affected who we were and who we are today. Surviving the experience for Joe (physically and emotionally), and for me (psychologically and emotionally), taught us that living out our vows was overwhelmingly important and real. In good times and bad I was his wife, and he was my husband. We held it together even though we were apart. While he longed to be home, I longed for him to return and bring with him my sense of home. He was where I belonged.
We stayed true to each other even in a long separation. Through every trial. Overcoming all obstacles. This is our story. Our legacy. Our history. It is who we are. We can now truly say that we appreciate each other every day. We know what it is like to face the world without each other, and it is not a way of life we ever want to face again.
I now understand the legacy that my grandparents and others of many generations gave us. The love of country, in good times and bad. The right to freedom of speech, even though we may not always agree with each other’s words. The right to worship our God, even though he may not be someone else’s god. My husband sacrificed so much so that our children will have a legacy to inherit. My family, friends, country and yes, God, are worth fighting and dying for. I want my children to grow up in a world where they have the rights and the freedoms to live their lives to the fullest extent of their efforts. Freedom is personal. Freedom comes at a high cost. While my husband didn’t pay the ultimate price, we honor those who do. It is our right and our obligation. Freedom is not free!
Lord, help me show my appreciation for the sacrifices men and women have made to help protect freedom around the world.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)
July 10
HERO MISSIONS
A knock on my door jolted me awake at 2 a.m.
“Twenty minutes, sir!” a voice announced.
I rolled out of my cot and shook the sleep from my mind and body. The unexpected wake-up call meant more U.S. soldiers had been killed. It was time for another Hero Mission time to get on the helicopter and collect the remains somewhere in northern Iraq.
As a chaplain’s assistant, it was my job to go on these Hero Missions almost as soon as the soldiers were killed, day or night. As the helicopter landed, blades still running, I’d hit the ground and collect the remains and make sure everything ran smoothly. We’d do a ceremony for them, and transport them down to a bigger air base to prepare them for the ramp ceremony so they could fly home.
What I saw, smelled, and touched on these Hero Missions was pretty bad, but I had to do it. Even though I didn’t know the soldiers personally, I felt like I did. I thought about their families back home and the buddies they left behind. I just wanted to do the best I could to honor them.
During the fifteen months in Iraq, I flew more than three hundred flight hours for close to eighty Hero Missions and there were multiple remains each time. I recognize that nothing is promised. Soldiers in combat died, but guys who would just be walking to the mess hall would be killed by a mortar, also.
It all goes back to the Lord Jesus Christ, just putting my life in his hands. That’s the only way I dealt with it. I still struggle, at times, sleeping, as I think about those soldiers we picked up. I probably will for the rest of my life. It was hard, but I also felt honored to be able to minister in this special way.
Lord, when confronted with the atrocities of war and other injustices of the world, show me what I can do about it, and what I need to leave in your hands.
“The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong… but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10–12)
July 11
FACE TO FACE WITH THE TALIBAN
You’ve got to be kidding me, I said to myself when I understood what was happening.
The chaplain and I were making our rounds within a U.S. Army hospital as part of our usual responsibilities during my twelve-month deployment in Afghanistan. We would minister to casualties and the medical staff alike. We had seen charred flesh, broken bodies, missing limbs, every kind of combat injury one can imagine.
But we had never seen this.
In one corner of the hospital, past all the U.S. soldiers suffering injuries, our medical team was diligently working to try to save the life of an Afghani Taliban guy who had inadvertently blown his arms and legs off with his own Improvised Explosive Device (IED). It wasn’t a suicide-bombing this guy had just screwed up and blown himself up.
Blood was everywhere. It seemed like quite a lost cause to me. Yet our doctors were trying to help him, even though this guy had prepared a bomb to blow us up. A known enemy that we knew would gladly kill us all if he got the chance.
What’s the point? I thought. If he dies, that’s one less person we have to worry about hunting in the future. Those things go through your head. It’s kind of hard to have compassion for a terrorist who hurts himself.
But the doctors were operating from a different principle: they were dealing with a human life, and all human life has value. If they could possibly save that life, no matter who it was, that was their duty to use their skills to help and not harm. And one has to realize in the overall big picture that these Taliban were just ignorant and had no idea exactly what they were fighting against.
The doctors worked on that armless, legless Taliban terrorist for a long time. They just couldn’t save him.
Lord, let us not forget that you created all men and women in your image and that each life has worth and dignity.
“So God created man in his own image.” (Genesis 1:27)
July 12
OPERATION FLYING START
