ARCHIE A. LYLE - A MIRACLE

Archie A. Lyle is a long-time friend of mine. We met in a Greek class at Baylor. Archie has overcome unbelieveable diffictulties to even be living. He lived with his mother until he was 3. He never saw his dad. His mother left the home (if you could call it that) one time and put him in a tow-sack and nailed the sack to the wall with him in it. I know that is hard to believe, but never-the-less is true. At age 3, his mother gave him away and he was placed with foster parents. (Many years later, Archie had the privilege of leading his mother to the Lord when she was on her death bed).

While in high school, Archie joined the National Guard. He was 15 at the time. At age 16, he resigned from the National Guard, dropped out of high school and joined the Marines. Upon arrival at Paris Island, he was asked by the Marine barber where he was from. He said "St. Louis." The barber replied: "Well, you better start singing the St. Louis Blues because your hair is about to come off.

By the age of 17, Archie was on his way to Korea. He landed at Pusan and then made the trip by ship to Inchon which is on the Yellow Sea side of Korea and a few miles west of Seoul. Their unit made its way to the capital city and fought their way to Chosan, which is just a few miles south of the Chinese border in North Korea. Shortly after battling their way that far north, China came into the war and surrounded Archie's unit. The temperature was 38 degrees below freezing and they turned and started fighting in the opposite direction. Archie was shot in the cartridge belt and he yelled out: "Three clicks to the left and you got me." The clicks were on the sight of the gun. He stopped to eat in the cold and had rice. He started eating the rice and it kept moving around and he discovered it was magots. He fought his away across the 100 miles from Chosan to Hungnam where the United States Navy was there for the rescue. Out of 300 in his company, he was one of 12 that made it out of the trap.

Archie returned to the United States and married Lorene Willoughby. He went to a trade school and became a journeyman painter. In the early 1950's, Archie felt the call to preach. He had no education, but took the GED and passed. When the letter came, he had Lorene read it because he was afraid he failed. He passed and with his wife and now two daughters, went to Texas and enrolled in Tyler Jr. College. He then became the pastor of a Baptist church and learned to preach while on the job.
The story will continue next time.