Soldier's Babies Are Special

Christmas time is about the birth of a baby, which is always a cause for celebration, and this morning it brings to my mind one of the sacrifices that has been made time and again during the last twelve years.  In young military families there are times of deployment when an expected child is born in the absence of the father, who is in service at a duty station where his family cannot accompany him.  A couple of years or so back, a fellow blogger sent me a message that a "special" Soldier was coming home and would be seeing his new baby for the first time.  I am repeating that blog post, because it is about a baby... and it is about sacrifice, that is what Christmas is all about.

The pictures of children and babies for this post are the children of Jared and Heather Campbell, both of whom have served proudly.

Aunty Brat, my good friend and fellow supporter of the American and Coalition Forces sent me a note about a Soldier coming home on leave to see for the first time a new baby girl, born while he was deployed.  It brought such beautiful images to my mind immediately, and when I went to Aunty's blog and saw her picture... my heart just melted at her sweet little self.

http://assolutatranquillita.blogspot.com/2011/05/every-day-hero-welcome-home.html

To her parents and all her family, thanks for making my day, and thank you all for your service and sacrifice!  We are a grateful nation!

This is what I sent to the new baby and all those who love her.  May she thrive in your love, always live in liberty, and come to know of your sacrifices to the preservation of freedom.

You know, if Aunty Brat says you are a special Soldier... you must indeed be a special Solider. It is always difficult for me to put into words how I feel about Soldiers and their families. When I try to open a ketchup package, and it is difficult for me, the thought never fails to cross my mind, no matter how much I love my country, if it had to depend on me for for some of the most important of the protection needed from it's enemies, we women would all be wearing burqas (spelling ?) We must have young men and women of the caliber and skills which you possess, or our heritage of freedom will disappear.... As the sign on my gate says, "Land of the free, because of the brave."

Since my husband went to war, poetry concerning this great conflict has haunted me until I express it. Your homecoming to your new daughter caused beautiful images in my mind. I wrote words that I hope will comfort and empower your family as you serve. So here is my gift to the new baby:

 I Came Home to My Daughter

There she lay, so warm, pink, soft, and sweet.

When first we finally did meet.

I saw so much of her mother there in her eyes,

The stamp of my own features on her countenance threatened to make me cry.

Wonder at the first sight of my darling daughter,

Swept my soul, and I knew my life she would forever alter.

Feelings too tender for the battlefield,

In that moment caused all my vigilance briefly to yield.

Then I realized more clearly than ever before,

I was called to war because of an evil good people everywhere deplore.

My newborn child and all the children of the world,

Need those of us in service, the flag of liberty to unfurl.

In my daughter’s face I saw the hope of our world and our nation,

Waiting for her contributions, which true peace will hasten.

I knew that in a land far away, where long I had stood the wall,

Children were seeing first hand our intent in the service of us all.

As they watch, I know they too will learn,

Their own hearts for peace and liberty will come to yearn.

In this the power of the enemy will disappear,

The truth of all our brotherhood will finally do away with all fear.

So though my heart longs to stay,

I will again return to the war zone in just a few short days.

In my mind, images of her gentle beauty,

Will give me strength and bring complete commitment to my sacred duty. 

The Lonely Soldier

As Randy and I have worked with Warriors and their families, we have found that when Warriors experience dark things in combat which haunt them to a degree that it is life interrupting, they often find themselves reluctant to tell anyone what they are going through.  Especially in the case of Military Sexual Trauma, the tendency is to hide from everyone what has happened.  There are varied reasons why Soldiers do this, all the way from feeling as though they are failing their unit,  or from fear of reprisal, or from fear of ridicule, to efforts to protect their loved ones from knowing how deeply they are suffering.  There are many more reasons as well.

Human beings are a herd or flock species.  We have built into us the need for relationships with others of our kind, and of communicating to them both our triumphs and our tragedies.  In the midst of the very physical bondage of PTSD, (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,) I would say a person is more in need of that human communication than at any other point or stress in life.  Isolation seems to be a part of the sufferings of Soldier's Heart, which is what PTSD was known as during the American Revolution and the Civil War.

This condition was around even for one of the mightiest warriors of them all.  King David wrote many of his psalms from a place of deep pain and suffering, obviously finding himself affected by depression.  It can follow any Soldier home from the battle field.

When as human beings, we sometimes lock down our fears and try to hide them even from ourselves, when we put on our false faces, and put every effort into keeping secrets that are ripping us apart inside, it will be to our detriment.  That is when a feeling of profound isolation can begin to steal into our beings.  In a crowd we can experience feeling totally alone and abandoned.  Even when, if they only knew, our families and friends would rush to our aid, due to some circumstance that seems to the individual insurmountable, Warriors will hide their pain, their fear, and their suffering.  The feelings of total isolation that result eat at what mental health they have, causing even more problems. 

If you know a Warrior, or a family member of a Warrior whom you suspect to be suffering from PTSD, please, resist the urge to ignore it in hopes that it will resolve on its' own, most likely it will not.  There are many military programs in place to help those struggling, however I have observed that sometimes there exists no experience of a real human connection in these programs, rather the Warrior feels the treatment provider doesn't understand, or care either.  Their "services" appear to them to be just how these individuals make their living, and the very people endeavoring to provide help leave them feeling even more alone and misunderstood.  Sometimes a service person's negative feelings are grounded in accurately assessing the provider, some do only reach out in order only to get a paycheck.  The needed genuine human compassion is just not there to be had.  That tends to outweigh any benefits the particular treatment might actually yield, in spite of the worth of the treatment itself. 

The huge government bureaucracy that we know as the Bureau of Veterans Affairs, fails some Warrior somewhere every day, actually probably it fails many each day.  I can tell you from personal experience, it can be overwhelming, confusing, frustrating, and that many just give up without ever receiving the benefits owed them.  All of these factors can contribute to feelings of isolation.  The feeling that no one understands or cares grows, and the results of those feelings can be catastrophic.  

So again I urge all of you who love a Soldier, do not hesitate to tactfully reach out, you will never regret your efforts made in compassion and gratitude for service given by these men and women.  While on the other hand, there exists the possibility that in failing to act you will carry a burden the rest of your life, that might have been prevented.

In the poem which follows, I have tried to express feelings which sometimes occur, that have been described to me by those affected by PTSD.  Hopelessness, and helplessness are words that are often used to describe these feelings of being disconnected from family, friends, and the world in general.  So read my dark words, and perhaps get a glimpse of the place some of our 'Soldiers find themselves when they come home.  They experience a loneliness we cannot understand.

            The following are links that can be a start when searching for help.

• What is PTSD?
  Find out about the symptoms of PTSD and how they develop.
• Frequently Asked Questions About PTSD
  Basic information about PTSD and its treatment. Includes links to resources for getting help.
• Helping a Family Member Who Has PTSD
  Ways you can help a loved one with PTSD and ways you can help yourself.
• How Common is PTSD?
  Find out how many people have PTSD and who is most likely to develop PTSD.
• Treatment of PTSD
  Describes the treatments shown to be effective for PTSD and what you can expect from your therapist.
• Understanding PTS(D): Adapt and Overcome
  Read this interview of Dr. Matthew Friedman, Executive Director of NCPTSD, to understand more about returning from war.
• Understanding PTSD Treatment
  View this interactive module about PTSD treatment options. A companion to Understanding PTSD, it has full color photos and videos of clinicians who provide care. It can help overcome any myths you might have about PTSD treatment.
• What Can I Do if I Think I Have PTSD?
  Learn what to do and answer a questionnaire to see if you need to be assessed by a professional.

Sometimes My Heart Thinks Louder Than My Brain

I was sitting in Spring Barbecue in Katy, Texas when my husband told me he was deploying to Afghanistan. He was a colonel, an Army Reservist, and we had been married less than three years. You would have to understand we are older, and to find the man of your dreams at any time in life is really quite miraculous, but to find him at my age... is truly so. I was 56 years old when he left, and owned a closet full of evening wear, that I got to use often.  I wasn't allowed to dance when I was in high school, although my younger sisters were when they reached the same age.  That is one of the disadvantages of being the oldest in a family; your parents mellow as they raise children... after you are gone. When I met Randy, I had never danced with a man before, and my first dance with him was just as magical as I had imagined as a young girl that it would be.  We were at a reunion of the 95^th Division WWII veterans, and the band was playing a beautiful old song, The Tennessee Waltz, and we waltzed.  It was always pure delight for me to attend the military balls that Randy was frequently required to attend, and to dance with him.  Life can be a romance novel… even when you are old.  When any woman of any age finds that in a man, all times of separation between them, are unbearable for her.

 My husband had gently broached the news in the Spring Barbeque that I had known from before we married would eventually come.  "Cowgirls Don't Cry" began to play in the background, and as he broke the long dreaded news, tears began silently flowing from my eyes, as they never had before. They didn't stop their continuous stream the entire time we were there. I never made a sound, and I would smile each time the waitress asked with concern if we needed something, and nod "no." I could not, for the life of me, stop those tears. It was the most embarrassing meal I have ever publicly   suffered my exposed and raw emotions through. 

I knew as he tried to console me that day while I choked down my sandwich, it was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done.  The experience has lived up to my worst expectations and then some, but I struggle on, and I yearn for the day he finally comes home, or I get to go to where I can sleep in the same bed with him every night, no matter where he is.  I have always said I would live in a tent in the dessert, in a hole in the ground, or any other place just to be where he is.

 

We live on a small ranch within an hour of Houston, but when we first moved here, now almost five years  ago; Yahoo Maps could not locate our address. We really live in the country. Internet connection possibilities are limited, and a cell phone is only as good as the room you are standing in and the weather.  My husband and I both love the little ranch of forty two acres, and Austin County where it is located.  There is a pond, thirteen heavily wooded acres, an antique barn, and unbelievable wildlife.  My husband dubbed it Soldier's Heart Ranch, and two people have never been happier as we have endeavored to make it the home of our dreams.  Both of us are unpretentious people, and “expensive things” are not a requirement for “dream” achievement.  

We have also added three little cabins, and a “Barbie Barn,” along with many other furnishings we know to be soothing to the soul, like 1100 square feet of wrap around porch, and rocking chairs by the dozen.  We both count it a great honor to be able to share the tranquility and beauty of this place with others who serve and their families.  It is the people who live here in Austin County as well, that make it the special place it is.  We live between Bellville and Sealy, and there are not better people to be found. They are honest, hardworking, genuine, supportive of each other and the community as a whole, and as a rule, patriotic to the core.

 

I am a trained FRG leader, mature, self-reliant, and independent by nature.  Having supported many other Soldier families, I had told myself I was going to do this, and do it proud.  I had always felt great empathy as I watched other military families , including my daughter’s, and those observances have somewhat empowered me.  My Christian faith, friends, and family have been invaluable to my survival. I have now learned the struggles and sacrifices America's military families make every day first hand, and come close to complete collapse many times while attaining that knowledge.  There isn't enough training or anything else in the world, which will make the deployment of a loved one without strife, pain, and sacrifice.  However, even though those things are a given when a loved one serves, there has also been the acquisition of what my husband says the Army offers to anyone associated with it, if they will receive it.  He calls it by the acronym he assigned it, “SIP.”  That stands for Skills, Identity, and Purpose, and those things can be the very positive products of enduring the deployment of a loved one to a war zone half way around the world.

Click edit above to add content to this empty capsule.

Mostly because we were in the company of other Soldier families seeing their husbands and fathers off to war, and due to the fact that I was so numb with disbelief that it was actually happening, I held back tears at the airport.  Then I went home and lay in bed and cried for two weeks after I stood watching the plane until its dot finally disappeared on the horizon.  I ate nothing but Girl Scout Cookies.  I remember thinking I would never make it a year.  I remember too agonizing over the thought he would be gone that long, because even though I had known intellectually that it was coming, my heart had never gotten the message clearly.  My heart, as my beautiful oldest grand-daughter, Madie, once told me of her heart, “sometimes thinks louder than my brain."  I think she was seven at the time.

Eventually, the fact that I had seen many women, including my own daughter, do deployment, and do it well, called me from my bed and my cookies.   So I took up a mantra from my husband’s life long thinking, changed the gender to make it my own, and declared to myself "if the woman in front of me can do it, so can I."  Sure enough, I began to acquire SIP.

 
When my husband left for Afghanistan, it was to be a one year deployment, it has now been three years, and he isn't home yet. I have survived, I have grown, I have suffered, I have sacrificed, and I have cried, but most of all, I have loved.  I have become a richer, and even happier person, so proud to have worn the title “Army wife.” My colonel has been officially retired since last June, but the State Department has snagged him and his phenomenal talents up, so I am entering the fourth year of his consecutive deployment to the Middle East.  The Bible is full of promises about making it through hardships, and God is always a promise keeper. I will tell my own deployment story over the next month, because the Army little noted my husband leaving service after thirty years, sending him a Legion of Merit, on which his name is misspelled, in the mail, and later a certificate signed by President Obama in a manila envelope that was so wrinkled I had to iron it to make it presentable.  It arrived in the mail as well.  That just won’t do… and I am planning the celebration of his long and distinguished service at a party I will host on Memorial Day here at the ranch.  We will also be formally dedicating the ranch to the work we have started in support of our military and their families called Soldier’s Heart Ministry.

I will offer bits of the wisdom I have gained for the consideration of others in their own struggle, and I promise you, it is a struggle each and every day.  As always, I will with profound humility and gratitude, offer support to anyone who is currently serving, or who has served. You all have my deepest admiration and appreciation; you are the best among us.  Now since it is getting so late I give my best advice to anyone facing this "refining like gold” experience of deployment: keep your chin up, look around for someone else in need of support and give it to them, and work on your SIP!

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. 

Willingness

I had an exchange with one of the Warriors I have come to know by way of facebook.  Always these men and women absolutely slay my mind with their deeds and the stand they make.  As you will see, these simple words of recognition of the obvious were appreciated, which underscores for me how important it is that we never miss the opportunity to acknowledge the obvious to each service person we encounter.  The job they do takes so much, and gives little in measurable personal gain.  Their reward, for them, lies within their souls, and is self sustaining, requiring nothing from the rest of the world.  The acknowledgment from each of us of who they are, what they do, and why they do it,  is more necessary for us to be able to sleep at night than for them to.  What follows is a spell checked version of what I wrote, then the validation that, for at least one Warrior, it was words of encouragement, and has paved the way for my fulfilling my own obligations.  Trust me, this Warrior took his first breath "willing," and would go on without a word of backing from anyone, I am the wife of such a man.  I have had the privilege of knowing so many Warriors, and their families, and I am one rich person because of it.  What a blessing I consider it to have encouraged one of them.  So if you know a Soldier, a Warrior from any branch, and you would value the overwhelming sense of humility and a pride that comes from fulfilling your own obligations to these heroes, there is a chance that in your passing these words on to them, you can have that feeling.  Here are my words, and then his, which are always expressed with a sense of humor, and for him that must be a tremendously powerful protective device in the war zone where he daily stands "willing."

There are some people who are born with a capacity to lay it all on the line that surpasses bravery. Any day of the week I can risk my life for one of my grand-children or children, my husband, parents, etc... There are people who, as their primary occupation, will risk their lives for perfect strangers, people of countries other than their own, and even a wounded enemy,  and not just in one moment of a short lived disaster or accident such as a house fire or car wreck, but they will wake up every day... "willing."  Deliberately they stand between threat and danger and me and mine, and for the rest of the world as well. On an ongoing basis, and they think of it as "just doing my job," they are "willing."

Their families are affected by their willingness, but in both positive and negative ways, and because of what they witness in the lives of "the willing," they are enriched in ways that only family members of "the willing" can be.  Their family members share their everyday lives with a living, breathing, genuine hero, and that impacts a person, empowers and inspires their loved ones. Because they are willing to do what the majority of people would never commit to, we all have the freedom to achieve the destiny we would select for ourselves... and inch by inch... the rest of the world is being affected by their stand. 

Daily there is criticism from the uninformed, the miss-informed, and the run of the mill idiots, it just rolls off their backs, and when the aforementioned get themselves in a jam... or the enemy is wounded .... in need of care... being who they are... 

There cannot be too many words of praise, there cannot be too frequent a mention of their deeds, there cannot be too much made of their loss from this world when one of them willingly makes the ultimate sacrifice. We will be utterly lost if we fail in this obligation, if we fail to be faithful to our own scared duty toward these men and women, and their families. For as we celebrate their lives and their willingness, and openly grieve at their separation from this world, we ensure that more men and women with the same heart will answer the call to be "willing."  There is no currency or budget line item that can purchase a willing heart, and the service of the man or woman who possesses it.  It can only be given.

Buzzy Sørensen
Debra, thank you again. Don't think I've ever seen that so well put of why we do what we do....I was gonna just be my usual smartass & say I do it cause chicks dig the uniform but this really hit home personally & it's one of those passages... that gets printed out, stuffed im my front vest pocket, maybe make a few copies for some buds that need encouragement some days & reread when I need to remind myself why we subject ourselves to the evil that would do us harm....you really need to publish this for everyone to see & ponder. Thanks.
Buzzy
30 minutes ago · LikeUnlike
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Debra LeCompte Actually the chicks do dig the uniform... without a doubt...
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Debra LeCompte I pray for you, and that bunch you run with every day...
3 minutes ago · Like