During my twenty-five year career in the Army from 1980 to 2005, I deployed to the war zone in the Middle East on four different occasions. Each deployment presented its own unique mission challenges and the experiences that accompanied them. To learn more in specific detail, please go to: https://books.pronoun.com/stone-in-a-sling/
When I was on my first deployment in 1991 for Operation Desert Storm, I decided to memorize Psalm 91. One night as I was standing outside my tent near the Kuwait border in the desert of Saudi Arabia, I watched the orange glow over the horizon where our Air Force had been bombing the smithereens out of the Iraqi forces on the front lines. Then I remembered Psalm 91:9 & 10. “If you say, ‘The Lord is my refuge,’ and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.”
Days later when truckloads of Iraq prisoners arrived at the Kibrit prisoner of war camp, my driver and I counted sixty per truckload with a line of sixty trucks, giving a fair estimate at 3600 enemy soldiers compared to a hundred or so Marines, Special ops. and National Guard MPs. The verse from Psalm 91:7 came to mind: “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.”
Fifteen years later, I remembered Psalm 91 when preparing for bed one night while on an assignment in Baghdad. I heard the swishing sound of rockets fly overhead followed by thunderous explosions approximately two miles away. I prayed, “Lord, cover me with your feathers and under your wings may I find refuge. May your faithfulness be my shield and rampart. I do not need to fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day” (Psalm 91:4 & 5).
When I was on my first deployment in 1991 for Operation Desert Storm, I decided to memorize Psalm 91. One night as I was standing outside my tent near the Kuwait border in the desert of Saudi Arabia, I watched the orange glow over the horizon where our Air Force had been bombing the smithereens out of the Iraqi forces on the front lines. Then I remembered Psalm 91:9 & 10. “If you say, ‘The Lord is my refuge,’ and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.”
Days later when truckloads of Iraq prisoners arrived at the Kibrit prisoner of war camp, my driver and I counted sixty per truckload with a line of sixty trucks, giving a fair estimate at 3600 enemy soldiers compared to a hundred or so Marines, Special ops. and National Guard MPs. The verse from Psalm 91:7 came to mind: “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.”
Fifteen years later, I remembered Psalm 91 when preparing for bed one night while on an assignment in Baghdad. I heard the swishing sound of rockets fly overhead followed by thunderous explosions approximately two miles away. I prayed, “Lord, cover me with your feathers and under your wings may I find refuge. May your faithfulness be my shield and rampart. I do not need to fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day” (Psalm 91:4 & 5).
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