Licensed to Kill

With your blood you purchased men
for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
—Revelation 5:9 (NIV)

When man works, man works; when man prays, God works.
—Hudson Taylor

Korea, December 8, 1952
U.S. Marine Corps, Reconnaissance Company
First Division, Patrol #91

Nothing can prepare a person to kill. Or to be killed. I encountered both on that bitter-cold night in Korea half a century ago. As I trudged across a frozen rice paddy, the tranquil meadows and distant mountain peaks contrasted with the death and misery of war all around me. Just a week earlier, I had turned 21, but I never felt more alive in my life than right here in the face of death. That was what I was trained for. I was Orville Hunt Fletcher Jr., United States Marine, #1222744. Man of the night. Licensed to kill.

It was just past 10:00 p.m. Four hours earlier, our platoon of Marines had departed from the combat outpost at Nan 1. We followed a winding stream deep behind enemy lines and were now in the “front yard” of the 65th Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Tonight’s mission, for which I had volunteered, was to capture one of their soldiers and take him with us as a prisoner. In a few minutes, we would be in position at the base of a small hill just yards away from the bunker home of 30 Chinese soldiers, which our scouts had spotted just a few days before.

If all went according to plan, the South Korean Marines would attack the Chinese lines from our left flank. When the Chinese soldiers exited their bunker to return fire, Eugene Lenhoff and Kent Nixon, two members of my squad, would seize one of them, gag and bind him and together we’d take him back for interrogation. As part of the ten-man “snatch squad,” I would help to provide covering fire in case we met with resistance. On the dikes behind us were two support teams, and further back, a stretcher squad, which we hoped we wouldn’t need. Our test run the night before had gone like clockwork, and we expected the same tonight.

Suddenly, the stillness was sliced by exploding grenades and a sharp volley of shots about 45 yards to our left rear. Within moments, a fierce fire-fight was underway.

“Majesty, this is Majesty Baker,” the radio crackled. “We’ve made contact with a superior enemy number.” It was the voice of Andrew Guidry, radio operator for our support team.

Lieutenant Lee Cook, our platoon leader, ordered us to hold our position and stay down. Fifty yards in front of us, the Chinese were already pouring out of their bunker—fast and furious. They were shooting off flares that lit up the sky as bright as daylight, exposing our position and leaving us no place to hide. We were trapped, and about 700 Chinese soldiers blocked our escape route!

Rudolph Blick and I crouched next to each other, and in a few moments heard a Chinese soldier walking nearby. He spotted us from about 30 feet and called to us in Chinese. When we said nothing, he pulled the pin on a grenade, threw it toward us and rushed away just as it exploded. Dirt, snow and ice flew into the air. I looked over at Blick, who lay motionless just a foot away from me. I thought he was dead, but he slowly lifted a hand to wipe blood from a wound on his head.

The fierce fighting behind us seemed to die down just a bit when I heard movement and voices coming toward us from where the fighting had been. I glanced at two other members of my squad, who nodded as if to say that they had heard it, too.

Crawling on my stomach, I inched my way closer toward Lieutenant Cook. Another flare illuminated the sky. The snow, adding to the brightness, helped to silhouette the outline of a column of men moving right toward us. They were Chinese soldiers, probably heading back to their bunker. As they drew closer, I could see they were relaxed and engaged in friendly conversation. They obviously had no idea we were right in front of them.

“Should I open up?” I whispered to Cook.

“Not yet,” he replied, placing a hand on my shoulder.

Each moment seemed to stretch for hours. The enemy closed in on us, and I could count about 20 soldiers in plain view.

“Should I fire?” I whispered again.

“Not yet.” The calmness of Cook’s voice failed to reassure me. His hand continued to rest on my shoulder.

Forty feet… 30… 20. The Chinese seemed too close now.

The dog tags around my neck rubbed against my cold skin as I leaned forward and took aim, waiting for the command to fire.

My finger was ready at the trigger of my high-powered semi-automatic rifle. I began to rock restlessly from side to side, waiting for the signal to fire. My senses were fully heightened, and every sight, sound and even smell were amplified.

Suddenly, another flare lit the sky, and I could hardly believe my eyes. The Chinese soldiers were gone! For no apparent reason, they had turned and were heading in the opposite direction! For the moment, they were spared (and we were spared too).

Lieutenant Cook and our radio man made contact with the support squad, and learned our men had suffered casualties. We had to go back to help, but we weren’t sure where they were or how to reach them. So as best we could, we followed the directions given to us by radio, slipping and sliding our way across the wide-open rice paddy. My 20-pound rifle never felt heavier, and at one point I fell hard on the ice, unable to stand up on my own. Two of my fellow Marines helped me to my feet, and we pressed into a hail of bullets.

I wasn’t quite prepared for the scene we encountered. Bodies were strewn across the icy field to my right and left, and the white snow was stained with blood—American and Chinese.

Among the more seriously wounded was my buddy Howard Davenport. The Chinese had fired down on him at close range from atop a dike, their bullets tearing into his head, leg, arm and side. To finish the job, a Chinese soldier dropped a grenade in his face. Miraculously, Davenport was still alive, although the grenade’s detonation jolted his eyeballs from their sockets.

One of our squad, George Samaha, told Davenport to stay low while he fired a base of gunfire to repel the Chinese who were trying to capture him. Rolling onto his back, Davenport kicked off a wounded Chinese soldier and did his best to crawl on his back in the direction of Samaha’s voice.

Lloyd Smalley, also from our squad, began crawling toward Davenport and, grasping his hand, dragged him across the frozen ground. Just as they reached a cut in the rice paddy, a bullet pierced Smalley’s throat. He saved Davenport, but it cost him his own life.

We were still drawing heavy fire and fighting for our lives. “Lord, help us,” I prayed as I opened up on the enemy with my rifle.

At last, the Chinese abandoned their position and hastily withdrew. As our stretcher squad moved in to tend to the wounded, I helped others police the area, looking for weapons and searching the dead Chinese. One Chinese soldier was lying face down, and I turned him over and found myself looking into the eyes of a young teenager, probably 14 or 15 years old. His body was still warm. I pulled open his clothes to look for documents that might tell us something about his comrades in arms.

We had inflicted a heavy toll upon the enemy: seven killed, another four whom we believed were killed and removed, and eleven wounded. An evacuation team covered our withdrawal back to Nan 1, where we arrived a little after midnight. Trucks took us back to our company base, and just before sun-up I finally got to my tent—bone-tired yet deep in thought. On earlier patrols, I had heard and smelled the enemy, but this was my first fire-fight. I was thankful to be alive and knew it was only because God had miraculously answered my prayer to help us in this impossible situation.

That night, and over the next two weeks, I wrestled with questions that plagued my soul—profound, deep questions that I couldn’t answer, yet couldn’t escape.

Yes, I was prepared to kill—trained and licensed to do so. But was I prepared to die?

One icy morning two weeks later, everyone was talking about a young American preacher who was visiting the troops in Korea. Just four years earlier, this fiery evangelist from North Carolina had leapt onto the front pages of American newspapers during his famous tent crusade in Los Angeles.

His name was Billy Graham, and he was scheduled to hold a meeting later that day at our division headquarters. The meeting was open to anyone who wanted to attend. As I thought about the opportunity, I remembered something my dad once told me. “Son, if you ever get the chance to hear Billy Graham preach, don’t miss it.” Today was my chance.

I grabbed my bullet-proof New Testament, a gift from my sister Martha, and recruited three others from Recon Company to go with me. We boarded a truck for division headquarters and walked across the frozen compound to a bowl-shaped, natural amphitheater at the base of the hills surrounding Marine headquarters.

I took a seat on one of the sandbags facing a platform that had been hastily constructed the day before. One of the men had painted a large picture of Jesus watching over a Marine, which he and his friends had brought by jeep, under cover of darkness, from their front-line trench almost 40 miles away.

Before long, a convoy of jeeps arrived, with the commanding general of our division and almost his entire staff escorting our guest. After a brief introduction, Rev. Graham stood to speak. He explained that he was on the final stretch of an eleven-day visit to Korea, yet today was the only time he would address the Marines on the front lines.

Rev. Graham told us that he had come to Korea with Good News—the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But at first, it didn’t sound so good. He said that our sins had separated us from a holy God and that there was a penalty for our sin: death. We would all die someday—whether in battle as young men or later in life—and then would have to face the consequences for our sin. As he spoke, I felt as if I’d peered into the flames of hell itself and faced myself as a lost, sinful man.

Then Rev. Graham gave us the Good News with such clarity and simplicity that even a child could have understood. He quoted John 3:16 from the Bible: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (KJV).

With burning intensity, his eyes searched the crowd as he asked us if we were ready to meet God. He seemed to be looking at and talking directly to me. Up to this point in my life, I had considered myself a Christian. Growing up, I attended Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, prayed whenever I needed to, and lived a good life. None of that seemed to matter now. I knew I was not ready to meet my Creator. I was lost and in need of salvation, and none of my good works could earn it for me.

Rev. Graham explained that the greatest battle of my life was being waged right then and there. He made it clear: There was no in-between ground. He said we were enemies of God because of our sin, and we had to surrender to His claim upon our lives. “Will you surrender your life to Jesus Christ?” he asked us. “Will you ask Him to save you from your sins and receive the free gift of salvation that He offers to you?”

Surrender. For a moment, I wondered if Rev. Graham had chosen the wrong word. How could his message ever persuade a group of battle-hardened Marines who would rather die fighting than surrender? Yet, I  knew that how I responded to this invitation would not only determine my eternal destiny, but also make a difference for the rest of my life here on earth.

“If you will accept Christ today,” he continued, “I want you to make your decision public and stand up.” Without hesitation, I made my choice and stood to surrender to Jesus Christ. Several hundred men did the same, including my three fellow Recon Company Marines and our commander, Major General Edwin A. Pollack. As Rev. Graham led us in a prayer, words that I thought I could never say fell naturally from my lips.

“Lord Jesus, I surrender my life to You. I believe that You died on the cross of Calvary in my place to pay the penalty for my sin. I believe that You rose again. Please come into my life. I receive You as my personal Savior and Lord.”

The date was December 23, 1952, and although the Korean War continued for another seven months, the battle for the soul of Ted Fletcher was over. Jesus Christ had won.

When Rev. Graham returned to the U.S., he wrote his reflections of that cold Korean morning:

<p class="long-quote">I will never forget that first meeting at the front. Many of these men had been on patrol duty the night before… many had traveled on foot from their trenches and bunkers to attend the service.... Everyone had his rifle and was in full fighting gear. They were extremely responsive and interested in the message. Not once did I use any humor or any emotional stories. There was no need. These men were ready for the Word of God.</p>

<p class="long-quote">When I gave the invitation, more than one-third of the men stood to their feet in front of their buddies to accept Jesus Christ as Savior.</p>

<p class="long-quote">Many were weeping unashamedly, men who had faced death just hours before; big, strong, tough Marines, weeping because of their sins and their need of a Savior.</p>

<p class="long-quote">Never in my ministry have I preached with more liberty or power. The Spirit of God seemed to fall on that meeting.¹</p>

In the weeks that followed, I was like a sponge soaking up all the vital truths of the faith. I enrolled in a Navigators Scripture memory course and learned to love the Bible. I began to realize that my life actually belonged to Jesus Christ. God placed on my heart a desire to tell others about His Son, and so I did, wherever I went and to anyone who would listen. There and then, I wanted my faith to be filled with adventure and passion.

I also began to understand that God had given me a new mission in life—to love the world with the same love that He had shown to me. No longer was I merely a man of the night trained to kill. I was now Ted Fletcher, child of God, called to serve the living God.