Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan
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Prayer:
Lord, make me an ambassador of hope to the soldiers who serve on the front lines of America’s wars and to their families who await their safe return.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)
June 2
FREE BECAUSE OF SACRIFICE
Donna A. Tallman, daughter of a U.S. Air Force officer, screenwriter, regular contributor to The Christian Post
Step by determined step I walk on through Arlington Cemetery. A car passes on my left, then another and another. The procession of mourners drives by in slow motion making its way to the grave site. A color guard stands at attention near a freshly dug grave. A bugler waits for his call, and a squad of seven riflemen stands across the field for their moment of tribute. Cicadas hum just below the surface of unspeakable grief.
I hurry under a tree, not suitably dressed for a funeral nor invited by the family; but here by circumstance in my nation’s field of honor. He is my soldier.
Beautiful in its simplicity, the military funeral proceeds with expected precision. A minister addresses the young crowd of mourners. The flag covering the soldier’s coffin is folded and given to today’s grieving widow whose two restless toddlers squirm next to her. She bows her head in anguished respect uncertain the nation is truly grateful for her sacrifice, but so very proud of the hero her husband is. The riflemen give a twenty-one gun salute matched by twenty-one unexpected echoes from another burial in progress on the cemetery grounds. The shots of honor reverberate back and forth across the valley as if to emphasize the sobering cost of freedom.
The cicadas pick up their song again whirring louder and louder until I feel them pounding in my ears. Looking up through the tree, I see a helicopter has joined their cacophony giving tribute to this fallen hero. The bugler closes with the mournful notes of “Taps,” hanging onto the last note until it slowly dissolves into history.
The crowd disperses while I wait under the tree. Stillness returns. Slowly, I begin to walk the uniform rows of gravestones. The magnitude of what we have asked of our soldiers and the grief these families are going through comes quickly into focus. I realize that for the first time ever, I am standing in the graveyard of a war in progress.
Prayer:
Father, remind me that liberty never travels without its companion, sacrifice, and that sacrifice never travels without love. When I am tempted to forget the sacrifices of others on my behalf, remind me that even You paid the ultimate price for my freedom the life of your only Son because You loved me.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
June 3
YESTERDAY’S WIDOW
Donna A. Tallman, daughter of a U.S. Air Force officer, screenwriter, regular contributor to The Christian Post
A caisson moves by, and I leave to follow it to the next funeral. Just across the road a sign reads, “Section 61.” It is a massive parcel of uncultivated dirt growing only two lone trees. As I wonder why an empty lot sits nearby, the top of the Washington Monument peeks above the small rise holding its breath, waiting for my realization.
“O God, the next war!”
I steady myself as waves of grief overtake me. Before I know it, I have taken out my camera, and am taking pictures so I never forget their sacrifice. I walk by the headstones of many highly decorated service members. There is a middle-age grandmother, a Marine who loves the Boston Red Sox, a team of five soldiers, and a grave marker for a Muslim. I stop to pray for these families and weep for their loss.
The cadre of mourners attending the earlier service has mostly disappeared. In its place a non-organized yet subconsciously synchronized, convoy of mini vans arrives. A woman gets out of her van, grabs a blanket, lawn chair, and a jug of water before slamming the door. Mounted on the back of her car is a sticker that reads, “Half my heart is in Heaven.” Another minivan arrives, and another. Each van carries a single woman armed with grief and memories.
Her home has betrayed her. It is no longer full of the life and hope of her husband’s return, so she escapes to Arlington to reflect. The widow comes to say the things that she cannot say at home… to utter aloud the unspeakable agony of her heart. Surrounded by a field of dead strangers, the widow now feels more at home in a cemetery than she does in her own house. She is tired. She is lonely. She is broken.
In the waning afternoon hours of what has become a typical day, the widow lies face down over her husband’s grave aching to hold and be held. She whispers a prayer of surrender, and asks for the strength for just one more day. Despite the challenges she knows await her, yesterday’s widow rises to conquer her own battle the battle for her future.
Prayer:
Lord, when I have expended all that I have, remind me that your resources are limitless and you eagerly desire to add your strength to my faith.
“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” (Isaiah 40:29)
June 4
THE GREAT EQUALIZER
Donna A. Tallman, daughter of a U.S. Air Force officer, screenwriter, regular contributor to The Christian Post
Gently and quietly he clicks the door shut on his sedan so that even the breeze is unruffled. He deliberately walks toward the oldest row of graves in Section 60. His perfect posture looks military-trained, while the lines on his face mark him as Vietnam era. Always focused forward, the eyes of the man in his sixties hone in on one of the markers at the far end. Finally, he reaches the right one and slowly kneels in the grass. The grieving father bows his head.
Some have said that hospital waiting rooms are the great equalizers of life that injury and sickness recognize no social class, no ethnic divide, no age category. All are equally at risk. Cemeteries are even more equalizing than waiting rooms. None recover here.
The father does not tarry long at his son’s grave. He’s not really here to visit him. Instead, he has come to care for the living. While no one else dares interrupt a widow’s vigil out of respect for her grief, the father does. This tender, caring man can approach where others never should. He is a fellow sufferer, a tempest traveler… one who knows firsthand the cost of war.
The father begins his rounds of visitation to the daughters he has adopted in the graveyard. He knows each one by name and checks on their welfare. Over the months they have all visited Arlington to grieve alone together; this unlikely group has grown from being intimate strangers among the tombstones to caretakers of one another’s sorrow.
While he knows that he cannot bring his son home from Afghanistan, the father seeks to heal the history that death attempts to write in each of their hearts. Rising above his own agony, he reaches out to care for those around him, and in the process, finds refuge for his own soul.
Yes, Arlington is a graveyard, a place of the dead. It is also a showcase for valor, a field of honor for America’s most courageous soldiers. And for those knit together by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Arlington is a place of healing from war’s ultimate sacrifice.
Prayer:
When life’s raging tempest threatens to break my heart and my spirit, would you, oh Lord, step in with your authority and restore calm to the churning waves around me? Deliver me and bind up any wounds incurred by my sojourn here on earth.
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)
June 5
DO I MAKE YOU PROUD?
Donna A. Tallman, daughter of a U.S. Air Force officer, screenwriter, regular contributor to The Christian Post
An Army soldier approaches the row ahead of mine. I try to maintain my composure as to not disturb his expression of grief, but my tears come faster than I can breathe. The soldier kneels to pray. After a moment, he stands, salutes, and puts something on top of the grave marker. The soldier leaves quietly, returns; then leaves again. I stand motionless and uncertain sensing
he may want to talk, but hesitant to interrupt. He comes one more time, so I join him.
“Was he a friend of yours?” I ask.
“Yes Ma’am, he was.”
“Would you tell me about your friend?”
He and the corporal were close friends. They served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. The soldier before me had been deployed overseas six times, and was struggling with the loss of many friends. I met him saluting his friend who died in 2005, but he was here for another friend whose graveside service I just witnessed. That friend was a medic, trained to work on injured soldiers while in transit on helicopters.
“Ah, the helicopter fly-over was for him.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“What can we do for you?”
“Bring us home, Ma’am. Please, bring us all the way home.”
We stand together in silence for a long time, two total strangers connected by the intimacy of honor. His countenance is beautiful. In spite of his grief, in spite of the horror he has seen he is beautiful. As soon as he leaves, I regret not getting his name. I wish I’d been able to listen to his story. I wished I’d prayed with him. I wish I’d prayed for his healing. I also wish I had told him how proud I am of him and the many sacrifices he’s made for my freedom. How I wish I had told him… but I didn’t.
Several minutes later, I pick up the piece of metal he left on top of his friend’s gravestone. It’s a dog tag. It has an American flag on one side and the words to Joshua 1:9 on the other side.
Prayer:
Thank you, Lord, that this soldier has confronted terrorism first-hand so that I never have to. Bring rest to his spirit, Lord, and remove any terror that has taken up residence in his heart.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)
June 6
THE SMALLEST PATIENT
Colonel Jay A. Johannigman, Deputy Commander of the 332nd U.S. Air Force EMEDS (Expeditionary Medical Support), Iraq, 2003
All right, what do we have here? I wondered as I opened the back doors of the Red Crescent (Iraqi) ambulance. It was a nine-year-old Iraqi boy who had been wounded almost nine days earlier by unwittingly picking up an anti-personnel device. Iraqi surgeons did the best they could for Saleh, but told his father to prepare for his death. The boy’s father bribed a friend who was a Red Crescent ambulance driver to drive his son to our base for another chance.
Once inside the hospital, we were horrified to see that his abdominal wall had been completely blown away, exposing the intestinal tract. His right arm which he had lost in the initial blast had not been treated in nine days; it had been bandaged once and it was covered in blood and pus from his draining wounds. The portion of his remaining left hand was mangled almost beyond recognition.
The Air Force medics and I operated on him nine hours that first day. God show me the way, was whispering in my head over and over. By the grace of God, he began to stabilize.
As a military medical corps, we were not designed to care for pediatric patients, but we arranged for some materials from our army brethren in Baghdad. Every day I emailed a pediatric surgeon friend for advice, and she arranged for a company in Britain to overnight express us all the equipment necessary to do what’s called a wound vac.
This boy, Saleh, had just one hand left that was salvageable.
“If we take this other hand what kind of a life would he have left?” the orthopedic surgeon mused.
“Tell you what, Eric,” I replied. “If I can figure out a way to keep his belly together, you figure out some way to keep that left hand on him.” So that was a pledge. Eric had never reconstructed a hand, but he got on the Internet and started working and pinning and cleaning. Every time we were back there cleaning Saleh’s belly, he was back there doing something he’d never been trained to do, but somehow this all worked out. We prayed a lot. One nice thing about a deployed base the chapel is always open and the lights are on.
Prayer:
Lord, give me the courage to overcome obstacles to achieve the things you want me to.
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matthew 21:22)
Saleh on the day of his arrival
June 7
MODERN MEDICINE OR THE HAND OF GOD?
Colonel. Jay A. Johannigman, Deputy Commander of the 332nd U.S. Air Force EMEDS (Expeditionary Medical Support), Iraq, 2003
Two chaplains in particular prayed with us every day (Chappy Erikson and Thiesen), for which I was so grateful. As a deployed doc, the hospital is your chapel and God is everywhere with us. The chaplains were truly amazing they helped get patients off the helicopter, ran blood back and forth, lifted patients onto the ambulance, said prayers at the sides of those soldiers we don’t send back home. They were in the ICU as much for us as for our patients. And they certainly lifted us up as we worked on Saleh. They even held special prayer services for him.
It was amazing to see how the base was transformed with Saleh’s arrival. We saw our soldiers, airmen, cooks, Security Forces, and our commanders come through and just lift the flap on the ICU tent to make sure Saleh was still there.
Throughout Saleh’s stay with us, the entire hospital took care of that boy as we would our own son. But on his fifth post-operative day, Saleh was bleeding to death from his stomach. I had run out of medical options and I asked nurses to find the Chappy fast.
“Chappy Erikson, I have nothing left I can do.” I said. “I’ve done all I can, I’m going to lose this kid. Will you come over and say a prayer?”
And Chappy did. He laid hands on this young man and lifted him up in prayer while Saleh was screaming and crying in Arabic, and his father was saying his prayers as a devout Muslim. All of us medics were standing there watching, crying and when that happened that young man stopped bleeding. Was it medicine or God’s hand? I know what it was. There was no more medicine to offer him. God spared his life that day.
Prayer:
Lord, let me never dismiss the power of praying with other believers.
“For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20)
A USAF nurse caring for Saleh—the intensity needs no explanation
June 8
JUST ONE SHOT
Colonel Jay A. Johannigman, Deputy Commander of the 332nd U.S. Air Force EMEDS (Expeditionary Medical Support), Iraq (2003)
“Saleh had done remarkably well under our care, but for a full recovery, this young man only had one shot, and that was to get him to the United States. Just as it is now, it was extremely controversial to do that to take an Iraqi child, because “if you take one you have to take them all.” I understand the politics of all that, but I was early in my experience. I told the boss that this young kid had to go to the United States.
If I had known then what I know now about how hard that was to accomplish, I would have given up a long time ago. But we didn’t. We worked some back channels and were given some miracles. We got Saleh cleared to get on a C-130. The same anesthesiologist who was my first assistant was going to rotate home to California at the same time, and we found a pediatric hospital in Oakland who was willing to take care of him. So the anesthesiologist flew with this young man thirty-six hours all on Air Force aircraft.
Six-months later, my young friend Saleh was discharged from Oakland’s Children’s Hospital. They gave him all the care in the world without a penny being charged to him. I have a picture of Saleh and his cell phone. I know it works because I’m on his speed dial. And he will call me up. That was three years ago.
Today, he lives in Oakland, California. He has been mainstreamed, is in the sixth grade of a public school. He goes to school every day and his dad works in the hospital that has cared for him. They are both very grateful for what God has given them. This kid has got a resilient spirit that you would not believe.
Prayer:
Lord, whe
n you show me the path to take, may I obediently respond no matter how impossible it may seem.
“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)
Chaplain Erikson with Saleh, his father Raheem, and Dr. Jay Johannigman
Last moments in Iraq—a prayer to God for a safe journey to the United States
Young Saleh with his American friends (courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle)
June 9
NINETY MINUTES
Colonel Jay A. Johannigman, Deputy Commander of the 332nd U.S. Air Force EMEDS (Expeditionary Medical Support), Iraq, 2003
“My God, this kid’s in shock,” the medic said after taking one look at a Marine corporal who had been hit with an IED.
“Sir, I’ve been in shock for the last hour and a half,” that Marine responded. He then rolled his eyes to the back of his head and his heart promptly stopped. He went into cardiac arrest right there in front of those guys.
Immediately, they opened his chest and did something they never would have done in the United States. They pounded on his chest for more than ninety minutes. They did not give up. We stop in the United States after ten minutes. Ten minutes of that and if you don’t have him back, that patient’s dead. Those Marine doctors and medics worked on him for ninety minutes and they got him back. I don’t know how they did that.
Then they packaged him up, said, “We’ve done everything we can, we’re out of blood, out of juice, we’re shipping him to you. Take good care of him.” So that medical team sent him to our facility.