No Time for Tombstones: Life and Death in the Vietnamese Jungle

During the Vietnamese New Year celebration of 1968, citizens of the free world were indignant to learn of an attack made by North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong upon South Vietnamese cities and towns...an attack in which several Protestant missionaries were murdered and others kidnapped. In this book the authors tell the story of the assault on Banmethuot in the Central Highlands. They focus their report upon the capture of Hank Blood and Bety Olsen, two American missionaries, and Mike Benge, a USAID agricultural advisor. Falsely identified as U.S. Military collaborators, the three were chained together and force marched through the jungle for many months. The most relentless enemy proved to be malnutrition, as the captives were denied basic food necessities and medical care. Debilitation took its toll as first Hank, then Betty, died an agonizing death on the trail...but not before their unwavering courage and forgiving love for their persecutors touched Mike Benge's heart, and he found new faith in God. Eventually released from a Hanoi prison camp, Benge has told his story to the authors of No Time For Tombstones. A fact-finding trip to Viet Nam provided the Hefley's with further details of this heartrending, triumphant story of life and death in the Vietnamese jungle.