"Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."
~~Richard Bach
A private battle made public
Veteran hopes account of war, PTSD struggle helps other troops
By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jun 25, 2008 12:18:11 EDT(excerpt)
After surviving one of the most vicious firefights in the war in Afghanistan, Capt. Nate Self knew he had to write about it.
Self led a Ranger platoon in a daylong battle on Takur Ghar mountain that claimed the lives of seven U.S. servicemen on March 4, 2002. [Read more →]
I’m reading an interesting book. It’s really a collection of stuff. “The Patriot’s Handbook” by George Grant, Ph.D. is truly a primer for each new generation of Americans. Sadly, it is not oft read these days.
Take this little jewel for instance:
All temporal power is of God,
And the magistratal, His institution, laud,
To but advance creaturely happiness aubaud:Let us then affirm the Source of Liberty.
Ever agreeable to the nature and will,
Of the Supreme and Guardian of all yet still
Employed for our rights and freedom’s thrill:Thus proves the only Source of Liberty.
Though our civil joy is surely expressed
Through hearth, and home, and church manifest,
Yet this too shall be a nation’s true test:To acknowledge the divine Source of Liberty.
- Samuel Adams
Oh my. He was so good they named a beer after him. What an honor. I’m glad it’s a pretty good beer but I would rather the honor be that this man’s spirit be found in our leaders of today.
Sadly, I think we are failing a nation’s true test.
The Patriot’s Handbook. Get one for your kids. Teach them the truth.
Mr.Hooah!, out.
I just came from my monthly MOPS meeting. Emma and I always have a great time gathering with the other women and children. We laugh, share, talk, cry and pray about the things that weigh heaviest on our hearts. Today one of the ladies who attends shared about the success she has had going through a cochlear implant. She had an implant many years ago, but the technology has improved so much that she was recommended to Vanderbilt University to have a newer and better one implanted. She is a wonderful mother and wife, and a dear sister to know.
She told us this morning of her journey through extremely limited hearing from the old implant, to total deafness while the new implant site was healing. When they first turned the implant on, our dear friend shared, the first thing she heard (and the first time with this clarity and volume) was her husband’s voice.
I was taken back for a moment. I have never before contemplated what it would be like to not hear my husband’s voice, and then my thoughts turned to the spectrum of emotion a voice can raise within us. I can not imagine not being able to lay in the dark with him, when the house is asleep, and not hear him talking to me. I can’t imagine not hearing his voice say “I love you” as I am walking away. Until this morning I had never contemplated what an enormous gift my husband’s voice is to me — even when he was away from us, I still took for granted that I would hear his voice again. I can even imagine his voice and what he would sound like talking about certain things. His voice was already deeply ingrained in my memory and senses. I never thought of not hearing his voice at all.
Of course the parallelism as a Christian goes beyond my marriage on earth, and transcended to thoughts of Christ and His Bride. When I think of my friend’s overwhelming joy at hearing her beloved husband’s voice, clearly, for the first time, I have to wonder what joy we will have when we can clearly hear His voice. I know we hear Him while we are here through scriptures, but I am contemplating His voice without the veil of a fallen world and nature. I am imagining His voice without the noise of worry, grief and the daily grind competing for my attention. I can only imagine it in as much as my friend’s experience has allowed me to vicariously experience that feeling. Anything beyond that is unimaginably joyful.
I have been amazed more than once since starting this blog and starting our journey into military life at some of the incredible meetings we have had with others. I am not someone who believes in coincidences, so I can only accept these meetings and circumstances as blessings just waiting to be had.
I mentioned once before on this blog that a reader and I began exchanging emails back in August of last year (I believe that’s when we first said “hi” to one another). We were both very OPSEC rigid at the start, and so neither of us were willing to give much information to the other about our particular soldier. The only thing we both knew was we each had a soldier in Iraq and they both served in a Stryker Brigade. That only narrowed it down to a degree.
Over time we began sharing just a tad more information, like first names. Then we finally got confirmation one day, me on my end and her on her’s … we found out through our soldiers that only were they at the same FOB, but they know one another! I think we both were taken back. What were the odds that the two of us would meet through this blog and find out that our guys know one another!? I have never mentioned publicly any of Mike’s Division info, Company info or any detailed information. It was not a coincidence at all. This person has been a very good friend to me, and has been able to support me through some tough times since she knows the more detailed happenings that our guys have gone through, such as the losses they have shared.
I have also corresponded with another reader whose husband had a very similar fracture to Mr. Hooah!’s and had just finished OCS. We joke that the two of them were probably hobbling past one another in the same hospital as they were recovering from their injuries. It would take pages for me to explain all of the uncanny parallels that this new found friend and I share. Similar backgrounds professionally, other similarities between our husbands, and much more. No doubt that she is, indeed, another blessing. I have a few other stories similar to those two that I could share, but there is another story that is too incredible to pass up.
When Mr. Hooah! joined the military there was a write up in our local paper. Someone who heard our story contacted someone she knew at the local paper. Originally there was to be a female reporter who would come to our house for the interview and she would write the story up. A day or two before the interview, she called to let me know that a gentleman from the paper would be coming out in her place. She reassured me that he would be the best reporter for the story since he had a lot more experience writing up military related stories. We were fine with that. Ultimately our goal was for the paper to tell our story in hopes that others who were interested in joining at an older age would realize they could do it! We also wanted the community to know what a good job our local recruiters do with new recruits.
The reporter and the recruiter showed up the morning of the interview. It all went well and the write up was nice. So, it sounds like that is the end of the story, right? Keep reading.
I joined the YMCA the very week that Bryan left for boot camp. I did this to help me deal with the stress of both guys’ deployments and to get myself back to a reasonable state of health. For a long time I didn’t “know” many of the other people who worked out at the Y, but there were many familiar faces — they were the regulars, like me, who come on a regular basis. Over time I started to get to know more people, and several of the moms from my MOPS group began surfacing too. Then one day I saw the reporter who interviewed us at the Y. When I saw him there it jogged my memory that the recruiter had called me and asked if I would be willing to talk with this reporter and his wife if they had any questions. He had decided to possibly pursue an OCS commission.
When I saw Cliff (the reporter) I asked him how he and his wife were doing and told him that if they ever wanted to talk with me they were welcome to call anytime. I didn’t realize then that they have two very sweet girls who had been playing with my Emma this whole time.
Fast forward to the broken hip insanity and Bryan coming home. One day we were at the Y together and we see Cliff. Bryan gives him our phone number and email address. Cliff mentions the next time we see him that he had talked with his wife, Kristen, and they wanted to know if we would like to come to supper one night. We accepted the invitation and had a very delightful night and we knew right away we had made some quality friends. Emma had such a wonderful time that she thanked Cliff and Kristen for the “wonderful party!” She now refers to their girls as “my pretty girls!” She adores them both.
Guess what? Cliff left for Ft. Benning last week, and he starts OCS soon. He is prior service as a Marine, and Kristen is here for now. She is doing a great job holding down the fort, planning those moves, selling the house, and watching all of the pieces of the puzzle graciously fall into place as her faith deepens. It’s a wonderful thing to witness, and they are a wonderful family to pray for.
It was no coincidence that Bryan joined when he did and that the first reporter could not keep her appointment with us. It is no coincidence that Kristen’s smile was already familiar to me, as I had seen it before at the Y, and Emma knew the girls. It was no coincidence that a reader of this blog wrote to me about her Stryker soldier and became a much needed friend — only for us to find out that our soldiers are friends too while in Iraq together. It’s no coincidence that I wrote a summation of our year at the same time that another Officer’s wife read my blog and heard that my husband and her husband had more in common than attend OCS at Benning. It is all too uncanny for me to accept as mere circumstances. Blessings are a much better word to describe them, for sure.
When you ponder the world it can be very overwhelming to contemplate its size and the number of people who inhabit it. The world seems infinitely huge. Within it is contained moments of finite familiarity when a stranger really does wind up being a long lost friend or relative, and when a scary and unfamiliar place suddenly feels like home.
Congratulations Cliff and Kristen! God speed to you both, and Hooah!
I don’t know why this song was on my mind the other day, other than for the sheer fact that I have been reading a lot of news lately. There are some days where I just shake my head and have to wonder where all of the current turmoil will land us all in the long run. We have law breaking anarchist shutting down military recruiting centers, vandalizing them, and thumbing their noses at the law, while the law makers sit back and watch (and in Berkeley the supposed law makers even participate in the chaos). It’s hard to not become discouraged. Today, we are going to a nice, quiet, relaxing spot to just enjoy one another and some great exhibits (animal and nature). After that, who knows? Naps may be required! I hope you all have a beautiful day!
Here’s the song that’s been running through my mind. It’s not a cheerful song, but a good sobering reminder of the importance of being mindful of those around us. If we want to look back with no regrets at the end of our lives, I am becoming more convinced as I age, that it’s essential to be less and less absorbed with self, and more absorbed with the needs of those around us.
“Greater love hath no man…”
Living Life Upside Down
lyrics by Russ Lee
John has a new way of looking at life
He’s tired of his job, his kids and his wife
He says the secret to his success
Was in leaving and finding himself
Now he’s someone to somebody else.
And you say we’ve risen to a new age of truth
You’re calling it a spiritual Godly pursuit
But I say, I say,
(chorus)
What if we’ve fallen to the bottom of a well
Thinking we’ve risen to the top of a mountain
What if we’re knocking at the gates of hell
Thinking we’re heaven bound
What if we spend our lives thinking of ourselves
When we should have been thinking of each other
What if we reach up and touch the ground
To find we’re living life upside down.
We’ve got a program for saving the earth
While unborn children are denied their right to birth
One baby’s blessed, another cursed
Have we made this world better or worse
Now that the life of a tree comes first
And you say we’ve risen to a new age of light
You’re telling me what used to be wrong is now right
But I say, I say,
What if we’re living, what if we’re living,
What if we’re living life upside down.
I start my morning out with prayer. I pray for my family and friends, and I always try and take a moment to be thankful for the very breath I am inhaling at the moment. It’s so peaceful to spiritually and physically rest in the assurance that the next breath — whether it is willed for me to have or not — rests solely in the hands of a merciful, sovereign, and loving God.
Slowly, I am realizing that every morning is the beginning of a day that is one minute closer to re-deployment. I know we still have a lot of time left. I also know that a lot can happen one moment from the next, but at this moment I can breath in deeply and let it out controlled. No tears. No pain. Just a hope and a longing to see my son’s face here, at home.
I borrowed the Disney movie “Pollyanna” from our Church’s library. As a young girl it was my favorite movie. I just loved the precocious and whimsical nature of the main character, as well as her infectiously cheerful disposition. I wanted Emma to see it, and at first she was not too interested… there are no princesses, no animation and no slap stick comedy. After the second time of putting it on the movie caught her eye, and now she seems to love it too.
The term “Pollyanna” has become the label of choice for a person who is a “do-gooder” or for one who tends to see the world through rose colored glasses. I have been accused, a time or two, of being a “Pollyanna” about things. I certainly have my cynical side and I am much more a stoic than the character ever was, but I do like to pick out the strengths in a situation or pick out what I can be grateful for.
If you have never seen the movie or read the book, Pollyanna teaches some pretty miserable people how to look at things through a different lens. One game she uses, and it is a game she learned from her father before he died, is a game called the “glad game.” When playing the glad game you have to look at something that makes you sad and then find one good thing about it that makes you glad. She shares a story about how badly she wanted a doll and her father (they were missionaries) had put in a request that the next missionary donation basket would have a small doll for his daughter. There was a mix up and Pollyanna did not get her doll, but for whatever reason there were crutches inside the shipment instead. When Pollyanna was asked “So, what’s there to be glad about? That’s terrible!” She cheerfully replied, “I am glad that I don’t have to use the crutches!”
There are always things in our path that are hard to navigate. Deployment, sickness, disease, strife, contention, and stresses are certainly some of the things that we have all faced — some of us have faced all of them, and some of us just one or two. Ultimately we are all on this path together. When I worked with “severely emotionally disturbed” kids I would do a strengths based assessment on the child and the support system around him or her. It was amazing to me what resources I could find if I could stop and focus on what was working well. It’s not a negation of the hard or difficult things, but rather it is like taking an inventory of what is working and how to use it to find your way through the calamity.
I used the movie Apollo 13 to illustrate this point when I would teach other social workers how to do a good strengths based assessment. I would forward to the part where the ship begins to have its serious troubles. Do you remember the movie? When the Astronauts radio down to Houston the guys on the ground begin to scramble for ways to fix the ship enough to bring it back home. At first they start talking about how to fix what was broken, but the main leader on the ground essentially tells them to stop thinking and dwelling on the dead parts of the ship. He then tells them to take an inventory of what is working and what we can use from it. Beautiful! You can’t build a working ship from the parts that are useless and not working — you build it from what you have that is useful and working. There are many days that I forget the very advice I used to teach to so many other social workers. Another childhood character comes to mind here. Remember who said “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”
So, if you want to play the glad game with me, please feel free. I for one am going to try and play it more often. So, I will list the sad thing, and then I will list what I am glad about:
Sad: My father is in the hospital with pneumonia.
Glad: I am glad that he is getting to rest and is being cared for.
Sad: I won’t hear from Mike again for a while.
Glad: I know that I can pray for his safety and his care.
Sad: Bryan’s leg still has a long way to go.
Glad: He is home and his Spirit is still strong.
Sad: I have a headache.
Glad: I am alive and well enough to feel it and to do something about it (grabbing the Advil as I type).
See, it’s not hard at all. What are sad about today? Is there anything in the sad thing to feel glad or grateful about?
Iron sharpens iron; So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. (Proverbs 27:17)
I am carefully walking a narrow beam that will take a lot of wisdom, patience, and love to navigate. It really is not so far off of the ground that an error would cause me to plummet to disaster, but it feels that way. I have no doubt that an error would at least be painful, and it could cause some bruising as well. The trick to walking this beam successfully is to use all of the resources you have at your disposal, and that includes ingenuity and compassion. You have to take a quick inventory to make sure you neither overestimate or underestimate your reserve.
As a wife I have a vital role in the encouragement of my husband. All wives hold this position whether they want to recognize it or not. I can no more deny my role as my husband’s helper and exhorter than I can deny my very ipseity. I really am, of course, an individual, but I am also one with my husband. I took vows as such, and I intend to live true to those vows to the best of my ability. I am facing an impasse right now that challenges me in every way possible to be a careful exhorter. Basically, now is not the time for careless words or careless actions. It’s not like there is ever a great time for carelessness, but there are certainly times when it has the potential to wreak less havoc than others. Times when you are dealing with a bruised spirit are times that call for very careful words and expressions.
I have mentioned in update posts that Mr. Hooah! and I are both finally integrating this whole experience and the dust from it all is beginning to settle. At this particular point in most life-upheavals the dust can be a very nice smoke screen or cloud that blocks you from seeing the harder realities set before you. I think it is akin to the shock and disbelief you go through when you are grieving deeply. I wouldn’t say we are grieving deeply, but we are finally assimilating all of this new information into our knowledge base. We are having to look at the hopes and compare them to the backdrop of the realities. Sometimes the two do not match up — this is something the dust was able to hide for a while.
We are not giving up, but my husband is in a conundrum. He simply would never consider, for a moment, pushing us to the brink of financial ruin and disaster, and he is feeling the crunch now to the degree of feeling trapped between a rock and a hard space. He has never been one to float through things. He feels the need to be established vocationally somewhere — the Army would be his choice, but we don’t know if and/or when that will work out. What’s a wife to do? I am in the position to either be a serious thorn of discouragement to him, or to be used like a healing balm. I also have the double edged reality that I want to apply healing balm to everything, whether it’s good for the wound or not.
My husband is tough and strong. He is a lot like iron. I don’t think that a lot of people know that about him because he is not one to put on a show of false bravado. I am pretty strong, and I probably do come across as tougher than I really am because I do depend on bravado at times as a means to encourage or bolster my own confidence. I guess we are probably very good for one another in that regard.
My difficult position is trying to figure out how to encourage and incite a tired and bruised up spirit to the point of once again believing that it’s not too late. If I over play my comfort card then I run the risk of being patronizing, and patronization is the last thing a wounded soldier needs. If I over play in the opposite direction then I err on the side of impertinence. It’s not that it’s a “lose-lose” situation, but rather it’s a delicate operation. If done correctly and well the outcome is wonderful, but if it is done with neglect then the outcome is disastrous.
While it’s true that iron sharpens iron it is also true that brittle iron can shatter if it is hit too hard or too often. I have to explore how I can continue to sharpen the countenance of my friend, and know when and how to offer that strong and tough resolve — as well as possess the wisdom to know when the healing balm is more appropriate for the wound. Do I get tough and push him to prepare himself for more risks, or is part of being an instrument for sharpening a countenance include patiently watching the struggle while the elements surrounding us do the actual sharpening? It feels a lot like the letting go I have had to work so diligently at since Mike left for Iraq more than 8 months ago.
This is the beam on which I am standing. Whichever way it goes I will walk away a more seasoned and wiser inciter of determination. Not because of what I do or don’t do, but rather because I can witness my own limitations while watching God unfurl the plan set before us.