there is a God, like everyone says there is… all powerful, all good… how could that God allow such a horrible thing to happen to these kids?"  I was outraged by the very idea of there being a God and that God not stepping in to stop this suffering I had witnessed. 
I raised my fists to the heavens and said, "If you exist, either show me why it is right for you to sit there and let this happen to these kids, or leave my soul alone!  I want no part of your heaven, or your hell, or you.  Just let me cease to exist!"  At that point, I sat back to die.  That's when a light appeared and something miraculous happened to me.
Now, I suppose anyone who reads this could justifiably assume that I was in extreme physical and mental shock and therefor a prime candidate for a subconscious induced hallucination.  I know that's what I thought, when I got back home and started thinking about it.  Yet, five years later a similar event took place, although more extreme and more detailed, at a time when everything in my life was peaceful.  In the second event I found confirmation that the event involving the light in Vietnam was very real.
I'll spare you the details, in the interest of not offending anyone's personal understanding of spiritual awareness.  If you are really interested, contact me.  Still, I needed to put this in to show what was responsible for stopping my bleeding, restoring my blood and renewing my energy sufficient to go out and help someone…  Which is exactly what happened.
When this "miraculous" event was over, the explosions at my bunker door had ceased.  A kid came in carrying one of the Corpsman sacks.  He told me Meecham had told him I was here and had been shot.  He said the Corpsmen had been killed, but he would do what he could (He may have been referring to the Grunt Corpsman).  I told him, "I'm OK.  Go out there and help who you can."  Without question, he left.
I dragged myself out of the bunker and started to help calm anyone I could.  Kids were dying and others were severely wounded. Their fear was overwhelming them and I was able, for some reason, to help them be calm and less frightened.   I don't know what it was I said, but it worked.
As the battle subsided, the Vietnamese having left the Hill, I came upon Kellum.  I sat next to him and picked him up in my arms.  His back had been peppered with shrapnel wounds, some puncturing his lungs.  Now he lay dying in my arms as his blood replaced all room for the air he needed to live.  It was twenty minutes, or so, before I felt him leave his body and that is when I broke down and cried.  I dragged myself away from Kellum, to the other side of the parapet, as a sergeant called to the rear for med-evac.
Just before sun-up, the thick black fog was made even thicker by all the fires on the hill.  We regained radio contact with Headquarters by relaying our messages to other positions in the area through a combat field radio.  The story goes that we contacted them just minutes before they were ordered to fire the big guns in order to destroy our position completely, preventing the NVA from not only gaining the real estate, but the 105 Howitzer cannons that could have easily reached other U.S. positions.   
There are a couple of helicopter pilots who deserve a Silver Star.  After making contact we asked for med-evac choppers and reinforcements.  We were told conditions were too poor in our area and that a chopper would never find us in this fog. One crew, flying a Huey, announced that they were going to try to find us.  These were very brave guys!  After several minutes, we could hear the sound of his engines and rotors as he approached.  Suddenly, he roared just feet above the blazing radio hooch.  "I think I saw a light," he exclaimed over our radio! "Yeah, you almost hit us," the relieved sergeant manning the radio!  The relieved nervous laughter of the listening troops seemed to break the hold of lonely desperation that had gripped our hill and signal that we had, in fact, returned from Hell.
The Huey led three CH-53's to the hill.  The first landed and took out wounded.  A couple of guys came to haul me to it, but I refused to go.  I had this deep feeling of belonging to this unit… the first real felling of that nature since I had arrived.  I was awake and could still pull a trigger.  If the NVA returned, I wanted to help keep them away.  I could not see myself just flying away and leaving these kids "to the wolves", so to speak.  I repeated my resistance with the second chopper landed.  When the third chopper landed, however, a Grunt Lieutenant pointed at my wound.  "How long do you think it will take for that wound to become infected.  Then you'll get a fever and I will have to assign a guy to take care of you and call in another chopper just to haul you out.  How about it?"  I couldn't argue with his logic and consented to leave.  The same two guys that had tried to get me off the hill (and who also brought the Lieutenant), bent over, I hooked my arms over the necks and we headed for the chopper.
Now, like most choppers landing in intense combat situations, this one kept it's turbines revved to the fullest.  The combination of engines and rotors running at full speed is just too loud to allow voice communication, even if you are right in someone's ear.  My right bootlace was almost completely unlaced, by the guy whom Meecham had sent to the bunker to help me, and it dragged on the ground.  I had to hold my leg up a bit, to keep my foot and ankle from being battered about.  The guy on my right kept stepping on the boot lace, yanking my foot and ankle back, almost tearing them off with each yank.  I would yell with each step and point down, but he didn't catch on.  Instead, he would look at me with deeply caring eyes, probably thinking that some internal injury was exploding inside of me.  The entire scene was so entirely bizarre to me that it struck me funny.  His look of confusion, fear and concern was heightened when I started laughing between screams of pain.  Then, just before stepping to the rear ramp of the chopper, he realized what had been happening.  I can say that I have never seen such a painful look of guilt and sorrow as I saw in that boy's face.  Instantly, I loved that kid as if he were my own brother… even more.
They tried to set me down, but the floor was full of dead bodies… our guys.  I had them put me next to the window furthest to the rear, on the port side, just inside the ramp hinge.  There was no glass in the window, so I hooked my arm through it and stood on my good leg.  Inside, it was quieter and I pulled my new brother close to me.  "Look, I said, I think you might have saved my life!  That wound was full of blood and mud and God knows what, after dragging myself all over this hill trying to help people.  Yeah, it hurt, but look at it!  It's just enough blood to clean it out and with it, all the crap that probably would have given me gangrene!"  I could see a glimmer of relief in his eyes, but to