Under His Wings

By Armchair Commando

Based off of a true story and dedicated to my Grandfather; A soldier in WWII and was honorably KIA fifty-five years later, in the battle over lung cancer.

The oily waves washed over the salty beachhead, which seemed unlimitedly littered with barbwire trenches and tank barricades. German entrenchment hovered overhead the shoreline, nestled in the rocky hillside. While the aerial photos hadn't shown them, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of Nazis camped just beyond the shallow waters of Normandy's beach.

Isaac dismissed all the briefing of the foreign land from his mind and pulled from his pocket, a less alien object. A small black leather-bound bible, which he quickly thumbed through the pages every so often, protruded from his olive drab pants. Once again he flipped to the exact page where he always did, hardly ever reading the thing, except out of boredom. The page contained a long letter, accompanied by a picture and a flat silver cross. It had been nearly five hundred times Isaac had read the small, wrinkled piece of paper. Though knowing the letter, word for word, he still whispered it softly to himself…

"Dear Isaac,

While I know you may not use it very often, I want you to have it as a reminder that He is always with you, like He is with your father right now. Even in the darkest moments of my life, a page from this book has brought me back with a more sincere understanding for what God does in our life. Which Is why I pray for you, so that you can see His plan in your life and have him as your guide like he is mine.

May God protect you with his Holy word,

Mom"

He neatly folded the letter and thumbed at the picture. The photograph was of a much older date then the letter; it showed Him, his mother and his father. He stared deeply at the face of his father, trying to hard to remember a single moment with him, but to no avail. His dad had died only two years after his birth, run into the grave by the stress of his work, which he accused led him to constantly smoke. Isaac, now nineteen, grew up rather somberly. While his mother had claimed to be filled with the joy of the Lord, he never seemed to quite buy into it, except for a moment when he won a gambling bet in High school, after praying to Jesus to "bring in the big money!" But always, he seemed determined to believe that God had never looked after him and that the only one that could truly be his savior was himself.

The sputter of the lights signaled the end the mission briefing. He quickly pocketed the bible back into his G.I. pants. Isaac turned around, motioning his friend Patterson, to come over.

"Let me guess, you zoned out in briefing… again." Outside of his normal jestful demeanor, Patterson was frustrated, almost shaking.

Isaac shrugged backward," Man, what are you chew'n me out for, it's just going to be another practice rehearsal. We get on the boats, we get off the boats, we go eat, they debrief us and we go to sleep."

Patterson shook his head," No, this is it, no more practice. It's happening tomorrow, tomorrow, is the beginning of the war."

D-DAY

The boat shook with terrible violence, Isaac helplessly being washed against the side of the small transport. Both hands occupied one on his rifle, the other on his heart, where he had put his bible in his shirt pocket.

"Thirty-seconds!" Hollered the boat foreman, trying to yell over the roar of the waves.

His commanding officer started ranting off military jargon that Isaac had not cared to maintain in his mind since basic training. Too much in a panic when he first got into the boat, he never noticed if Patterson had gotten in the same one, he didn't see any familiar faces on the transport.

"Fifteen-seconds!" Shouted the boat foreman, adding. "God be with all of ya!"

The C.O. gave a brave, almost foreshadowing last look at the group of men. "Check your weapons boys, I'll see you on the beach!"

For the beginning of war it was awfully quiet and a thought came to Issac as the boat cut its' engine to perhaps drift more silently to the shore... "Where we the first ones to land?"

The ramp to the landing craft unlocked and clunked over on the beach and the silence broke like a thunderous roar. The C.O. fell face first to the beach, greeting the first salvo of bullets from machine gun nest.

On both sides of the transport, men threw themselves over the sides, trying to avoid the machine gun fire that lit up the boat. Isaac as well jumped overboard, plunging himself into the Atlantic waters. He tightened the grip on his rifle, the sounds of gunfire and explosions was the only thing to be heard. As quickly as he could he trotted to the shoreline, following a group of soldiers, bullets sprayed the nearby water. The frigid water washed lower and lower down his body, till he was at last back on land. Isaac felt like throwing up, the scene around him was almost to horrible to bear. Another soldier pulled him to the side, behind a steel tank barricade.

"Kid, where's your C.O.?" The soldier shouted at him. Isaac, shaking, simply looked back at his bullet holed transport.

The soldier cursed under his breath and turned back to Isaac. "The name is Sergeant Madison and I am now your daddy."

Isaac met eyes with Sgt. Madison; they were full of hope and confidence. "W-what do I do?"

"You follow me and you don't die!"

Isaac shook his head in agreement.

Madison cleared some dirt off his M1 and motioned Isaac to follow. The Sergeant began sprinting up the beach, with Isaac on his tail, bullets buzzed overhead, some just barely missing and other peppering the sand beneath them. They finally got to another tank barricade, Isaac motioned to stop and catch his breath.

"No time kid," Sgt. Madison muttered. "Time to suck it up princess, there are two kinds of men leaving this beach and we're aiming to be the alive kind, can you guess what the other kind is?" The steadfast soldier got up and started sprinting further up the shore. Isaac reached out to grab him but only received the breeze of bullets flying past. He recoiled in fear behind the barricade, breathing harder than ever , his chest pounded and his head throbbed.

Slowly he peeked out behind the giant steel cross, an innumerable immense of bodies were littered further up the shoreline, where at last a large company of men laid in defilade from the German machine gun nests. Isaac gave a somber shake of the head, scanning the beachhead revealed no signs of his guide. With the best determination in mind, he was now set to making it up the beach.

Isaac got up, gave last look behind him, still dozens of men cowering behind the obstacles like he was. He placed a hand across his chest, ensuring his Bible and his memory of his mother and father, stayed close to his heart. Dropping his rifle, he began sprinting to the trench, already feeling the wiz of bullets flying by. Though only thirty feet at best, the distance felt like a mile, as if the space between him and safety was a minefield every step.

He looked up at the hillside, he could see the glare of the German sniper's scope and feel the gun sights aiming on him.

"Momma," he whispered to himself. "Only God can protect me now…"

The shout rang out, quick and deadly, the echo swallowed by the other ambient gunfire. Isaac couldn't breathe, his heart throbbing with pain and sorrow at the same time. Immediately he fell, face to the sky, on the ground and as darkness choked out his vision, he help but couldn't notice how pretty the sky looked.

And yet even through the blackness a small voice whispered. "Don't worry kid… I'm watching out for 'ya."

A small wince of pain poked through Isaac's arm, he tried to shrug his arm in retaliation and then felt a hand press him down, it was gentle however not forceful. A small pinhole of light started to stretch, slowly he opened his eyes. The kind face of a nurse greeted him. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to wake you." The nurse put down the IV and checked a chart hanging from the bed. "Oh so you're the napping soldier we had the beach?"

Isaac felt an odd, yet strange sense of relief. "Where am I ma'am?"

She turned around and pulled back a curtain revealing a large war-torn beach, now filled with supply trucks, tanks and hundreds of American troops.

He felt an even warmer sensation in his heart, and then looked back at the nurse. "So did the bullet go all the way through?" Isaac felt his chest, not even a stitch.

The nurse smiled at Isaac and grabbed something from a tray beside her, it was a book, his Bible. "Not even close." She handed the black leather-bound bible to him and walked over to another patient.

He examined the front cover; a small hole was now buried in the center. Isaac starting thumbing through the pages until he got to his personal letter and photograph he had always seeded in the middle of the book. Isaac took them out, unfolding the letter he found a bullet hole by "…Holy word protect you," leading into the picture and sure enough wedged between the two, was a bullet. Isaac set them both done and began reading the scripture on the page after them.

"…He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

…A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

…If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge-

Then no harm will befall you, disaster will come near your tent.

…"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

…He will call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

…With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." "

Isaac then remembered Sergeant Madison and went back to an all too familiar verse in the scripture. "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways…"

And for once and truly Isaac knew his mother was right after all, God was looking after him and just then he had the sweetest memory of his father teaching him to play catch.