By Ken Yates
INTRODUCTION
When I was in the military, I had the privilege of meeting some POWs (Prisoners of War) from the Vietnam War. I had the same reaction whenever I heard one of their stories. I thought that I could never do what these men did. I would have given up. They were better men than I am.
Not surprisingly, such men were put forward as heroes. They would speak to large groups and motivate us to love our country. We all looked up to them, realizing they were made of sterner stuff than we were.
When I recently heard the story of another of these heroes, all I could do was wonder how he did it.
A REAL-LIFE RAMBO
His name was Dieter Dengler. I am sure you will have the same reaction I did when you hear his story. You will say, “I would have died in that jungle.” It is the stuff of legend, especially among those who have served in the military. He was like Sylvester Stallone in one of the old Rambo movies. The whole account of what he did seems like fiction.
Dengler is one of only two US prisoners of war who successfully escaped from captivity during the Vietnam War. His background prepared him for what he endured. He grew up in Germany during WWII and had a very difficult childhood. He related that he had to scrounge for food, even eating the paste on the back of wallpaper to survive.
After WWII, he immigrated to the United States. He became a Navy pilot and was sent to fight in Vietnam. In 1966, he was shot down over Laos. He survived, but the attempt to rescue him failed, and enemy soldiers captured him.
He was taken to a small camp in the jungle. Chained to a group of seven fellow prisoners in a cage, he endured six months of intense torture. The men were given very little food and became emaciated and racked with disease. Then, the prisoners found out the guards were going to kill them.
In his weakened physical condition, Dengler led the men in a daring escape. They overpowered the guards, split into groups of two, and fled into the jungle.
A NIGHTMARE IN THE JUNGLE
Sick and weak, Dengler and his partner’s only hope was to signal a friendly aircraft to rescue them. It seemed impossible. To make matters worse, they were not properly dressed for life in that environment. They were barefoot and had to walk through thick underbrush while being pursued by an enemy bent on revenge.
They had no food. Using his experiences from WWII, Dengler scrounged for things to eat. His fellow POW became practically incapacitated, but Dengler kept both of them alive. He would collect water in the leaves of trees to keep them both hydrated.
After almost three weeks, some natives from a jungle village saw them. Dengler and his partner were hoping for help and mercy. Instead, a villager decapitated Dengler’s partner with a machete. Dengler managed to escape, running deeper into the jungle as the natives sought to kill him.
Now alone in the jungle, Dengler wandered for several more days. He found some material in a cabin that he hoped could be seen from the air. He was near the point of death when he finally saw a plane flying overhead and set the material out. An American pilot saw Dengler’s signal and sent in a rescue helicopter.
The helicopter extracted him. He was disease-ridden and a shell of his old self when they pulled him into the aircraft. The doctor who later examined him said that if he had not been rescued on that day, he would have died. He had spent twenty-three days in the jungle after the escape. Of the seven prisoners in the cage, none survived except Dengler and a POW from Thailand.
A HERO IS WELCOMED HOME
When Dengler returned to the United States, people were amazed at his story. Military personnel and civilians alike were eager to hear it. Thousands came to hear him speak. The account was retold in the media. The nation looked up to him. He was a real-life hero.
I never met Dengler. He accomplished his feats when I was very young, years before I joined the military. But when I heard his story, even decades after the events, I had the same response as all those people in the 1960s. Even now, he is rightly considered a military hero.
A JARRING CONCLUSION
I first heard Dengler’s story on a podcast. It was so impressive that I was shocked by the narrator’s last words. He simply said, “In 2001, Dieter Dengler died.”
How could you end this man’s story on that note? He was still reasonably young (age sixty-two). I wanted to know what killed a man who seemed indestructible. I looked it up. I was surprised by what I read. Dengler had been diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2000. In 2001, he lost the ability to walk, eat, or speak clearly. He rolled his wheelchair to a local fire station and committed suicide.
That ending did not match his story of heroism. I realized why people were reluctant to say how he died. Even though nobody could judge Dengler’s will to live, some would say that his manner of death might tarnish his reputation as a hero. There is a natural tendency to guard that reputation.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF HERO STORY
One of the things I like about the Bible is that it doesn’t treat its heroes like that. It gives us their stories of heroism. But it also speaks of their warts.
We might think, for example, of Solomon and David. Their foibles are well-known. Throughout the book of Acts, Peter, the leader of the apostles and the early church, is an example of bravery and dedication to the Lord. He died as a martyr.
But we also know of his failures. In the Gospels, we find that at times he did things that caused the Lord to rebuke him. Paul pointed out that Peter was a hypocrite in the way he treated Gentile believers in Galatia.
Even worse, when the Lord was on trial for His life, Peter was a coward. Standing only a few yards away from Jesus, Peter repeatedly told a large group of people that he did not even know Him (Mark 14:71). Peter had adamantly declared that he would never dishonor Christ. But a young girl caused him to deny the One who had given him eternal life. He was not the picture of bravery and strength.
Peter is a hero for all believers. But the Bible says he was also a man. He was like the rest of us. The Bible tells the whole story.
The podcast about Dengler shows how the world often treats its heroes. It wants us to see them as otherworldly. Nothing negative can be said about them.
The Bible doesn’t do that.
Peter will be great in the kingdom of God. Deservedly so. Throughout eternity he will be seen as a hero of the faith. But he had his warts. He made mistakes. He could be weak on certain occasions.
He is like us.
CONCLUSION
I’m glad the Bible gives the whole picture when it describes the heroes within its pages. When the world paints only a rosy picture of those it wants others to admire, we conclude that we could never be like them. That is how I felt when I heard the podcast about Dengler.
Peter is somebody we should admire. We should desire to be like him. It’s a tall order, but when we learn that he made many mistakes and showed signs of weakness but still went on to serve the Lord, we realize that being like Peter is possible for us.
Every believer will live in Christ’s kingdom forever. We can never lose eternal life. But just as Dengler returned to the United States as a hero, the believer can enter into Christ’s kingdom as one. Peter himself wrote about that privilege (2 Pet 1:11).
When I see that Peter had feet of clay, I realize there is hope for somebody like me.
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Ken Yates is a retired Army chaplain (Lt. Col). He has many theological degrees, including a Ph.D. from D.T.S. in New Testament. He leads the GES international ministry, cohosts the daily podcast, and assists Bob in all aspects of the GES ministry. His new book, Elisabeth, is a powerful testimony to the power of God manifested in a Christ-centered family. He and his wife, Pam, live in Columbia, SC.