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SAN ANTONIO?”My name is Bobby Welch. I’m a preacher,” the former SBC president said. “I’m also a graduate of this place.”
With that, as he did at least a dozen times April 9 while walking the sidewalks and halls at the sprawling Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Welch tugged at the Purple Heart ribbon affixed to his jacket lapel and briefly explained his journey from a bloody Vietnam battlefield to a months-long stay at the Army hospital back in 1966.
“Let me take a good look at you,” Welch boldly asked the young soldier, whose facial profile revealed the cruel effects of a roadside bomb blast. “See, you don’t look that bad at all,” Welch said, attempting to rouse the young man’s spirit.
As the soldier and Welch compared war stories, the young man kept his back to the half-dozen others milling around nearby. Instead, he looked out the window as the two talked. Standing alone several minutes later, the soldier leaned on a crutch and flipped the pages of the “Soldier’s Bible” Welch had given him as Welch and several chaplains moved on.
Until April 9?Welch’s first visit inside Brooke Army Medical Center since his hospitalization 41 years ago (the old hospital building has long since been abandoned)?the Purple Heart he earned as a young officer in Vietnam went unworn, “because I never had occasion after that to wear my dress uniform,” he said.
But this time the Purple Heart was an entree for dialogue with the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who call Brooke a temporary home; some stay 18 months or longer through multiple surgeries and long, grueling rehabilitation.
Duty bound
Before leaving his hotel for Brooke Army Medical Center, Welch, recently retired from the pastorate at First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, Fla., and now the SBC Executive Committee’s Strategist for Global Evangelical Relations, recalled his massive chest injury in Vietnam and how he overheard medics say he wouldn’t survive as he lay on his side atop the bodies of three dead GIs on a rescue helicopter.
“I always felt like I was conscious that whole helicopter ride,” Welch said. “I remember doing several things to try and stay alive,” including grabbing a C-ration box and wedging it behind him to keep from rolling over if he passed out for fear that his voluminous bleeding would seep into his lungs.
“This morning, I’m really facing this with mixed emotions,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to look face to face at these sorts of disastrous wounds. But we are duty bound to take a good, long, hard look because that is the price of freedom.”
After meeting up with a small band of Army chaplains, Maj. James Duke, a Southern Baptist Convention-endorsed chaplain who led Welch’s tour of the base, pinned the Purple Heart on Welch’s jacket in the breezeway outside the hospital.
Armed with boxes of “The Soldier’s Bible,” provided through the SBC’s LifeWay Christian Resources, Welch offered a Bible and prayer when a serviceman seemed receptive, which most were.
Several of those Welch spoke with said they were Christians and told when they came to Christ.
A young Kentucky native who lost a leg from an IED told Welch how he came to Christ through a basketball ministry at a Southern Baptist church in Louisville, Ky.
Welch sat and talked for several minutes with the 20-year-old soldier about his being fitted for the first time that week for a prosthetic leg and about the burns on his hand and right leg.
Many of the wounded at Brooke are missing one or both legs because of IEDs. Some were also severely burned by the IEDs, which are often concealed by Islamist insurgents along wel
