Why Did God Let Them Die?

I was a US Navy sailor on board the USS Goldsborough, DDG 20.  On December 19, 1972, we were making a night time gunfire strike off the coast of North Viet Nam, when we found ourselves being the target.
I was an operations specialist and my post during our gun strikes was in Combat Information Center (CIC), at a table covered by a sea chart.  Petty Officer Taggert and I plotted our course on the chart, and read range and bearing to the target for input into the computer.  Once the computer could calculate where the target was on its own, the guns would be fired. 
That night the Commodore and Executive Officer were there as we fired upon our first target of the night.  We were with two other ships as we made a run in towards the shore further north than we had ever been before.  It was the first mission of two we were scheduled to do that night.
After firing upon our target, we started to receive counter-battery fire.  We steered in a zig zag pattern and fired chafe.  Instead of losing them, the explosions increased.  The shore batteries had targeted the center ship, the Goldsborough.  The explosions could be heard outside of CIC as shrapnel fell on the metal walls and deck above. 
We kept trying counter measures but nothing worked.  We fired at suspected artillery sites, but nothing seemed to diminish the shells falling down around us.  We heard a shell explode fairly close to us.  Taggert looked up at me.  “We’ve been hit.”
He was right.  One of the shells had struck the ship on the 01 level killing HTC Donald Dix and BM1 Robert Dow instantly, as they sat directly below the explosion in the After Chief’s Quarters.  Six others were wounded and one of them, HT2 Gary Boyce, died later at the Air Force Hospital at Clark AFB in the Philippines.
We finally were able to get out of range of the shore battery, to attend the wounded and begin repairs on the ship.  Thankfully, we were only lightly damaged but, after being struck by the artillery shell, we did not go on to our second mission of the night.
My best friend on board was a Christian, who questioned God about the deaths.  Why would God allow three of our shipmates to die?  He had prayed for protection of the crew.  He had called upon God to post Angels at the bow and the stern of the ship to protect us, but he said that God had failed and allowed the three men to die.
Why had God allowed them die?  Why does God allow death to occur even when we pray and believe that He will answer our prayers?  Doesn’t God care?  Isn’t he capable of protecting us?  I am sure He does care, and that He does answer prayer.  Let me tell you how I think God answered my Christian brother’s prayer that night.
After we had been hit the ship went out further from shore where a helicopter came and picked up two of the crew that had been badly hurt.  We were at General Quarters for hours as we pulled ourselves together again in the aftermath.
As I stood there waiting with everyone else in CIC, one of the senior petty officers pulled back the chart we had been working on and showed me what was underneath.  There was the chart for our second mission.  It showed our planned course and targets.  I stared at it in shock.  Our next mission had been to make a run on Haiphong Harbor.
What would have happened if we had attacked Haiphong Harbor?  We knew about missile boats being there.  I am sure that if we had struck the North Vietnamese there, shore batteries and Migs would have been after us as well.  The likelihood of us being hurt worse, than we had been on that first mission, would have been extreme.  I am no expert about such things, but if we had done the second mission, there is a good chance we may not have come back at all.
If we had been hit on the first mission and no one had been killed, we would most likely have attempted the second one.  I firmly believe that those three men were sacrificed to save the rest of us.  I cannot  prove that this was what God did;  however, I believe it was not God’s desire for those men to die, but He was willing to lose them so that hundreds of others might live.  It was sinful man’s decision to put men’s lives in danger, not God’s.
There are times in our lives when God allows disaster to happen, and we wonder, “Why God?  Why did you allow this?” Can God really be  a God of love and still allow such things?
He does not desire tragedy in our lives.  He wants us to have an abundant and fruitful life.  Man, however, works his sinful will in this world and brings death.  Man, not God, is the author of death and pain.
Whatever tragedy is in your life you can trust one fact absolutely.  God is there with you.  He cries with us and tries to comfort us if we will let Him.  When man causes adversity God will sometimes allow such misfortune to occur so that something far worse would not happen. 
Rest in Jesus and know that He loves you.  Trust that whatever happens in your life, God allows it for good and not evil.  We may not know why a tragedy occurs in this life, but God does, and we can trust in His love.

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