There
are moments in time that change you forever.
High school and college graduations, if you’re a Christian the day you
got saved, your first kiss, your wedding day, the day you have a child, and the
one that I think about almost every day since it happened. I’m talking about the day that you look death
in the face and are blessed with making it another day. That day for me will stand out forever
because it’s the day that God told me “I’m not done with you yet, you have more
to do.” I’m not saying I actually heard
God say those words out loud and the sky cracked open with light shining
down. What I am saying is that I KNOW
that’s what He was telling me in my head.
It was a hot day, just like all the
other days I had been in Iraq, and the good old US army was putting a
protective coating on the floor of our dining facility, so we had to cook and
serve dinner that day outside from our mobile kitchen trailer. In between making sure the serving line
stayed stocked and the line kept moving along my coworkers and I would get to
talking about upcoming missions. The
soldier I was talking to was getting ready to go to a checkpoint with no shower
available so I was informing him about some pre soaped individually wrapped
washcloths we had that he could take with him.
We had hit a good point in serving where I knew everything would be okay
for a few minutes so I offered to show him where we kept them. The moment I opened the door to the storage
unit there was a very loud BOOM! We were surrounded by generators that kept all
of our buildings going with electricity, so at first for a split second I
thought “one of the generators must have somehow blown up”. But then, BOOM! BOOM!
BOOM! My mind clicked into gear and realized we were being attacked.
“Move your ass! NOW! We’ve got to
get inside!” I hollered at the private standing next to me. We crouched and ran at the same time, diving
under an unused kitchen trailer along the way for some momentary cover. We saw a couple of other people getting low
to the ground and some that looked like they might not be moving. During a brief pause in the attack I tugged
on the private’s collar and shouted “Let’s move now!” We made it into the building, which was only
made out of the same materials as your standard mobile home, but at least it
was surrounded by large stone barriers.
The floor was still sticky from whatever they had painted on it to
protect it from spilled food. Nobody
cared, we were all laying down on our bellies just trying to wait out the
attack.
There was a guy next to me that was
holding his neck. He moved his hand and
asked me if he was bleeding. Do you know
that moment when you cut yourself shaving and you know it happened, but it
takes a few seconds for the blood to show up?
Well, that’s what happened with this guy, so at first my answer was
no. When the blood started coming out I
told him and then proceeded to look for something to hold over his neck to stop
the bleeding. It turned out it looked
worse than it actually was, he had been hit by a tiny piece of shrapnel, and
even though it bled a lot, he would be okay.
I wish I could have said the same for one of the other soldiers that got
a piece of shrapnel in the neck. She
died, then was resuscitated, and then completely gave up and died a second
time.
The soldier that died that evening
was a female. She died because a piece
of shrapnel lodged in her carotid and couldn’t be moved. If they would have taken it out she would have
bled to death, but she still died anyway.
She was standing where I and my soldier were standing only moments
before. I know it was God that took me
away from that spot at that moment. That
soldier that was with me says I saved his life that day, but I tell him that it
was God, not me that saved both of us.
There are parts of this memory that
will always be a blur to me. I don’t
remember if I saw that female soldier laying on the ground bleeding to
death. I don’t remember how many IEDs
came over the barriers that night. What
I do remember are some brave soldiers reacting how they’ve been trained to, and
I will never forget seeing everything the next morning. There were holes everywhere from the
shrapnel. Our refrigerator trucks were
bleeding grape juice that stained the outside of their white surface. Our mobile kitchen trailers had several rips
and holes as well.
The
hardest part of it all was not being able to tell my wife anything about it
when I got to talk to her the next day.
It seemed impossible to maintain any kind of normal conversation without
constantly flashing back to what had just happened the prior night. I know I talked and it must have made some
kind of sense. I know I told her I loved
her, probably several times, but I felt horrible for not being able to tell
her, and also not wanting to tell her because I didn’t want her to worry. My plan was to wait until I got home to tell
her, but I think I ended up telling her before then.
Now
it’s time to talk about the reason God saved me that day. I really believe He had and hopefully still
has big plans for me. Within a year of
me returning home from Iraq my wife and I signed up to take PRIDE classes, the
mandatory training to become foster parents.
By November of the year following my return we were licensed and had our
first placement. I don’t think I can
share the reason we got these kids, but it was a very sad story. I guess any story that ends with kids being
separated from their parents would be sad, but this was extremely sad. We only had them for about four months, and
before they left we got one more child that is still with us today. Just a month or so after they left we got two additional kids, a six year old and a two year old, both girls. They have a baby brother that we also now have, but the six year old has gone to live with family in another state. It is looking like the two baby boys and two year old girl we have are going to be legally free for adoption soon and we have every intention of doing just that.
