyo at 5,000 feet and all their defensive guns and gun crews removed to allow for more incendiary bombs, they all wrote home once again: “Mama I ain’t coming home”.

Within three weeks Lemay’s B-29s had destroyed the war making potential in 66 major Japanese cities. The atomic bomb got the credit for ending that war, but I can assure you that the destruction of those 66 cities had very much to do with it.

Lemay then went on to found the Strategic Air Command that was the real reason that we won the “Cold War” against the Russians.

Now, here is what I really wanted to tell you: Through an amazing set of circumstances, years later, I became General Lemay’s hunting partner and bunk mate. In my new book I describe how unusual it was that we became so very bonded together. He told me things that I doubt that he had ever told most anybody.

So, with all of that background, here is just one of them…………. You have heard how General Douglas McArthur was brought back to the US by Truman. It was a very unpopular move to many people across the country. McArthur had spoken before a joint session of Congress and had spoken at a “moving” convocation of the Cadets at West Point where his closing words were: “In the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point. Always there echos and re-echos – Duty – Honor – County. Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and the Corps. I bid you farewell!”

McArthur was now retired and living in a suite in the Waldorf in NYC. He was such a special and unusual man. If he called you and asked to see you, you just had to go, even if you were Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which Lemay was. McArthur did not want see the President or any other general……….just Curtis Lemay. I asked the General what he wanted, and he said: “It only took a few minutes, Ron”. McArthur said: “Lemay, I want you to promise me on your mother’s grave, that you will never let our boys fight those people in their jungles or their rice patties.”

That was just before the Vietnam war. Most of us had never heard of Vietnam and for sure did not know where it was. When the conflict broke out, General Lemay said that he tried to keep that promise. He told the Joint Chiefs and the President: “Look, those people only have one real town and one port where everything has to come through. In one night I can wipe them both out and you won’t have a war”.

After 28,000 US servicemen had died, we finally bombed that town and port. The North Vietnamese were in Paris in two weeks suing for peace. We won the war, but just walked away.

This is an exerpt from the book that I have written that is soon to be published:

In the 1970’s and early 1980’s when Russia was pushing to take over as much of the world as possible; the Russian KGB had an effective tactic to take over a country. They would find some entity or group to create as much terror as possible so that the people of that country would welcome a Communist takeover to stop the terror.

That is what the KGB did in Cambodia. They backed this crazy guy named, Pol Pot. He called his organization and his fighters, the Khmer Rouge (the Red Khmer People). The KGB gave his band of young people guns and explosives and even artillery, and they created massive terror.

Pol Pot had this strange idea of putting everyone into the country-side, no cities. He and his cadres wanted “faithful” low IQ type followers. It was a death sentence if you were an “educated person”, if you could speak a foreign language, if you had ever been out of the county, all kinds of things, even if you could do arithmetic. United Nation’s estimates are that they murdered as much as 3 million people……25% of the population of the whole country. The capitol city of Phnom Penh finally fell in 1975 and the Khmer Rouge ran the country and continued the killing until 1980.

A documentary film was made about it, called “The Killing Fields”, and was shown all across the US. Some of the tourist attractions in Cambodia now are the enormous piles of human skulls from that time.

Many times certain people, particularly non-Christians, will ask: “How do you Christians know that your God is the only true God. How about the Buddhists, and the Muslims and the other religions?” What happened in Cambodia answered that question for me. Before 1975 there were less than 500 Christians in the whole country. But with that much intense terror and torture quite a few of the country’s 7 million people managed to escape, mostly into Thailand. The Thai’s could not let thousands of people just roam the county; they put them into refugee camps.

Here is what was so interesting to me, though. Like I said, there were less than 500 Christians in the whole country, but thousands and thousands of those escaping into Thailand were sincere new Christians. I took it to mean that if one is subjected to enough extreme, intense terror, he will be driven to what is true, really true. In this case it became obvious to some of us that they were driven to the one true God. I see no other explanation.

So, in the summer of 1980, Paul Eshelman and I and a small group of tough US businessmen went to visit those refugee camps in Thailand. The Thai Generals and the United Nations were supposed to be co-equal over the camps. But like in George Orwell’s book, The Animal Farm, the United Nations was a little more equal. However, we secured letters from the Thai Generals to allow us to enter them.

We were in a little mini-bus. We had heard that these United Nations employees, who were mostly atheists, were persecuting all these new Christians by requiring them to go into the Buddhist Temple to get their rations of sardines and bread. Being Asian and new Christians, they would starve rather than go into the Buddhist Temple. We wanted to get that stopped.

We had also heard that there was this man, who had become the pastor over the largest refugee camp named, Khao-I-Dang. We went there first. At that time there were 160,000 refugees at that camp and over a thousand new ones arriving each day. It covered 600 acres. But we wanted to meet this fellow who was acting as the pastor for all those new Christians in the camp.

We had the letters of permission from the Thai Generals, but the UN people took up our cameras and would not even let us get off of our little bus. As a result, we just took one circle through the camp and came back to the Headquarters to leave. But in a place like that, as in a US prison, there is a “grapevine” of information that travels quickly. So, the man that we wanted to meet showed up at the Headquarters. I sent him and our people to a room in the back and since it was almost 5:00 PM, I stayed with the United Nations people until they left for their “Holy Cocktail Hour”.

I had only one question that I wanted to ask this fellow when I got back there where they were. He could speak fairly good English, he had been out of the country, he had been the only Christian pastor in all Cambodia…….How could he possibly still be alive? Everything about him was a death sentence for the Khmer Rouge. He said: “Oh, I will tell you. I have not spoken to anyone from the ‘outside’ about it.” So, he started telling his story.

He said that he was in Phnom Penh when it finally fell. When the Khmer Rouge captured a city, they gave the population 24 hours to vacate it. Anyone found there after that was shot. Like I related earlier, they wanted everyone to be in the country-side.

He said he left with everyone else and saw all those strange sites, like nurses pushing their critical care patients down the road in their beds with their IV sets trailing in the wind. He related how he hid in the jungle for nearly a year. He said: “They tell you that there is lots of food in the jungle, but man, I nearly starved to death.” Finally, they found him and took him to one of those ‘killing fields’ camps. By then they had stopped shooting people. They were using up too many bullets. Now they were just lining up a new group of people each day and cutting their throats. Everyone in the camp was required to watch.

He described how they put him in this bamboo hut that was about 3 feet off the ground to get it out of the moisture. He said that on the first night a group of Khmer Rouge came to the edge of the jungle and watched his hut. He found that strange, since the usually did their killing in the daytime.

Being a Christian, he would prepare himself every night to die the next day. He had a friend that worked in the headquarters of this camp who told him that he was on the death list, but he knew that would be so anyway. Yet, they did not kill him. It really got on his nerves. Every night he would prepare himself to die the next day and it would not happen.

He said that one day they called him up to the headquarters for something, and he just decided to get it over with. He said: “You people know who I am. Why don’t you go on and kill me like all the others?”

I am standing by the window and listening intently to every word he is saying. And he said: “They told me that they were afraid to touch me because of the White Man!” And I just blurted out: “What White Man?”

Then he said that they told him in detail how every night this shining white man sat on the top step of his hut with his back to his door.

It was about three days before I remembered that I had read that book Billy Graham wrote called “Angels”, where he told these stories about how over history these shining white men would come and save certain people who must have been especially important to God. This man had literally been saved by one of those Angels!!!