Making Sense of It All

"I thought I was going to die."  Have you ever heard someone say that?  Most of the time I hear someone use that phrase, it refers to "die laughing" or "die of embarrassment" or "die of boredom."  People use the phrase as a figure of speech.  Well, there were a few times in 2005 where my mind was convinced 100% that I was going to die.  Unfortunately, I mean this in the literal sense.  However, that thought did not occur at times that may seem obvious based on movies or TV shows.  When IEDs, grenades, or RPGs were exploding around us, "I'm going to die" never crossed my mind because I was too busy reacting and taking action...there was no thinking.  The true fear and dread and fatalistic thoughts occurred minutes before the next mission.  Even worse, I know for a fact that my Soldiers felt the same way.  The fear was so thick that it felt like death was riding in the truck with us.  I still remember when one of my Soldiers said, "maybe we should say a prayer," before one of our patrols.  He was not a religious person to say the least...he was quite the opposite in fact.  This alone displayed his apprehension at the time.  We all felt like it would be our last mission because the previous one was just too close and there was no way that the insurgents could get that close without killing us the next time.  It was a very heavy feeling that made me want to throw up.  As a leader, this is when you will do anything you can to lighten the mood and literally laugh at death by saying things like "If you're the one that doesn't come back, can I have your DVD collection?"  or "Quit your whining, at least you'll die in a clean uniform!"  God bless the resiliency of Soldiers!  In the movie, Band of Brothers, 1LT Ronald Spiers tells PVT Blythe, "The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse.  All war depends upon it."  I understand this quote more than I would like to.  In order to get rid of the fear, you need to accept that you might die and come to terms with it, then you can move on and execute the mission. 


So what is the point of all this?  Why did I write about the events in my past three blog posts?  It's actually very simple.  I am still here because it was in God's plan.  Losing all the baggage from the deployment took a couple years, but it was God who gave me strength to get through all of it.  He also gave me an amazing wife and three beautiful children to constantly remind me of his plan.  I know he has been watching over me and even if I die tomorrow, my only worries would be for those left behind that I will meet again someday.  If you doubt that it was God who was beside me, then all I can say is that I know how my life was before I embraced Jesus Christ and I know how it is now that I have accepted him as my Lord and Savior.  There is no way I would ever want to go back to a life without him.  
  
So what about those who did not make it back on that deployment?  I think about them every day.  The Bible says "The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." (Isaiah 57:1-2)  We may not know God's plan or how we fit into it, but that doesn't really matter as long as we know HIM.  Now when I think of the past turmoil, it only increases my faith in God because I know that he is not done with me yet.  I couldn't think of a happier ending to all these stressful stories.