This is our new reality. And we’ve known about it ever since I chose to join the army.
2
What am I here for?
The question whispered deep inside of him once again. It was a question he’d been born with and carried around like a shadow his entire life. During his wild and reckless days in college it grew louder, trying to get his attention, urging him to want more out of his meaningless life. So one spring break, instead of continuing to party with his classmates on a beach in Florida, Darren returned home to Canton, Georgia. He also returned to the pages of the New Testament.
He didn’t need to “find himself.” Darren needed to find faith in someone else. Realizing it might appear to be foolish and against all that common sense might suggest, he turned his heart over to Jesus Christ, deciding to follow Him. In whatever fashion and form that meant.
What am I destined for? This was the new question that he began to ask.
It remained with him as a student teacher during his senior year at UGA. After graduating in 1997, the question followed him all the way to a teaching position in Mongolia, then back to his alma mater a year later, where he became a part-time campus pastor. After two years, as Darren continued to wonder what God wanted for his life, a door opened for a full-time assistant pastor job at a church in Athens, Georgia.
Deciding to follow Jesus meant saying “Not my will, but Yours be done” . . . and Darren knew it could get messy and uncomfortable sometimes.
After four years of marriage, Darren and Heather began talking about options other than what they were doing in their church ministry. One of Heather’s college friends had married an army chaplain, but at the time that hadn’t stirred their interest. They wanted to invest their time and family with a group they could live life with.
Yet Darren always continued to ask: How am I supposed to serve, Lord?
One morning in early January of 2004, he was reading from Psalm 27 when the verses grabbed him. David wrote that even though an army was camped around him and war rose against him, he would be confident in the Lord and not fear. “One thing I ask from the LORD, / this only do I seek: / that I may dwell in the house of the LORD / all the days of my life, / to gaze on the beauty of the LORD / and to seek him in his temple” (Ps. 27:4).
Darren knew right at that moment that this was what he wanted to do. He wanted to bring faith and confidence in Christ into a place of war. Not long after that, he and Heather spoke to the chaplain who was married to her friend, and then they called an army recruiter. Everything happened quickly, and by August Darren had resigned from his church position and enrolled in seminary.
Now, as he lay awake thinking of President Bush’s words to the American public earlier that night, he asked himself another question.
What am I made of?
Each step on the ladder of his life had led to this place. He believed the president’s words when he said, “In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us.” Darren knew it was true that they “serve far from their families, who make the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. They have watched their comrades give their lives to ensure our liberty.”
Darren knew who he was, and that God had shaped him with His hands to bring him to this point in his life. Not only had he been called to serve, but he knew he was called to help soothe the souls savaged by the war.
Would he be headed overseas to serve? If he went to Iraq, what would he find there?
What am I made of? He shifted in the bed.
He looked at his wife, sleeping peacefully beside him, and prayed they would both be steadfast and strong as they faced the future.
3
The noise of the four children playing in the living room gave Heather a feeling she hadn’t experienced since moving into their new home: normalcy. For the first time, she felt normal again, even though sheets were still draped over chairs and tables and they were still searching in moving boxes for items like the coffeemaker. The rowdy fun the kids were having with the tent they had set up in the living room and named Fort Bumblefoot was something they would have done back at their old house. It had only been a few days, but slowly and surely, she knew they would grow used to living on the army base.
When they had first pulled up to Fort Stewart, she had read the sign at the front of the base: Welcome to Fort Stewart, Georgia, an Army Community of Excellence. Below its logo were the words The world’s best installation to train, deploy, live and raise a family. The February morning had been like today, a cool forty-five degrees with clear skies that showed off the 280,000 acres about an hour west of Savannah. The base contained everything, from ponds and waterfronts to the Heritage Chapel and medical and training facilities. Their neighborhood consisted of pretty suburban houses with small and well-maintained lawns and lots of young families like theirs.
Normally Heather might have suggested that the children set up their tent somewhere other than the living room, but since everything was still in a bit of disorder, she figured they might as well have some fun. As she peered into the room, looking for her husband, she was greeted by almost-four-year-old Sam’s shouts of “Pow pow pow!” He was guarding the entrance to the fort, his Armor of God costume hanging off his shoulders while he swiped the plastic sword in the air and made swishing sounds as he fended off the artillery from the unseen enemy. He waited for his big sister to come around to the front and join him.
“No one gets past Electric Elie!” she shouted as she adjusted the tinfoil wrapped around her forehead and wrists.
“Or Samurai Sam!”
Even though Elie was eight, she wasn’t too big to play with her little brother. She spun around and saw six-month-old Meribeth crawling on the carpet toward the tent.
“Oh no!” Elie cried out. “An in-surgeon!”
Sam steadied himself at the base of their fort. “Quick. Secure the gate!”
Heather watched all this with a grin on her face. “Okay, send the commander back to HQ,” she told the kids. “He has three more boxes to unpack. And stop calling your sister an insurgent.”
“The commander doesn’t have time for boxes,” Sam called out. “Fort Bumblefoot is taking fire.” He tossed a pillow high into the air, shouting, “Incoming!”
Just then her biggest “child” bolted out of the tent, wearing his army combat uniform and commanding, “Pull back! Pull back!” Darren quickly scooped up Sam and then Elie, pulling them into the safety of the tent, while three children giggled and screamed in joy. Then silence covered the room, with a round of shushes coming from the soldiers inside the fort.
Heather shook her head and tiptoed over to the back of the tent. She burst through the flaps and startled them, howling as she began tickling the kids.
“Sneak attack, sneak attack!” Darren cried. “Evacuate!”
While the kids piled out of the tent to escape, screaming and laughing, Heather called out behind them. “Careful. Don’t tear my sheets.” Then she leaned over and fell into Darren’s lap.
He gave an exaggerated “Oof” and called out, “I’m trapped! Save yourselves. Run!”
The pitter-patter of feet running down the hall followed by echoes of laughter were sounds she would never grow tired of. Meribeth tried her best to keep up, crawling in her own little way to chase Sam and Elie. Capturing her breath and looking up at her husband, Heather once again felt normal, resting there in Darren’s strong arms.
“And don’t come back for fifteen minutes!” she called, as Darren smiled his approval. He gently kissed her, then studied her for a moment. She felt like she was a kid again too, and was making out with the homecoming king.
“It’s good to hear you guys having fun,” she said in a soft tone.
“It’s good playing with them. Especially Elie.”
The move had been toughest on their bright second grader, who had hated saying goodbye to her friends.
> “The house feels cozy,” Heather said.
“Or maybe it’s just me,” Darren said as he snuggled closer to her. “I kinda like Fort Bumblefoot. What about you?”
Before she could answer, a high-pitched squeal of tires came from out in their front lawn. They gave each other questioning glances, then she led the way out of the tent to see what was going on. Looking through the front window, they saw a truck in the middle of the lawn at the house directly across the street. A man in uniform was at the door, pounding on it and shouting.
Darren quickly headed to the garage, no doubt wanting to see if there was anything he should do, so Heather followed. They navigated past stacks of moving boxes and other items filling up the garage as they heard the shouting across the street.
“Tonya! If you changed these locks again on my own house—”
The door opened and a woman appeared, staring up at her husband and refusing to budge an inch.
“Really?” she said. “This is what ‘I promise to do better’ looks like?”
“Just let me in,” the man said, trying to shove past her, but the woman stood her ground.
Heather felt like they should go back inside, not watch and listen like nosy strangers.
“You smell like a whiskey plant,” the woman said.
“I’ll sleep it off, don’t worry.”
“After a long walk, maybe, because it won’t be here.”
The woman looked about Heather’s age, short with caramel-colored skin and an expression on her face that said she would not suffer fools lightly. Heather doubted this was the first time the couple had argued like this. As the woman started to shut the door in her husband’s face, his arm stopped it from closing all the way.
“You know I got your commander on speed dial?” she said. “So help me, Michael, you can quit caring about me, but you better find a way to be the man those little girls in there need you to be. No—deserve—for you to be. Or more than the old door locks will disappear.”
For a moment the man stood there, then he turned around and strode to his truck, which was still running. As he was climbing in he noticed Heather and Darren watching.
“Hey!” he called out to them. “Mind your own business!”
Heather quickly grabbed a box to at least pretend like she was in the garage for some other reason than to snoop. Darren was still standing there, his gaze unmoving.
“Honey, he’s staring right at you. Pick up a box.”
Instead Darren waved while the truck accelerated down the street. Heather couldn’t believe it, yet she felt a little better seeing the driver’s hand giving a subdued wave back. As the sound of the truck faded, the woman on her doorstep was joined by two girls, one at either side.
Darren turned around, his friendly expression not having changed a bit.
“Well,” he said to Heather. “Guess we met the neighbors.”
4
Darren believed these words from one of his favorite books, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge: Every man is a warrior inside. But the choice to fight is his own. Yes, the choice to fight was his own, but the choice facing him now was when he would actually decide to go. That decision wasn’t his alone to make. Heather needed to weigh in as well.
Two weeks after signing into Fort Stewart, Darren met with the division chaplain to see where they would be putting him. Once President Bush announced the surge, it was a foregone conclusion that he would eventually be heading over to Iraq. The only question was when.
After taking his first couple of weeks to in-process into the army, Darren learned he would be deploying with a unit at a later date. He met with fellow chaplains and his future chaplain’s assistant from this brigade. Everything seemed set; he knew the brigade he’d be serving with and started to get to know the men and women in it.
Then suddenly everything changed. He was told they were putting him in an infantry brigade, one that was surging. Both the division chaplain and the brigade chaplain asked him if he was okay with the change, and he said yes—but he wanted to talk with Heather about it first.
As always, his wife’s response was levelheaded and thoughtful.
“Do you remember after we first met,” she said, “when you were still working in Athens and I was preparing to go back to China to teach English?”
“Yeah,” Darren said. “You were going to be gone a few years.”
“But after we got engaged, I decided I would only go for a year, then come back and get married.”
Darren nodded. They both knew Heather didn’t, in fact, return to China. Instead, they proceeded to get married just a few months later.
“I remember talking to Cindy about it one day and crying about that decision. About how long I’d have to be gone. I knew that at the end of our lives, I would look back and say I wished we’d taken every opportunity to spend it together.” She took his hand in both of hers. “I think that maybe this is the Lord’s way of getting that year back from each of us. He simply had another destination in mind. Not China, but Iraq.”
Darren couldn’t help but kiss his wife, still feeling like the luckiest guy in the world to have her by his side.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said.
The next day, he went back to talk to Chaplain Colonel John Rodgers to give him an official answer. He could tell by the colonel’s face that this was a monumental decision; the stakes were high.
“The timing is not ideal, son,” Chaplain Rodgers said. “I know you just finished basic, and I’d like to see you get more noncombat experience first, but a military-wide shortage on chaplains says otherwise.”
“I understand, sir. They’re putting me in the infantry battalion. Under Lieutenant Colonel Jacobsen.”
Rodgers gave him a somber nod. “Surge unit. Serving folks who spend their days clearing roads laced with IEDs. Means they have confidence in you.”
That’s where I’m meant to be. Where God wants me to serve.
“I’m ready, sir.”
“The 1–30th is going be at the tip of the spear in Iraq,” Rodgers said. “There’s going be a high risk of casualties.”
“I understand that, sir.”
“Look, Darren—the death of a soldier is the toughest thing you’ll face as a chaplain. There are other meaningful ways you can serve the army without heading straight into the thick of it.”
“I signed up to be where the need is, sir,” Darren said. “And twelve months’ll go by fast.”
“Bit faster than fifteen, for sure.”
“Fifteen, sir?”
Rodgers gave him a short nod. “Fifteen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The infantry unit’s already been out in the field training, but you can join them for their final week. You’ll have March and April to get ready before deploying. You’ll be doing lots of boring stuff like sorting out your medical and legal things. But the good news is you’ll have two weeks of leave for a final vacation before you go. My suggestion is you enjoy every second of your time here before May arrives.”
5
There was something thrilling about taking a broken and abandoned piece of furniture and restoring it. Heather loved finding pieces from Goodwill and fixing them up, turning them into beautiful furnishings for their home. Friends had even asked her to do this for certain pieces they had found. Today she was finished with her latest big project: restoring a dresser. She couldn’t wait to show it off to Darren when he got home.
The original was a bulky piece with loose drawers and an ugly faded brown color. After painting the dresser, she put in new metal drawer slides and handles. The white chalk paint allowed the detail and hardware to pop, especially the intricate wood carving along the top edges.
When she heard Darren open the door and greet the kids, Heather walked into the family room to meet him.
“Hey, babe,” she said as he leaned down and gave her a kiss. “I want to show you something.”
Leading him to their bedroom, she threw out an arm like the hostess
on a quiz show to point out the new centerpiece of their room.
“Did you just buy that?” he asked.
“No! It’s that dresser I picked up a month ago. The one sitting in the garage taking up space.”
Darren walked up to it and felt the edges. “It looks brand-new,” he said.
“See? I told you it had potential. All it needed was some TLC. And a little time to make it happen.”
“I think you should start doing this for a living,” he said with a smile. “Open up a little shop. Sell these for ten times the price you make them for.”
“So does that mean you’ll stay at home with the kids and homeschool them?”
“Oh, that’s right,” he joked. “Details. This really is something, though.”
“Little by little we’re getting there.” She was making the new house their own, slowly but surely, in small and significant ways.
6
They may be misplaced, forgotten, or misdirected, but in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.
The writing leapt off the pages and into Darren’s heart. He didn’t simply feel inspired to action; he felt ignited.
As Darren scanned through highlighted portions of Wild at Heart, he remembered why he had felt so strongly about joining the army and serving with men and women. He knew his calling, and a big part of him was excited to be taking this next step.
So there comes a time in a man’s life when he’s got to break away from all that and head off into the unknown with God.
It spoke to him as a man, but a man made in God’s own image. Yes, a man is a dangerous thing, Eldredge wrote, using the scalpel as an example of being able to both wound and save a life.
Chaplain Rodgers had initially thought he would be better suited sitting behind a desk in a safer environment, but Darren knew he was ready. He believed he would be strong and brave. He would provide important emotional and spiritual support for soldiers after their combat missions.
With a stack of books next to him on his desk, Darren knew there would never be enough time for him to spend studying. First and foremost, he spent hours in the Word, knowing how vital it was not only for his position but for his very being. There was a battle going on even greater than the one in Iraq: a spiritual battle raging every day, and the only way to survive and win was spending time with God. Seeking Him required discipline and determination. And now that he would be heading overseas, Darren knew he needed to arm and prepare himself even more.
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