You Don't Say

The reputation of the Army is on display everyday.  Sometimes bad Soldiers wind up in the spotlight.

http://www.army.mil/article/159082/Online_misconduct_hurts_fellow_Soldiers__Army__NCOs_tell_Dailey/

I Have to Make Public This Failure

This is our little goat Rocket, who was allowed out of her pen to graze peacefully in the grass at the ranch one summer day.  Instead, she chose to climb the stairs to the porch, climb on one of the outdoor tables at the back of the house and gaze through the kitchen window to poke her nose into the business going on in the kitchen.  I guess she felt a compulsion to leave the pleasure of grazing, because of what was going on in the hot kitchen that day.

I too am aware of something going on, and I can't keep my nose out of it either, I am tired of such goings on.  I am tired of empty promises to those who serve and their families.  It is my belief that every promise made to Soldiers and their families should be honored, and honored in a timely way.  On that note I am publishing an email I sent to a Family Advocacy Office somewhere out there, and purposely protecting the names of the innocent, and reluctantly hiding the names of the guilty.

Dear Ms. Somebody:

I'll get right to the point.  Why do the two boys of MAJ XXXX not have an appointed military attorney to represent their rights?  Forgive me, I know how correspondence should be written to your office, and that this email and my previous emails have certainly not been diplomatic nor professional prose. In fact they aren't even polite, but I am old, tired, and quite disillusioned. The welfare of my friend, YYYYY, and her two little boys is not my paid, professional employment responsibility.  I resent having to spend hours taking care of business that is the responsibility of your office.  Therefore I reserve the right to speak frankly, and hope and pray my mother, who raised me better, never sees this correspondence.

Have you made contact, significant personal contact, with YYYYY in order to reimburse her for all the times she had to arrange sitters for her children, and rent a car to travel to meet with the MPs or CID?  Her financial needs are significant.  She lost her job due to her inability to function as she always had before meeting MAJ XXXX in her professional position.  Her soon to be ex-husband demanded the car she was using for transportation for herself and the boys.  Otherwise, he was willing to let her have the car in exchange for dropping all claims for back alimony and child support, plus complete ownership of their two homes, and all the furniture they have accumulated since their eight year marriage began.

Have you offered to help her through the paperwork with the IG to hold this employee of the United State Army responsible for the needs of his family?  Since I am privileged to know as life long friends enumerable honorable Soldiers and their families, I refuse to acknowledge him as a Soldier.  He is daily dishonoring the reputation of the United States Army.  Have you asked why XXXX is being afforded base housing, but he refuses to let his wife and children live in, or even visit the home he and  Ms. YYYYY jointly own.  Have you counseled her concerning all the legal ins and outs of her having to pay for the boys and her a home to live in, in the absence of XXXX adequately making provision for his wife and children?

Are you aware of the latest developments concerning those children still being alone with this obvious maniac.  They are seven and four years old, and defenseless before what I believe to be a monster.  (I have a long background with Child Protective Services, for 12 years I raised on 35 foster children, and I have seen the life long effects that men like XXXX have on their children.  I think XXXX himself is a poster child exemplifying those life long effects of an abusive childhood.)  Have you been made aware of the accusations against XXXX concerning inappropriate touching of AAA and BBB during their bi-weekly weekend visitations?  I have observed the classic signs of their abuse on many occasions.  I was a nurse for many years as well, and my professional training in that field gives me a certain amount of knowledge.  That coupled with my first hand experience with foster children, and the required 50 contact hours each year of training in child abuse for the 12 years I served as a foster parent, gives me some expertise in this area.

Have you picked up a phone and called to ask if there is anything you can do for YYYYY or her boys?   Have you availed yourself of the most current information concerning this case? 

I have ridden in a rental car with YYYYY driving lost on German highways until 0200, after CID kept her at an interview until 2100.  We had to drive to two different residences to pick up her two boys, gas the car, stop to get take out, because neither of us had eaten since breakfast and leaving for the CID appointment at 1000 that morning.  We nearly died many times before we reached my home, where we all could rest.  I sang, rubbed her neck, and did everything I could to keep her awake as she repeatedly fell asleep at the wheel.  I have yet to see any relief for YYYYY or the boys since that grueling ordeal.  In my opinion, not one single thing has changed.  Not one single bit of protection has truly been afforded for YYYYY and the boys.  XXXX continues just as he has, telling YYYYY she cannot go into her own house, threatening her about visitation, visitation where he sexually molests two little boys, drinks himself into a stupor, and feeds them junk food and allows a four year old to watch "killer zombie" movies at 2300, telling his seven year old son who is protesting this activity for his brother, "This is my house, and my rules, and BBB can watch whatever I say he can watch."  When BBB wakes up in terror every night thereafter, where is XXXX's accountability?  It is non-existent as far as the United States Army is concerned.

Still when XXXX returned the children to YYYYY on last Sunday night, he pulled out a video camera and began filming her.  He has threatened her with a tazer and billy club in front of her children and a very credible German citizen, apparently without any trepidation.  There are so many other acts of instability I could once again go over, but this delight in torturing YYYYY in this manner, this act of preserving for later consumption, her fear, sends cold chills down my spine more than any other of his activities.  I have had enough psychology classes to know that this man is seriously imbalanced, and he has no fear of the United States Army.  The United States Army had better wake up to the threat that smolders in this man before something tragic happens. 

I am going to forward emails to you, and everyone else I believe needs to be copied, which convey to me the continued suffering of this gentle woman and her two children at the hands of XXXX.  I would like to know as a tax paying American citizen, who has born the burdens of a military family in service for the last 13 years, what you are going to do about the above mentioned instances of behavior unbecoming an officer, which constitute clear evidence of a threat toward this military spouse and her children?  Not only is XXXX and those two boys due an answer.  So am I.  I don't have much to do right now but write to you folks, because once again the skills and integrity of my husband are required in Baghdad, Iraq, so I am home alone.  As you know, he no longer serves in the military, but the debt the country owes to me and every family member of an American military family who has sacrificed during the last 13 years, is still outstanding.  Therefore I am requesting, as tactfully as I am at the moment capable of, that you do your job.

I have a quote to that effect.  "The US Army Family Advocacy Program is dedicated to the prevention, education, prompt reporting, investigation, intervention and treatment of spouse and child abuse."  United States Army

YYYYY has made an outcry on three separate military installations to the Family Advocacy Office.  Her very real suffering still continues...

Please pass this correspondence on to the hot shot at CID, and ask him the status of Ms. YYYYY possessions still being held in Kansas.  He will know what I am talking about.  One last quote...

Never before in the history of our Army have we asked so much of our Families. They are serving side-by-side with our Soldiers, enduring their hardships and providing the unconditional love and support that truly make our Army strong. The Army Family Covenant pledges our commitment to support Soldiers and their Families and resource programs to provide them a quality of life commensurate with their service.

- Former Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George W. Casey

Sir, I regret to inform you... your Army Family Covenant is little more than a bureaucratic band-aide for a huge hemorrhaging wound in this particular case... and many, many, more cases.
 

Sincerely,

Debra LeCompte

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter”  John Steinbeck

He stood in the middle of the street, completely immobile, unable for some time to move.  There he struggled to suppress the words from his consciousness that he had just heard from his mother’s mouth.  Whatever small trespass he had committed was a lost thought.   Her words were so cruel, that for the rest of his life he would never recall what he had done that day, or any detail concerning the incident, only her words.   Those words she had shouted would sometimes threaten at the edges of his mind at the most unexpected times, usually when he was relaxing, and especially when he observed young families of soldiers.  He had been innocently playing some childhood game, being the child he was, and so seldom allowed to be.  She had come running from the house in a rage over something he had done or not done, and at the end of her chastisement, she wounded his child’s heart with a wound that would never quite heal.

Now For the Second Half of the Introduction to My Book

"I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible." John Steinbeck,  East of Eden. 

Her husband had achieved the rank of colonel when he was selected to command the 2nd Brigade.  His being educated at West Point, and the Army War College, was not the only reason she had known she would always be second place in his life when she had married him, just a few months before.  It was not only that his formal education had been in these bastions of military tradition and the teaching of the art and science of war.  It was his childhood, or rather, lack of childhood and parenting, that fostered his love and loyalty to the Army.  Where his biological parents had failed in every way to meet the needs of his childhood, he found stability and structure in the Army.  Beginning with first The Boy Scouts, and then JROTC in high school, he had found strong men of deep character to mentor him, and had developed direction for his life.  


The appointment to The Academy had offered him the chance of a destiny beyond the emotional and physical deficiencies and need he had known growing up in Louisiana.  Even more than that, his education had provided him with identity and purpose in his life.  He owed, in his mind, the United States Army in the way that a son owed his parents.   As he served, he had found in the Army the only security and reliability that did not fail him as two previous marriages, along with the neglected and abused childhood had.  Today, that relationship had revealed itself as fallible as all the others of his life had been, and a wound much like that of seeing for the first time weakness in a beloved parent, struck him.  However, being the man he was, the shell shock of the day’s events would only last momentarily.  The survival techniques, he had first learned as he hid in the closet of the war zone of his childhood home, and which the Army had hewn to professional levels, would rise up in him and in his mind a defense plan would be formulated.


That would not happen in the car as they drove to the hotel, because being the man of honor and dedication he was, his first reaction was to ruthlessly self examine.   He assumed his superior to be the leader that a two star general  should be, and he would continue for several months, to steadfastly believe him to be.  As he detailed to his wife the hour and a half long tirade leveled at him by MG Tim Harold, her mind turned over each sentence as he spoke it.  At first, she assumed that her husband’s take on the whole dressing down, had to be correct, because he was the one with twenty five years of dedicated service.  After he had continued to relate that he had obviously failed horribly in leadership for several minutes, as revealed by the general’s words, her mind began whispering, “wait a minute here.”   This made no sense to her, she thought, “I was at every Battle Assembly for the last year, I know the atmosphere, and I know from the Soldiers themselves, too much of their very positive thoughts.”  


While her FRG office was far down the hall, and she seldom had time to leave
t, Soldiers often drifted in and out on business, or just to chat.  The unit had not experienced an individual dedicated to this volunteer position, which she had assumed, and they seemed sincerely to appreciate her efforts.  The position had proved full of duties that required not only every hour of the Battle Assembly weekends, but several additional hours every week.  Still even at the far end of the hall, absorbed in her own work, she had developed a strong sense of the “command climate” of the unit.  


Their relationship had developed rapidly.  He had found in her a truly listening ear, and his basic trusting nature, which had left him vulnerable so many times in life, had at last found a citadel for his most guarded and tightly held thoughts.  He had spent many hours in their expression to her.  Beyond that, she had the benefit of the “pillow talk” of the man she so admired.  His personal concern for each member of his unit, and for Soldiers serving everywhere, were often his last words of the evening to her before those three that she held sweetest, as he drifted into the deep sleep of one possessed of a guiltless conscious.
 

At times, it was hard for her to know in her mind whether she loved him more, or admired him more.  Certainly, as she listened, it became more and more obvious that something about this entire incident was not quite right.  Also, events of the previous few months began to knit themselves together in the background of her sub-conscious.  She stopped him mid-sentence and told him so, and his eyes, which she had always found to appear so deeply searching when he looked at her, moved quickly back and forth.  As he intently stared at her, she knew his mind searched hers for the hope of validity in her assertion.   In this action, she found yet again deep admiration for this confident, highly intelligent, and accomplished man, who so faithfully served, that he would consider that the allegations leveled at him might contain merit.  As admiration swept over her, in equal measure love surged in her heart, and the two emotions struggled for their balanced places in her mind.  Perhaps she did admire him even more than she loved him, her heart answered quickly; she loved him more.

West Point... Hellloooo, Are You There?

Every once in a while, I write to West Point, never hear back from them... but I keep writing...  West Point is where the ethics of the Army is held accountable.  West Point is where committees of general officers meet and talk about the state of ethics in the Army.  Notice I said talk about the state of ethics in the Army.  I don't think they are doing a good job, those committees aren't the least bit concerned with my opinion of course, but that won't stop me from expressing my opinion.  I've decided to make my letters public from here on out.
 

To Whom it May Concern, and I Certainly Do Hope it Sincerely Concerns Someone,

My name is Debra LeCompte, and my husband is COL (RET) Randy LeCompte, an honor graduate of West Point, (top five percent of the class of 1981.)  My husband would love to attend his 31st reunion this year, but is currently serving with the State Department in Iraq in the civilian sector.  My father and grand-father were Soldiers as well, my daughter was a Soldier, and she is now serving in the civilian sector in Germany where she lives with our two grand-daughters as her husband serves in Afghanistan.  Our other son-in-law was blown off a recon vehicle in 2003 in Iraq, and can no longer serve, but he would give everything in him to do so.

My family, especially my husband, has been recipients of the all that is good in the Army.  We are better as a family because of the Army, as my husband says, "the Army gives one skills, identity, and purposeful living."  We have all also been the recipients of very bad things from the Army because of the problem of ethics in the Army.  The Academy is not achieving it's goals of teaching ethics.  The Army is not, because of the incestuous relationships involved in its' "self-policing," truly promoting ethics.  I don't think anyone who reads this, (if anyone does,) can with any honesty argue that point.

We had a young intern from West Point in our home for dinner while my husband was still employed with BAE Systems, as was our custom with each of the interns who spent part of their summer in the Sealy, Texas plant.  My husband being the man he is, posed the question, "So, which of the Army Values do you think is the most important?"  For a couple of minutes the young man could not answer, he couldn't remember any of the seven values, then he at first said, "leadership."  My husband reminded him that was an  acronym used in another set of characteristics promoted by the Army.   Finally the young man said loyalty.  That is a frequent answer among Soldiers.  Both my husband and I disagree with this answer every time we hear it , for so many times a Soldier means by that response loyalty to his unit or to a commander.  There are times, more frequently than I would like to acknowledge, when that is not the honorable or right thing to do.  In order for loyalty to be worthy of first mention, it should be loyalty to honor and doing the right thing.  Too many times loyalty in the Army is affected by who does your OER, honor never is.

When a firstie can't tell a retired colonel who earned a Bronze Star in Afghanistan what the Seven Army Values are.... your ethics training is a monumental failure in my opinion.  That is without mentioning the First Sergeant with 19 years in, who by all reports was an outstanding mentor and man of honor, who was sleeping on the floor of a Garland, Texas jail, all because he came up against corrupt command.  I can't mention every miscarriage of honor that I have knowledge of, there are too many innocent people involved.  My great sorrow is I am but a grain of sand in the scheme of the Army Family, but I know of dozens of atrocities.  It is like rats, for every instance of lack of honor that I know of, there are a hundred I am not aware of.  Even though I know of the rats, like my husband, I love the Army, the real Army, the one that belongs to the hearts of those who nobly serve, and I will fight for the honor, integrity, and reputation of that Band of Brothers, (and Sisters,) until the day I die.  I believe there is an answer to this breakdown in ethics.

The answer West Point is ACCOUNTABILITY.  That accountability should begin with generals, not cadets.  Every time self serving corruption prevails, those who would serve with integrity are driven away.  Who, of any character,  wants to associate with lack of integrity?  Who wants to risk their own career and reputation to those lacking integrity?  Just as those who would serve with honor are driven away, those lacking in it are reinforced in behavior which is dishonorable.  They receive the message you have to "go along to get along."  No matter who you are, what your rank, the answer is ACCOUNTABILITY.  It only exists when those controlling the "self policing" are possessed of honor.  As the guardians of the honor of the United States Army those meetings where accountability by individuals is weighed and measured in the balance must be populated by men and women of honor and the COURAGE to execute The Code of Military Justice.  Surely, you can scrape together enough general officers with moral courage to fill the positions on those committees?

West Point, you are accountable for a firstie who doesn't know The Seven Army Values as he enters his senior year.  A web site about honor and integrity won't do it, all the training, classes, and instruction in the world, won't do it, only accountability without bias, favor, or self serving will forge a force where honor and integrity are the norm, not the exception.  When every Soldier believes and knows that lack of honor will not be tolerated under any circumstances, when they know power mongering will be met with swift and sure justice, and lying is unacceptable and will result in dire consequences, will honor and integrity, and a force devoted to The Seven Army Values prevail.

I have been very plain spoken, and in the past it has not done me a bit of good.  Well, there was the commander of the First Sergeant sleeping on the jail floor who was relieved of command, but please understand, I speak plainly because of my devotion to, and respect of all those who live "uncommon lives."  Their families as well depend upon the honor of leadership.  I wish the Academy, The Army, and every Soldier serving only the  best.  It is owed to them.

With Respect and Sincerity,

Debra LeCompte

Some Men Live Above the Common Man

"Courage is contagious,

When a brave man takes a stand, the 
spines of others are often stiffened."

Reverend Billy Graham

Fighting Depression and Other Demons

My husband has been "in-country"  for three weeks now, but I still haven't gotten to see him.  Leaving the Army after 30 years of service is even more complicated a process than entering the Army it seems.  I can't leave the responsibilities of the ranch to go to Georgia to be with him, and it feels as though I've never needed him more.  There are so many challenges, I couldn't hope to name them all, when a loved one is deployed.  You have to experience it to fully appreciate what it means to a family.   Just being without my husband has been the greatest struggle of my life, and been the background for each day I have lived in his absence.  Currently the greatest challenge is health issues, the exact nature of which has yet to be determined, they are looming and awaiting tests for an exact diagnosis.  I find myself  after two years of my husband being deployed, at the end of my personal resources, and the one in need.  I am not used to the role of being the one in need, in life my role has always been the one of ministering  to others.  As in most reversals of roles that people go through, it is disconcerting, at the least, and in moments when just a "mite" of  additional stress is added, completely overwhelming.  I feel as though I am on the very edge of a deep cavern at times.  I told my husband I know what Soldiers who experience PTSD feel like inside sometimes, even though I have never been to war.  Holding within mself the fear of the one I love more than life itself being wounded or dying in a war zone, has been for me the most difficult place I have ever been, and I have been some tough places.

Watching the show Army Wives last night, (I have only lately began watching the show,) I thought how good it was for the country to have the opportunity to see just a pale glimpse of what service to this country really entails.  Far more revealing is the show on the same channel, "Coming Home."  Real families and service members share their home comings as their loved ones return from long absences to foreign countries.  They have selflessly been standing against those persons who have determined to destroy the way of life that our own country, and many others countries and peoples of the world wish to live in.   These individuals explicitly do not believe in the right to personal freedom for any person.  

As freedoms have come to the two countries where the fight has been concentrated, and so much has been given, people in the surrounding countries have seen the possibility that they too can have the way of life these men and women who are serving represent.  As the Middle East comes alive with the cries of people demanding the personal freedom and opportunity to shape their own destiny, more of our sons and daughters will be called, and the call will be answered.  

Training, information, and resources will be given to both the individual volunteering to serve our country, and to those family members, who in wisdom, will tap what the Army or other branch of service will offer them as well.  Then these families will begin a journey, or as it may be, many journeys down the road of deployment.  In volunteering, and pledging to give up their lives, if that is the cost, the price of freedom will continue to extracted from those serving, and those who love them, for freedom continues to demand this cost.  The rest of the citizens of this country, and many citizens of other countries, will reap the benefits of the sacrifices of those who in the greatest act of valor and honor an individual can perform, pledge their lives to serve in the United States Military.  To those fools who believe that every enemy can be tamed by diplomacy, fairness, aide, and such, I make no argument.  Any person who looks at humankind and believes that anything short of God's return will end conflict requiring this kind of sacrifice, does not possess the intelligence or reasoning to process reality.  However,  the protection of their right to protest  military engagement of the enemies of our country, will continue to be protected by those who serve.   Families, for that is where every person who serves comes from, will continue to endure and in some cases, even be empowered by the sacrifices required of them.  Other families will dissolve under the weight of service.  

Just as Soldiers come from families, when their service is done, they will return to families.  Some will come home with no apparent physical changes to their bodies, and some of those will later develop debilitating illness, having suffered exposure to a toxin somewhere in service to our country.   Some will come home changed by wounds that eventually will heal physically without changing the course of their lives.  Of course some will come home having suffered wounds that  forever change them  physically and they will have to rebuild their lives.  Some will come home in coffins, having given their last true measure of devotion.  None will come home without being profoundly changed forever within their hearts and minds by "the rockets red glare, and the bombs bursting in air."  Some will be haunted and oppressed by experiences and loses too extensive for expression by any human language.  

I feel a personal obligation to each service member, and to their families, and I will spend the rest of my life endeavoring to repay my obligation.  Both my husband and I have made the commitment to use our own blessings and personal resources to support all those we can, in any way we can, in the light of the knowledge that only as brave men and women continue to serve, will our nation and those values which we hold sacred continue to stand.     

There is now within me a clear distinction which was not there at the beginning of my own period of sacrifice.  I have come to the knowledge that within the numbers of those who serve, there are as one would expect within any given number of people, those without honor.  There are those who serve purely for personal gain.  Since military service does not by comparison to civilian service, pay as well, or offer as much opportunity, those who serve for their own gain have a single identifying characteristic, they desire power.  As I watch men and women serve, there is a far greater fear than what the enemy can do to a Soldier for me.  I have personally observed, and been affected by, individuals within the ranks who blatantly disregard the rules governing military service.  Recently I have personally observed members of the units within the Army whose job it is to "police" the following of the rules, bend, and in some cases, break the rules themselves.  Nothing should be more troubling to those serving, and to the rest of us.  We must be able to trust in the integrity of the system.  It is time that the hiding of facts, the turning of the blind eye, and any other breaking of the rules be abandoned. 

There has been a long standing excuse by leadership that some things be covered in order to avoid tarnishing the image of the military.  I see through that completely.  Never is it in the best interest of the Army, or any other branch of service, to hide wrong doing.  It only creates an atmosphere of mistrust, enables wrong doing, and makes a joke of the pledges of honor made by those willing to serve.   It also creates a threat which is far greater than that of the enemy, against those who serve.  As the wife of a Soldier, I cannot understand lack of  response by the highest levels of authority when anyone makes accusation of wrong doing.  There should be a rush to investigate all reports which constitute abuse of power by those in charge.  The investigation should only be carried out by impartial and honorable men and women, I am not certain at this point that the Army should continue to administer it's own justice.

The Army spends huge amounts in researching what problems exist within the system, spends more coming up with plans, programs, rules and regulations to guard against "fraud, waste, and abuse."  All of those endeavors are only as legitimate as those administering them.  The system by which the Army investigates wrong doing is flawed.  An IG investigation is, and I am quoting the Army, "a tool of the commander."  What if the commander is the problem?

Not only is that piece of the process flawed, false accusations can be made either up or down a chain of command, without accountability by those making false statements.   Once accusations are made, there are  no time constraints for investigation or resolution.  I have personally observed, and in some cases, still hold the written evidence of disregard of UCMJ law.   It is completely deliberate and schemed disregard of those laws governing the military, and wrong doers are protected, and the innocent abused.  That disregard renders UCMJ worthless.

In the head quarters of the 95th Division of  the United States Army Reserves, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, an individual so corrupt and powerful that he could, kept a wall populated with pictures of individuals whose careers he bragged of destroying.  I am not the only person with knowledge of this, many know, it was done publicly.  While my husband was deployed I asked myself almost daily, why is it that this can happen?  Why are there numerous good persons, who detest the fact that this exists, knowledgeable concerning this, and possessed of moral courage to stand against it, and yet it prevails?  I have come to discover I can write this, post it publicly, and not worry about any consequences, or ever having anyone ask a single question concerning why the wife of colonel, with 30 years of service, who is an honor graduate of West Point and the Army War College, would dare to make such an accusation.  During my husband's deployment, my greatest fear and anxiety was the enemy within.  I am going to keep revealing things I know in an effort to affect change.  If military service to this country is going to continue requiring our sons and daughters, I believe all those in charge of even one Soldier, all those with the power to effect a single life, should be held accountable for every action.  Additionally, the higher the rank of the person, who allowed on their watch, the disregard of justice and rule, the more expedient should be their removal.  I believe the existing law governing agencies, and their leadership, should be closely examined for abuse of power and other inconsistencies.  


There are so many other pursuits I would rather engage in.  Every person is possessed of only a limited amount of energy and resources with which to meet each day.  I talk to so many who know of abuses, and it is such a huge and powerful avenue, with so many on it, that sometimes the oppressed never consider taking up the cry for justice.  That is a shame, but in order to facilitate sleeping at night, as my husband returns from deployment and retires after 30 years, I cannot take the more beckoning and peaceful road.  I long to.  Nevertheless,  war and battle weary, I will take up my own weapons once again, and continue to do all I can concerning wrong doing.  Every family who gives their sons and daughters should be able to expect this from someone, and if I am the only one to speak out against this, I will be one. 

I Have Set My Face Like A Flint

I am writing a novel, I wanted to share the introduction here, and perhaps the first chapter.  This is the first half of the introduction.  The book is loosely based on a collection of experiences and stories I have heard from Soldiers over the years.  Being based in actual experiences, the book writes itself, I just change details, names, and of course, strive to protect the innocent... for the guilty I have no compassion...
 Isaiah 50: 4-7
"The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair:  I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." 

 

 I Have Set My Face Like A Flint

Introduction

As soon as the doors of the car shut in the parking lot, she asked how it had gone.  He answered first with complete silence, then a quiet, “wait until we are out of the parking lot.”  Instantly she knew it had not gone well.  As they pulled out, she searched his face for clues, but waited for him to speak when he was ready.  Far too much was revealed in his face, and the level of his anguish was palpable in the car.  Her mind raced, she longed to break the silence and ask, “How could it have gone badly?”  Instead, she held her breath waiting for him to speak.  When he finally did, his usually quiet and confident voice was even more quiet, and shaking with emotion and pain.

The trouble for her new husband, Colonel Douglas Cutler, had actually began a few months before when the Army had announced that due to “The Transformation,” the 2nd Brigade would be moving from the 78th Division of the Army Reserves to the 36th ARRTC.   The Transformation was the process of reorganization and base closures that the Department of Defense had determined was necessary in order to change the Army into a new leaner and meaner organization, and save the country’s taxpayers billions every year in doing so.  The 2nd Brigade, which her husband commanded, and where she served as the unit’s Family Readiness Group leader, trained drill sergeants in the fine art of being drill sergeants.  The Soldiers under Colonel Cutler’s command tended to be the “best of the best.”  Their job was the training of men, and a few women, to be those who took the Army’s raw recruits and turned them into dedicated and loyal Soldiers, who were highly disciplined, in the best physical condition they would know in their lifetimes, and confident to the point for some, of being completely without fear.  The Army would then assign them specialties and populate their ranks with this fresh set of America’s sons and daughters who were ready to stand the wall in defense of all national security threats, and when necessary, to wage war.  For four years now, it had been necessary to wage war. 

The term “OPTEMPO” had become familiar to her, and a part of her everyday work as the FRG leader.  Her lifelong respect for all those serving in the country’s military had grown past even what she had learned in childhood.  From her own father’s service in the National Guard as she was growing up, she gained the impression of all things military being honorable.  Her father had first entered the Army when he was seventeen years old.  Somehow, he had convinced his mother to lie about his birth date, giving him the few months he lacked being eighteen years old and of legal age to join the military.  She had to write a letter saying his birth certificate had burned in a house fire, and being the time it was, few hand written records of such things existed anyway.  She probably would not have done it if the prospects of having food enough to feed him were even a glimmer on the horizon.  Already she had cut the toes out of his shoes to allow for his still growing feet.  Where or when new shoes could be had wasn’t even something she thought of, there were so many more pressing matters.  

 
There were the stories of her father's active duty service and how it had been, for him the opportunity to leave the abject destitution of his childhood growing up during The Great Depression.  Serving under a West Point graduate he identified as Major James, her father told of coming for the first time to understand successful living as he was led under this young soldier’s command.  From that experience, he had gained the rights to certain benefits, including the obtaining of a GED at the government’s expense, and then training to become an electrician.  The work ethic that was his through his instinctive survival of poverty, hunger, and need, had coupled with the positive attitude and ethics developed by Major James, and fueled her father’s success in life.  His life was also anchored solidly in a deep and personal faith in God.   His principled life had enabled her childhood to be sheltered, safe, and full of happiness, which developed in her a naivety few still possessed at her age.  The honor, integrity, and loyalty, taught as the basic principles of the Army to all young recruits, was internalized by her father, and now at 79, these traits burned as strongly as they ever had.  In his lifetime, he had never slipped an inch from duty, honor, and country.  
 
This parenting had been one of the things that first drew her to the Colonel.  She saw in him the living embodiment of the legendary “Major James.”  He too, was a West Point graduate, possessed of deep beliefs in self-less service, all that was honorable, and he endeavored to live as closely as possible his sacred “Seven Army Values.”  His own childhood had created in him a drive for excellence in all he did, and he left West Point as an honor graduate in the top fifth of his class.  Later, as he attended The Army War College, they were already acquainted, and by the time he graduated, again with honors, they were in a relationship.  Oddly, despite his own bleak childhood growing up in privation and a physically and emotionally abusive family, he too, was possessed by naivety in certain areas of reasoning.  To her developing wonder at this fact, he was even more naive than her concerning people.  Over the next several months she would watch the heartbreak he experienced as those he had looked to with such admiration for leadership revealed  feet of clay and dishonor within their lives he could never have conceived of.