When all seems lost, God will show you the way. It was February, 1995, I was training in the middle of the Mojave Desert. My artillery battalion pulled into our position around midnight and expected a mock attack moments before dawn. So, we started digging fox holes. We used sand bags and built bunkers, and coordinated with the rest of the gun line to interlock our lanes of fire. As dawn approached, my squad was ready for the attack. Everyone down the heavily armed gun line was ready. And then the order came to open fire.
It was a sight to behold! We had 9mm handguns, M-16 rifles, M-60 machine guns, Mark-19 grenade launchers (basically shooting grenades as fast as a machine gun), 50 caliber machine guns, and 155mm cannons with high explosive rounds being shot right in front of us. We called in air strikes from A-10 Warthogs and had other artillery units dropping explosives right over our heads. It was loud and impressive until one or two of the artillery rounds landed extremely close to our bunker. It rattled the walls of the subterranean fighting position, which began to collapse. There was a Lieutenant and a mechanic in the bunker with me shooting an M-60 machine gun. As the roof of sandbags began to sag I grabbed the Lieutenant and pushed him to the exit. The mechanic was still shooting the machine gun and could not hear what was happening. Before the roof collapsed I pushed back on the roof of the bunker. Fortunately, the gun jammed and the mechanic could finally hear me frantically yelling for him to exit. He got out. But now what? I was stuck. If I let go and tried to exit thousands of pounds of sandbags might fall on me. If I didn’t move, there would be no way to hold up the tonnage that would invariably crush me below the weight. So I prayed, closed my eyes, and jumped toward the bunker exit. As I stretched my body and leaped, the bunker collapsed. The roof fell in and just missed my legs as I lunged to safety. What seemed hopeless was just another funny story from the National Training Center. But as my friends reflect and laugh about it, I recall my prayer and a divine hand delivering me from certain death.