After 6 months of surviving he got a week of leave. Not to go home, just to get out of Viet Nam..  I guess they were trying to keep the troops morale up.  I don't know.  The problem was, after the week of leave was up, you had to go back to Nam--with a better idea of what you were going back to.  

Most of the Marines flew into Hawaii for their leave.

I hocked everything I owned, charged the rest, bought four tickets and met him there.  He later said that it was strange, one day you were getting shot at.  The next day you were with your family on the beach.  It was bittersweet.  Wonderful to see each other.  Horrible to know it was for seven days and then he would go back to Viet Nam and I would take our children and go back to Oklahoma.  And wait.  The waiting was pretty awful.  But not as bad as getting shot at.

After seven days in Hawaii, we said good-by (again) and the children and I climbed to an observation point to watch him take off.  I couldn't help but wonder if he could survive 7 more months.

The four of us watched his plane as it rolled to the end of the runway, revved up and started to move.  And at that moment, just as his plane began to move, a rainbow arched across the runway and the plane lifted off underneath it.  And then the rainbow vanished.

There are times in your life when you know for certain that God is speaking to you personally.  This was definitely one of those times. And the verses I had learned from scripture as a child were so vivid in my mind at that moment. .

Continued………..