August 28
PREPARATION
Michael and Kerri Hartwick were high school sweethearts. They married during their senior year of college and then decided together that he would join the military.
“His dream was always to fly,” said Kerri. “He loved airplanes, anything that flew. I was supportive.”
Mike served in Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, and Iraq as an Apache helicopter pilot for the Army. In November 2005, one month before he would deploy a second time to Iraq, he arranged a “powwow” with Kerri.
“We each took a day off of work, and the kids were in school,” remembered Kerri. “He’d been deployed before and knew the risk factors. We should have done this before; maybe this was a God thing. But he made sure we sat down together and talked about everything we needed to discuss in case he would not return from finances, to who he wanted to be pallbearers, who he wanted to speak at the funeral, and where he wanted to be buried. We talked about where the kids and I would live, his thoughts on me remarrying. We discussed everything. It was hard. He put all our finances and insurance information in a binder for me. I didn’t know then what a blessing that would turn out to be for me.”
When Mike deployed, Kerri prayed the same prayer each night: “Lord, if you bring Mike home safely I will praise you for keeping him safe. If you have other plans for him, you need to prepare my heart because I won’t be able to do it alone.”
“I didn’t have a premonition,” she said. “But God put that in my heart that I needed to pray that way.”
In speaking to their children, seven-year-old Tanner and ten-year-old Haley, Mike never promised he wouldn’t get hurt. He said he’d do his best to stay safe.
Lord, prepare my heart for whatever you have in store for me.
“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21)
August 29
APRIL 2, 2006
Sunday, April 2, 2006, dawned clear and bright in Belton, Texas. Kerri and the kids were looking forward to the battalion Easter egg hunt planned for that afternoon when the phone rang.
“Kerri, have you heard anything about an Apache helicopter crash?” It was Mike’s stepdad in Missouri.
“No, I haven’t,” Kerri told him. “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
Kerri and the kids went to the egg hunt as planned, then to church before heading home. It was 5:45 p.m. when they pulled in the driveway. While Kerri and Tanner stayed outside chatting with some neighbors, Haley ran into the house.
“Mom,” she said, rushing back outside. “There’s a message on the answering machine that said, ‘Kerri, I’m sorry to hear about your family. I’m on my way down.’”
Instantly, Kerri knew. Pulling her neighbor aside, she said, “Can you take the kids into your house and shut the blinds?”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later. Please take the kids.”
Once Kerri’s neighbor returned from getting the children settled in the house, she inquired again about what was going on.
“Was there a car in front of my house today?” Kerri asked her.
“Yes.”
“There was a helicopter crash and Mike has been killed.”
Five minutes later, the notification team was in Kerri’s home, confirming what she already knew: Mike had been killed in action the day before. She fell to her knees, in shock.
“One thing I had prayed was: ‘Lord, if Mike gets killed, I pray my children won’t be here when I hear it. I don’t want them to see me or to remember the men in the green suits.’ Because God answered that prayer, I was able to walk over to my friend’s house after I gained my composure and tell Haley in a loving way what happened to her dad. Then Tanner came in, Haley held him and I told him, too. Even though it was the worst day of my life, I said ‘God is so good because he answered my prayers.’”
Lord, help me see your goodness even when my vision is clouded with pain.
“But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.” (Psalm 73:28)
August 30
UNTOUCHABLE SOUL
The next day, Kerri received a mysterious phone call from the detachment.
“Please do not watch TV or go on the Internet,” the officer told her. “We need to come out and see you.”
Kerri agreed. What could this possibly be about? She thought. I wonder if they screwed everything up and it’s not even Mike who was killed.
When the detachment came, they asked her to sit down.
“I’m sorry to tell you that there’s a terrorist-created video of them pulling someone from a helicopter,” they said. “It’s all over the Internet and television.” The footage was so unclear that viewers could not identify the face or even if the man was wearing an American uniform. Still, there was a chance it could have been Mike.
They searched her face, bracing themselves for any number of emotional reaction, but they weren’t expecting Kerri’s response.
She laughed. “Is that it?” she asked.
“Yes maam, it is.”
“Mike’s soul has already gone to heaven,” said Kerri. “I don’t agree with what they’re doing, but if that was Mike, it was just his body. They’re not bothering him any little bit.”
When they were gone, Kerri mused, Funny I was up all night searching the Internet and never saw that video. Still, she banned her kids from the TV and Internet for two weeks to make sure they wouldn’t see it either.
Kerri and the wife of the other co-pilot who had been killed agreed that they would not say anything about it, not acknowledge it on TV during any interviews. “If you respond to that video, you would give glory to what is evil,” explained Kerri. “Glory is to go to God.” The two wives asked TV stations to pull the footage from their programs, and they agreed.
To this day, Kerri has not seen the video and the kids are not aware of it, either. “God protected me from seeing those images, and I’m not going to go looking for them,” she said.
