I received word this morning that a long time friend from my time in Viet Nam had just died. COL John Insani, aka Warrior 6, was Brigade Commander 11 LIB in Duc Pho, 1970-71. He gave me a life-changing Christmas gift.
When I was assigned to the 11 LIB I had been a chaplain for a little over a year, and I didn’t know t that I didn’t know, but I had a lot of answers. A week before Christmas I was out in the field with an infantry unit, which one I don’t remember since as a chaplain at brigade level I covered 4 battalions and attached units, and depended pretty much on S3-air for blade time to get to the field. Some were more supportive than others. Three soldiers told me they were tasked to be security for a 2 man sniper team that was known to use contraband. They asked me if I could stop this assignment. I told them I didn’t think I could because it was a personnel matter. I chose a course of inaction, to do nothing, about a personnel request that ended up in a terrible tragedy.
Early Christmas Eve morning I got a call that Warrior 6 wanted me to fly put with him for a body recovery. When we got there, I recognized the three soldiers and the 2 man sniper team, all KIA in a small pile of rocks. “Taking care of things” at the scene was terrible, and I still have the occasional intrusive thoughts and nightmares, very graphic, understandably much more so today.
On my way to do Christmas Eve masses on LZ Bronco I went to COL Insani’s office and told him I felt the tragedy was my fault. He asked me why I felt this way. I told him the story, and he forcefully asked, “Why didn’t you do something?”. I told him I felt it was a personnel matter and didn’t concern me. He said in no uncertain terms, “Chaplain, anything that affects your people in any way is your concern, and don’t you ever forget it!”. “Yes Sir!”. He taught me a whole new understanding of what it was to serve as a priest.
We stayed in regular touch for the last 50 years, both in and out of the Army, and got together fairly often. I’ve been fortunate enough to come to know his lovely wife Inge. I’m thinking especially of his and Inge’s 50th wedding anniversary in a DC restaurant where the women sit in the window making pasta, and I was recovering from heart by-pass at the Old Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Also I did the weddings for some of his children.
This tragic incident, my choice to stay uninvolved and do nothing, and the COL’s comment, have affected my entire ministry since, both in and out of the Army. As I look back over the last 50+ years, it has helped some good happen, annoyed a lot of people, was at times controversial, often misjudged and misunderstood, and certainly made my life difficult. While I don’t remember a lot of my interactions in trying to do some good, I do remember the ones where, again, I chose not to get involved, and regretted it because of how things turned out. Lately good folks from my past seem to be reaching out and trying to reconnect, but I just don’t want to do that. That was then, this is now. We’ve all changed and are different persons. I prefer to prepare for my next PCS (Permanent Change of Station), which is exciting enough, because I know it will be good.
This is Wednesday as I write this, I am trying to put together some thoughts and a Holly for this weekend’s mass. The First Reading is from Proverbs , “To the one who lacks understanding, she says, ‘Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” It might have something to do with 6 saying, again, “Chaplain, anything that affects your people in any way is your concern, and don’t you ever forget it!”. I’m trying to say, “Yes sir”, but not sure how. I don’t want to screw this one up. I’ve done enough of that.
As may be obvious, his is surfacing all kinds of memories and thoughts today, a lot that I thought were buried too deep to recall. Guess I was wrong. May his memory be a blessing, as it certainly is for me.
Yes sir! Just sayin . . .