Indivisible

by Travis Thrasher

  May 7, 2008

  Happy Mother’s Day!! To all moms, thanks! Especially to my mom—thanks and I love you! I can’t imagine how it must be to have a son in combat. I salute you!

  I want to wish my wife a very special Mother’s Day!

  Heather, you are a great mom to our babies! They love you so much, and I love watching you with them. I’m so glad the Lord has given us the privilege of you staying at home to raise our kids. I’d want no one else to have the influence on them that you do. You honor and cherish them, encouraging them to be the persons God created them to be. You think about what’s best for each of them. That is a gift I stand in awe of. When you tell me what you learn about each one, and what God has shown you about each one’s heart and character, I rejoice. That is definitely the gift of a mom! That is why I celebrate you today!

  I’ve enjoyed watching you blossom this year, Heather. In a few more weeks you will enter your first triathlon. You have worked hard to get there, and it’s been a dream of yours for a long time. How you’ve done it in the midst of everything else in a given day of family life, I haven’t a clue. Also, you’ll be leading a wives’ prayer breakfast at Fort Stewart soon. It’s been good for me to watch you enjoy being in the army and being with soldiers’ spouses. I know you’re going to do well leading that. And you’re learning to play the piano, which I’ve heard, and it sounds great! I can’t wait to get back and play guitar with you as you tickle the keys!

  I have a song for us: “Maybe I’m amazed at the way you love me all the time . . .” Paul McCartney took the words right out of my mouth.

  Here is a passage from the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. Yes, this is straight out of God’s Word. It’s literally about King Solomon with his bride, but also speaks of God and His way with us. He is a lover, and knows the anticipation of wanting to be with His bride—those of us who believe! But it’s also a model, an example, of how a husband is to be with his wife. For that, I’m very glad!

  “How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes . . . Your lips . . . Your neck . . . (And some other body parts, read it yourself!) . . . You have stolen my heart . . . my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes” (Song 4:1–9). Time to pull the blinds now!

  Once again, Happy Mother’s Day! I’m sure I speak for our three little ones. You deserve it. And best of all . . . you are mine! I’m counting the days, hours, minutes till I’m home and together with you again. All my love,

  Your husband

  May 14, 2008

  . . . As chaplain we have several different classes we have to teach to every soldier—usually to platoon-size groups—before we go home. We had training to show us the content and some ideas on how to keep it interesting and engaging. It is extremely boring if you just do it by the book. But that’s not my plan . . . ☺ I can’t stand boring lectures, so I will spice it up a bit with some video clips, jokes, role playing, etc. It is serious content (suicide prevention, family reintegration, don’t be a soldier at home with your wife and kids, etc.), but it doesn’t have to be too heavy. Those classes will start soon . . .

  June 17, 2008

  We are getting closer and closer, but sooo slowly, every day inching by like Savannah honey in January. I’m beginning to look at my watch way too much. Our homecoming at Fort Stewart is only weeks away. I stand in awe of this year and this deployment with these guys. I will never again take for granted our military personnel all around us, especially ones who have deployed before. It’s funny, I’m almost sad to leave. Can’t believe I just said that. Wow . . . but it’s true. I can’t explain what it’s like to have been through a combat tour like this with these guys. I know some of them better than their families do. I have had times of extreme heartache and vulnerability with them, more than once wondering if we were really going to get out of a situation. Surrendering to the possibility of breathing your last breath at any moment is a sobering experience. Doing business with God and your life and everything in between . . . It’s actually very healthy! Until you’re ready to die, you’re not really alive. Only then can you look any given day in the face and say “Here I come!” And God willing, make it through . . .

  June 23, 2008

  . . . I ask you to continue praying for us, not only for our safety, but for our upcoming reunion with our families. That’s not always a good thing for some soldiers. Some have been stabbed in the back and taken for all they’re worth. Others have big decisions to make. Still others don’t know what to expect. It’s a huge transition, from here back to there. I also have some decisions to make about our future. I’m nervous, but excited. Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers. I hope this journal has given you a good look into what a combat tour is like through my eyes these past fourteen months . . .

  Darren

  THE FINAL MONTH

  1

  July 1, 2008

  Hello, everyone! Man, is it good to be alive . . . and headed home soon! Unless you’ve deployed to a combat zone before, you can’t even imagine how giddy everybody is around here. Most of the guys are joking, doing stupid guy stuff, and generally having a ball right now. It’s blazing hot, but who cares? It has to get hotter before we leave, so bring it on! This will probably be my last update for a while, possibly until I get back home. We’re packing and things are getting busy . . .

  2

  Lance was loading boxes of ammunition into the back of a Humvee when Darren arrived on the scene. He could smell the exhaust from the running engines and knew they were heading out soon.

  “Gather ’round, let’s go!” Michael’s voice shouted out nearby.

  Darren looked around and found the major walking to the front of another vehicle. When Michael saw him, Darren flipped an Armor of God coin toward him. Michael swiftly caught it, gave Darren a playful You shouldn’t have done that stare, and tossed the coin right back—except Darren didn’t move and only watched it land in the dirt.

  Michael simply shrugged.

  “Putting a coin in your pocket doesn’t mean you believe,” Darren said. “But who knows. Might help you consider when it matters.”

  Michael ignored the chaplain’s comment, focusing instead on the soldiers who were gathering around him. It seemed that in the major’s eyes faith was something you could talk about off the clock, when you just wanted to kill time. For now, his concern was with final checks on M4s and handguns and knives and scopes, and making sure the armor was in place and everybody had enough ammunition and PowerBars.

  “All right. So, eyes alert,” Michael told the men around him. “Scan the rooftops, windows. Watch the road, grandmothers, kids, livestock, and bumps in a field. Follow our ROE and stay alive. Got it?”

  The soldiers confirmed they got it, and Michael turned to look back at Darren.

  “Chaplain . . . Do what you do.”

  Darren pulled out his small, tattered Bible. Many of the soldiers bowed their heads, and several even took a knee. Lance was one who knelt while Darren read the prayer for the day, then paraphrased an assortment of Bible passages he’d marked.

  “The proud have laid their snares, and along the path they have set traps to catch me. But you are my strong deliverer. You shield my head in the day of battle. Do not grant the wicked their desires, Lord. Do not let their plans succeed. Amen.”

  As Darren opened his eyes, he saw Michael’s hand slipping the coin into his pocket as he boarded his Humvee.

  “Chaplain! You not comin’?”

  Darren turned to see Lance, sweaty and grinning.

  “Not today. Got some meetings, and they want me to start packing up. But hey—you don’t need me, Bradley.” Darren gave a nod to the sky. “You got something way better. See you tonight.”

  Another routine convoy, another set of vehicles moving out, the soldiers armed and ready. Darren walked back to his quarters, knowing the moment was finally here. He was packing to head home.

  3

  The words felt like shrapnel stuck in his leg o
r arm, lodged so deep inside he couldn’t see them but knew they were there. Darren could feel their numbing pain as he glanced over his journal—not the online journal where he censored his most raw and real emotions, but the leather notebook where he had been scribing thoughts and feelings since his arrival in Iraq.

  Shonda walked in and found him lost in those dark and sometimes hopeless words. “Bit too real?” she asked as she saw the look on his face.

  He nodded, closing the journal and tossing it into his big backpack. “Yeah, even for me. I didn’t want to sugarcoat things out here, but this’ll have to wait a few years. Or ten, before Sam reads it.”

  As he loaded his video recorder and all the mini dv tapes into his bag, he added, “I’m glad Heather’s never going to have to watch these.”

  “You certainly have a lot of them,” Shonda said, partly teasing him about all those silly videos and pictures he had taken over the year.

  “I almost feel like I can breathe again,” he said.

  That motherly look Shonda just couldn’t help giving him appeared once again. “Good to hear, Chaplain. Been worried about you lately.” She gave him a thin smile. “And before I forget, thank you. Your being here made a big difference. In where I’m headed when I get back.”

  This was news to Darren. “As in?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’m thinking maybe I won’t be a half-bad mom when I get back. And probably won’t fight my own mom so much.”

  Slipping his desk drawer open, Darren pulled out a coin. “So does that mean you wouldn’t mind carrying one of these?”

  “You and your coins,” she said with a smile as she took it. “I’m gonna miss you, Chaplain.”

  “You too, Sergeant Shonda. But I still have a few weeks left. You aren’t rid of me yet. So you hungry? I’m in the mood for a nice soy burger.”

  4

  One moment. Just like that.

  A switch flipped on. A bulb burning out. An engine starting. A door slamming.

  In one single moment, the world can suddenly turn upside down.

  Even though Darren knew this all too well, he hadn’t yet seen it up close and personal. But the moment he saw Lt. Col. Jacobsen walking toward him with that look on his face, Darren knew. Jacobsen was about to flip a switch and shatter the light and deliver some dreadful news.

  “We need to take a walk, Chaplain,” Jacobsen told him without a greeting and without acknowledging Shonda, who was by his side. She headed another direction as Darren followed the officer to the wall at one side of the base.

  “Just got the call. Alpha and Bravo were on their final transitional patrol and hit an IED.”

  Darren nodded. “With due respect, sir. Get to the point, sir.”

  The lieutenant colonel’s eyes weren’t behind shades like usual, yet seeing them didn’t offer Darren any warmth or connection.

  Jacobsen spoke without emotion. “I’m sorry. I know he was a friend . . . We lost Lance Bradley.”

  Darren couldn’t even begin to process the information. He nodded, his body feeling stiff and sweaty, and then followed Jacobsen back to the commons area.

  “Anyone else?” he asked, trying to look calm and controlled. Trying to be a good soldier. Dealing with injuries and deaths came with the territory. Especially if your territory happened to be out there.

  “Man nearest the blast site went to pull Lance out of the wreckage when another went off.” Jacobsen cursed and shook his head, then stopped and looked at Darren. “Michael Lewis. From what I’m told, he’ll make it. But I’m not sure about his legs.”

  Darren just stood there. He could see Jacobsen’s face writhing in pain and anger at the news. He and Michael were tight.

  This wasn’t right. It couldn’t really be happening, could it?

  God couldn’t do something like this, not now, not this close, not so near the finish line. Right.

  Right, God?

  God?

  5

  First stop is Tonya, Mia, and Nia. Then Amanda right afterward. Heather knows she needs to be there for all of them.

  She doesn’t offer glib phrases of comfort, nor does she attempt to appear brave and strong. All she can do is hold Tonya and the girls in her arms and weep alongside them. The Bible is full of weeping men and women; there’s nothing wrong with grief.

  “I’m sorry” is all she can say.

  They know that Michael is alive, and that is good news indeed, all things considered. But Tonya and the twins don’t need to hear that; they already know it. They also know Michael has been injured and will most likely be losing both of his legs.

  “They were so close—so close to coming home,” a weeping Tonya says.

  The timing is truly terrible. But not only that, the fear all of them have carried around has been the news that their husband or father has been killed. Being injured in this way? It’s a surprising curve ball. A rather nasty one.

  Heather knows all the strides Tonya, Mia, and Nia have made with Michael this past year, especially through talking with him on the phone on a regular basis. Their relationship has started to change just as Michael has. Now what will happen? What will he be like when he arrives back home? Will the bitterness return with him, or will something worse accompany him?

  Heather can’t do anything about that—none of them can. All she can do is sit on the couch with these friends, grieving and praying and weeping.

  6

  “The LORD is my light and my salvation— / whom shall I fear? / The LORD is the stronghold of my life— / of whom shall I be afraid?”

  Heather sits in her car, in the early morning hours before a glimpse of sunlight can be seen. In the distance, the Bradley trailer is lit, the figures awake and moving inside. She’s been sitting here for a few minutes, trying to compose herself before going in to see Amanda.

  She says the words of Psalm 27, hoping they can calm her, but her body still shakes and she still feels very alone.

  “When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.”

  * * *

  Darren recalls the same verse as he stands in his quarters, restless and wanting to do more. He’s been praying and reading and preparing for the words he will say tomorrow to the grieving men. They will know his grief, especially since he was particularly close with Lance. They will be paying special attention to the words he says about the death of his friend and fellow soldier, Army Specialist Bradley.

  He opens his Bible and finds the psalm that spoke to his soul in the first few days of 2004, the verses that ultimately convinced him to join the army.

  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.

  For in the day of trouble

  he will keep me safe in his dwelling;

  he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent

  and set me high upon a rock. (Ps. 27:4–5)

  He’s kept me safe, but what about others? Why couldn’t He shelter others in His sacred tent?

  As he paces back and forth, finding prayer difficult, finding any sort of hopeful emotion hard to grasp, he spots the gift bag from Lance. He pulls out a beef jerky, but then sees there’s a card in the bag that he had missed.

  Darren picks up the card and holds on to it, then he falls back into his chair, weeping.

  He can’t read what’s inside. Not yet.

  * * *

  Heather sits on the couch holding Amanda’s hand. The tears have been flowing all morning, yet they still keep coming. The poor young woman is exhausted and terrified, yet she’s still strong enough to open the letter addressed to her from Lance. As she silently reads it, wiping her eyes and then occasionally laughing just a
s her husband would have wanted her to, Heather remains by her side. Asking God over and over again to give Amanda strength and peace. And to help her be the friend she needs right now.

  * * *

  “Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior.”

  Once again Darren stands by dog tags hanging from upended rifles and a pair of desert boots. Speaking to the grieving gathering of soldiers, he shares some fond memories of Lance. He forgets about himself and his emotions and he does his job, helping the men understand and clasp on to some bit of hope despite what’s happened. Levity is something Lance always loved and would have wanted now, so before Darren ends his speech, he sets a bag of jerky by Lance’s boots. The soldiers can’t help but laugh, even those with tears in their eyes.

  He continues to read from Psalm 27. “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”

  He pauses for a second, the words stinging his mouth, his stomach feeling the bitterness inside.

  “We are blessed to be among the living. But going home . . . we must be prepared to face new challenges.”

  Darren looks over to see Shonda’s concerned eyes watching him, but he continues to share from his heart.

  “Anxiety. Anger. Depression. Even ideas that somehow not going on might be better . . . Reject these enemies, and ask for help. Just ask. That’s all we can do . . . That’s all I can do. Just ask—ask, and beg God for a little help here.”

  After the service, Darren heads back to the medical unit, where Michael lies unconscious on a stretcher. Both legs are bandaged, and they’re preparing for him to be evacuated to a hospital for amputation. Darren looks over the strong and rugged face of his friend, closes his eyes, and prays for healing and for help in stirring Michael’s heart.

  As Darren opens his eyes, he sees the personal belongings on the table next to Michael. He reaches over and picks up the ChapStick, then he leans down and gently rubs it over Michael’s dry and cracked lips.