Pasaung Battle Reflections: A Poem by David Eubank
26 August 2025
Karenni State, Burma
Please be advised: This video contains scenes that may be disturbing for some viewers.
“Not satan‘s will, nor my will, but God‘s will alone be done,”
was my prayer on each evacuation run.
Running into battle, mortars all around.
Jets diving fast, you can tell it by the sound.
Bombs released and exploding, sometimes only yards away,
wondering how you lived through it, knowing someone prayed.
Getting up again and going forward, bullets now snapping by your face,
getting to the wounded is a life-or-death race.
You find them, pick them up, there’s moaning and thrashing around.
Medics are gathered over, the bambulance is coming down.
My son Pete beside me, calm and cool,
helping carry the wounded, he’s just out of school.
We pick them up and run back, the same gauntlet of steel,
moving so fast we’re not really sure how we feel.
We race out of the direct fire but indirect is still on us,
the jets come again and now they’re upon us.
We dive down once more, while, as gently as we can,
lowering the patient to the rocks, ground, or sand.
Up again we go when the plane’s afterburners flare by.
In all these actions in the front, I still haven’t seen anyone cry.
We get down to the CCP, the forward one that is,
in a trench, a hole in the jungle, or under a bridge.
More medics are waiting there with loving, strong, and able hands,
to staunch the blood-flow, bind the wounds, and hold a healing hand.
From there, our radiomen call back to the main CCP and surgery,
saying, “We’ve got a red, and a green, and a yellow, on our way as fast as we can be.”
A vehicle comes up from hiding, camo nets torn off the roof.
More Rangers jump down and pick up the wounded as the ground is shook
by another jet fighter’s bombs landing close to us.
I remember seeing the glow of the cockpit as he lined up for his final thrust.
The rockets came in low and fast, screaming into the ground.
More shrapnel hit around us as we lay there, deafened by the sound.
Up again we lift the wounded and slam the tailgate home.
The driver takes off quickly, and now here come the drones.
The drive goes down a long and winding road, getting shot at sometimes on the way, around, and from above.
To our hiding place that we carefully prayed and selected for.
Here are more Rangers waiting by the doors.
The casualties are put down into more willing, loving hands.
A prayer is prayed over each victim as they are carried by our men.
Now into the CCP, which can be tarps on the jungle floor,
or maybe a building that survived on the edge of a town, or the house next door.
Our medics and senior doctors are there to help as they can,
to keep the patients in the living land.
My wife, Karen, and daughters, Sahale and Suu,
are helping the wounded at the CCP too.
This choreography of healing hands, medicine, and steel,
is provided by people who deeply feel.
It takes a lot of work and care and teamwork too, you see,
to run a helpful, healing, and life-saving CCP.
Stop the bleeding, restore the breathing, giving of whole blood,
needle decompressions, and IV lines, and more blood.
Here another radio call is made for a different vehicle set,
to take the casualties back, crossing a major river to get better care yet.
Sometimes that means one or two days driving to a hospital in hiding,
where eager CDM surgeons are waiting and are abiding.
Sometimes it means you can cross the border to Thailand,
where highly professional, loving, doctors again keep the living in this land.
We are grateful for all the people, from the frontlines to the back,
and for those of you all who pray that we would have no lack.
No lack of medicine, no lack of care, no lack of expertise,
no lack of God’s presence, and His calming peace.
On each day of this battle, on each run by foot or truck,
it was prayer that we relied on – not effort, skill, or luck.
Through gunfire of all kinds, onto the wounded cries,
“Lord Jesus, please, not Satan’s will or mine, but only yours.”
I said this prayer each time, and went again to try.
I clung to that prayer and spoke it over myself and our team,
as we moved forward as if in a bad dream.
In this particular battle, 250 were wounded and 28 lost.
Eight of our own Rangers wounded, and one paid the ultimate cost.
His name was Oo Reh, and he was driving evacuation vehicles each day.
He never failed to smile as he drove into the fray.
The Burma Army was falling back, placing landmines as they moved.
As our men moved a mine, it blew, one leg removed.
We got the call to go get him from deep inside the camp,
and Oo Reh took the wheel, and raced up the ramp.
We found the wounded man, and loaded him in the truck.
And as we did, we heard a noise, and everyone looked up.
The jet came screaming down, a metal bird of prey.
Oo Reh reversed quickly, trying to get out of the way.
Backing up fast, with the wounded loaded in,
Peter, and Coby, and others, trying to take care of him.
I was running in front of the vehicle, I had no time to get in.
And was right in front of the bumper when the bomb came screaming in.
It went over my head and shoulder, and landed not far from me.
About three meters, or four, in the midst of small trees.
The explosion rocked the vehicle, and me, and everyone too,
but no shrapnel hit me, and no blood from me it drew.
The vehicle suddenly sped up, but I thought it must be okay,
and then I saw it careen off the road, and smash through trees in the way.
I thought Oo Reh had lost control, but would still would be okay,
because if I’d survived so close to the bomb, how could anyone not be okay?
I ran forward, and the jet turned around and dove for a second pass.
I screamed to everybody, “Get out of the vehicle, and get out fast!”
We started to hit the ground, and I looked up only to see
my son Peter back at the vehicle trying to get someone free.
I yelled at him, “Come back, son, the jet is diving now.
You gotta move, you gotta move, there is no time to dally now!”
He looked at me with a look of horror on his face.
As he pulled Oo Reh out of the vehicle, there was blood all over Oo Reh’s face.
He yelled, “Wounded! Wounded!” with the cry of a torn heart.
Bravely standing against the fire to try to do his part.
Bwe Mu was on the other side, pushing Oo Reh out.
Aung Zaya was coming too, voice raised in a shout.
Peter drug Oo Reh to the street, as the jet came in again.
The bomb missed us again, and we drug Oo Reh across the street.
We checked his pulse, looked at his face, then his neck, and could see that he was deceased.
The jet circled again for the third pass as we carried him down the road.
Bwe Mu got the truck running again, and Oo Reh’s body we did load,
next to the amputee patient already moaning now from the crash.
We took off again, and now more bullets came fast.
Part of the Burma Army was still fighting in that position that day,
but over 50 more had decided to run away.
Suddenly we were amongst the runners, and some had their hands in the air.
But some kept fighting, and some fell here and there.
We weaved through the enemy, and the friendly too.
We raced down to our forward CCP, and unloaded the two.
The landmine victim was alive, but Oo Reh’s body we lowered to the ground.
And then our casualty without a leg, we also lifted down.
Back both went to our rear CCP,
Oo Reh for the final washing, and a burial for us to grieve.
The others were evacuated to Thailand, and to more care.
When that battle was over, we were left standing there.
That night, the next, and every day,
the jets came back with a vengeance, bombing and strafing all in their way.
In spite of this, and in spite of all of the losses, still,
there was a muted celebration of Burma Army defeated on that hill.
We treated wounded from both sides, and villagers in the middle too.
And our prayer is that with God’s help, one day, reconciliation will be true.
Thanks and God bless you,
Dave, family, and FBR