Scar Tells Unlikely War Tale

People often say they would "take a bullet" for a loved one - Sister Oliva Benavente did just that. The theology teacher at the Academy of Our Lady of Guam remembers asking about the scar on her right thigh - five or six inches above her knee – when she was about 7 years old.

“When I was little, I must’ve asked my mom about the scar,” Benavente said. “She just said, ‘Well, child, you were wounded during the war, you were hit,’ and that was that.”

The scar never bothered her, and decades went by before the issue was brought up again. In 1988, Benavente slipped and fell at the Mercy Heights Convent. “I slipped and landed on my left knee, … and my right leg went forward,” she said.

To ensure there was no permanent damage, she visited the doctor. Because she landed on her left knee, the doctor performed the X-ray only on the left leg. He did not find anything serious but the pain persisted. Two weeks later, the technician did an X-ray on the right leg.

“The next thing I know, she’s yelling out, ‘Sister, have you ever been shot?’” Benavente said.

She was shocked that the bullet was still in her leg after all these years. Her mother told her about the incident but failed to mention that the bullet was never removed.

“I wanted to joke with (the technician)… I wanted to say, ‘I stay away from the mafia and the gangs shooting each other, so no, I haven’t been shot recently,’”she said.

The technician called in the doctor who asked the same question. Resisting the urge to crack the mafia joke, she said: “Yes, doctor, but that was ages ago, … that was 44 years ago.”

She examined the X-ray and saw a tiny silver object the size of a nickel. After the appointment, she called her sister to tell her the interesting news and found another surprise.

“She said to me, ‘You know, mom was carrying you in front of her and you kept crying, … she noticed the blood on her dress and thought she was shot,’” said Benavente. “But when she looked at me, she noticed that I was the one that was shot.”

It was years later, she said, when she realized what that meant. “If the bullet hit her, she would’ve probably died, … it would’ve probably hit her heart,” she said. The newborn baby saved her mother’s life.

According to her sister’s best recollection, Benavente was only 2 weeks old when she was shot. Her mother kept the wound clean and relied on natural remedies to heal her child.

“That is really amazing because … in those days, there was no sanitation, no nothing” said Isabel Montague, a school counselor at the Academy of Our Lady of Guam.

In keeping with her sense of humor, Benavente joked about a deal that may have taken place between God and her mother.

“Oh, I gotta talk to God and my mom when I get there because those two made a deal,” she joked. “She probably said ‘You save my daughter’s life and you can have her,’ … now I’m a sister.”

While she may never know exactly what happened, she truly believes that the hand of God kept her alive. “The bullet would’ve hit my mother, but instead, my little leg took it,” she said. “Only God could work that out.” The story behind Benavente’s bullet wound is just one of the memories she’s carried since the war.