The Ballestero Blog

“The Enemy Would Rather Wound Than Kill”

A friend of mine was stationed briefly at Fort Ord during the Viet Nam war. He was taught that the Viet Cong would make traps, and dig pits with sharpened and poisoned sticks in them to injure the soldier, but not kill him instantly. They sharpened sticks to pierce his feet or body. The poison would get into his blood and bring slow death.

Punji stakes are a soldier’s nightmare. They are set precisely to cause great pain. They are carefully sharpened bamboo sticks positioned behind logs that GI’s step must over. Sometimes they are spread across entire fields.

“Charlie” would rather wound with “Punji” stakes dipped in a special excrement brew. He would rather cause a slow painful death.

He knew that it takes more men to care for a wounded soldier and give him back his health than to care for a dead one.

The reason they wanted to injure and not kill, was if a soldier was injured, the US Army had to stop fighting long enough to care for the wounded. If enough get wounded, others have to stop fighting to tend to them.

The enemy of our soul thinks the same way too! We all know some that have been wounded by horrible life experiences, addictions, unkind comments and the actions of others.

• If people in a church get wounded…
• If one of our friends gets wounded…
• If one of our family gets wounded…
• If people in a organization get wounded…

We stop fighting the enemy momentarily, and concern ourselves with the injuries and injustices done to those we love and know. Our heart aches for their pain. We do our best to help.

• Yes, we should help.
• Yes, we need to help them,
• But never fail to recognize the strategy of the enemy.
• We are not ignorant of the enemy’s devices.
• He wishes to distract us all.
• He wants us to focus on ourselves, our injury, our pain, our loss.

I have great sympathy for the injury of others. I grieve for them, I too am aware that we can only focus just so long on “us”, because there’s still a battle to be fought. I’m so sorry for those that have been injured.

My advice to us all, is “Let’s don’t lay our weapons down, let’s keep fighting, regardless! The battle is not over yet!

God Bless You!!