Keith Staneart

We Will All Die Tonight, Prepare Your Men Keith Staneart

We Will All Die Tonight is a real personal account of combat as seen through the eyes of a chaplain during the Vietnam conflict. Personal fears, doubts, thoughts, and actions are seen through his eyes in the hopes of helping others understand the combat experience.

The story title comes from a night amidst fifty days of rocket attacks endured by the 299th engineer battalion in Dak To, Vietnam, during which forty percent of the men were either killed or injured. On one particular night, our battalion commander called all of his officers together and announced that we would all be killed on the same night. Our 500 men were surrounded by a known 5000 Viet Cong positioned to attack us within five miles of our compound.

The story unfolds to show that an unexplained outcome by the army was really a testament of God's deliverance. The chaplain's wife, Faith, writes a chapter telling what it was like to be left home alone and wondering.