What does a world tabernacled with grace look like? … Ramadi … a field hospital … an armless Marine weeping late at night knowing he will never hold his child again? All I know is that such a world cloaked in His love creates a triumph of grace. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”—Ephesians 2:8
“Ride’s here, Sir.”
“Roger that, Staff Sergeant. Alright, you take care of the platoon and I’ll see you in the Snake Pit in a couple of days. God bless. Oorah!”
The unforgiving sun hit me in the face like an opened oven as I walked out of the large, air-conditioned tent. My blue eyes and Casper-white skin had not yet acclimated to the alien desert environment. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the blinding sunlight. They did, just in time to see a group of five or six Marines walking towards us. They had come to bring us—“green” Lima company lieutenants—the short distance from Camp Ramadi to our new base of operations known as the “Snake Pit.” This first meeting would be the beginning of a two-week process known as a relief-in-place, where one military unit gradually switches battlefield responsibilities with another. The Marines who picked us up that afternoon looked thin— their taut skin darkened by the brutal sun. They were somewhat reticent, but when they did speak, it was with an urgency that hinted at a threat I could not yet see or understand. Some of the Marines seemed to look past us and gave off an unfamiliar, angry vibe. Other than the obligatory “Sir,” they paid little attention to garrison etiquette. Their vehicles bore the scars of urban combat: burn marks and missing hunks of metal, the effects of various IED blasts, and small arms fire. We had been briefed on the casualties that their unit had sustained these last seven months. Their company commander had been killed in an IED explosion, and I shuddered when, later, they described how they were forced to use a shovel to scrape his charred body off the melted seat. “He looked like a doggone burnt hot dog,” one said sardonically, as if talking about a barbecue fail. I realized that I was actually unnerved, maybe even scared: I was scared of fellow Marines. I could not figure out why. Perhaps I was afraid thinking about what could have possibly made them seem so different from us. If such a transformation had happened to them in such a short time, what would happen to us—to me? With little time to indulge in an existential moment, we loaded into their gun trucks and departed the relative safety of massive Camp Ramadi for the ominous looking streets of the city.
As we began to roll forward, I checked and re-checked my weapons to make sure the magazines of the 9MM pistol and M16-A2 rifle were properly inserted. For months leading up to the deployment, I had had a reoccurring nightmare in which I was engaged in a firefight and every time I pulled the trigger, my magazine either fell out or sprayed a non-lethal barrage of staples. Ludicrous as these dreams were, I felt like I had to ensure they remained just foolish dreams. My throat burned and my hands shook as I fumbled with my weapons, checking they were on “safe,” but also ready to unload some double pizza box hell1 on any potential enemy targets that might spring out. The Humvee jostled across the bridge which spanned the Euphrates River and led us into the combat zone of the legendary, the lethal, Ramadi, Iraq.
Ramadi had once been a beautiful Arabian city with palaces, large mosques, elegant “mansions” and ancient structures serenely nestled between the Euphrates River and a tributary canal. Farm lands on the outskirts of the city and scenic palm trees softening the urban landscape had given Ramadi a charming almost resort-like feel. But in the early fall of 2005, Ramadi was a city ruined by war. As we drove over the bridge, my mouth dropped as I saw the urban landscape in the daylight for the first time. What I saw could have been in a scene from one of those post-apocalyptic, lawless Hollywood worlds, like those in The Road, Mad Max, or Terminator. How could anyone live in this savage place? But as battered as Ramadi looked, I soon discovered that her heart still beat ferociously. We were marked. We were hunted with precision. We blindly hunted for ghosts in return.
The rip of automatic gunfire echoing off the concrete buildings.
Rockets tearing through the air like a jet airliner exploding with earthquake like power.
Mortar rounds whistling like deadly raindrops.
Improvised explosive devices detonating in the distance with deadly precision.
Bullet holes and burn marks scarring the city structures telling the stories of hundreds of engagements between American and “Mujahideen” fighters.
Feral cats and mangy wild dogs running through the trash-filled streets.
Remains of concrete buildings.
Insipid tarns of sewage and foul-smelling standing water festering under 110-degree heat. In the middle of this macabre scene were the civilian survivors, who attempted to navigate the man-made obstacles of war and live their lives—trapped and without the basic municipal services that humans come to expect as basic in a 21st century world. I wanted to leave immediately.
Another mission, yet another convoy through the city. The early flashes of dawn shimmered through the windshield, encouraging the occupants of the up-armored Humvee to begin to locate their sunglasses. I eyed our route, directed a turn to the Marine driving. Private First Class Bedard’s blue eyes met mine for a moment as he responded with a firm “Yes, Sir.” He turned our armored Humvee gun truck onto the dirt road. My God. This road is dirt. This is bad, my mind screamed. The earth erupted.
Heat.
Twisted metal.
Fire.
Our 12,000-pound vehicle was tossed into the air like a toy truck. In the first moment of the explosion, I lurched forward as if on a fast-moving roller coaster about to make the incline on a loop. This was followed by some time in slow-motion weightlessness. The engulfing shockwave of the detonation took place in a surreal silence as it rippled through metal, blood, and flesh. The pure silence amplified the sharp ping of sand ricocheting off the metal hull of the gun truck’s cabin, lightly peppering my face and stinging my eyes. As soon as we crashed back to earth, reality jolted me back to my senses and I felt the full, raw violence of the explosion rush through me. I tried to catch my breath.
Triage.
Don’t panic.
Think.
What happened?
We just hit an IED and I am not dead.
Is anyone else?
This is going to really slow our operation down. Captain Quinn is going to be pissed.
How long will it take for them to get me out of here?
I can’t take being trapped in small spaces.
I really can’t move.
Get me OUT!
(Silence.)
Can’t move.
Left leg hurts … a lot. Probably broken.
With the cabin of the vehicle collapsed around me, I tried to shout out but could not hear my own voice. My mouth was caked with something. I gasped for air but choked on dust and grains of sand. My panic rose as I fought to suck in a breath of air similar to the sensation of confused fright that a Marine recruit would experience if they attempted to suck in the CS gas of the boot camp gas chamber. I pushed myself up with my legs, but stopped instantly as sharp pain screamed through my left leg and overwhelmed my senses. Definitely broken and I can’t get out of here. Fear morphed into terrified anguish as the smell of diesel from the ruptured fuel tank seeped into my nose. “We gotta get out of here. Diesel. It’s diesel. Get me out!” someone screamed. Thoughts of burning to death in a metallic sepulcher flooded into my mind as visions of my body recoiling, searing flames feeding on my flesh flashed before my eyes. Jesus, God, GET ME OUT OF HERE!
Clank! Clank! Clank! I watched, fascinated, as the M16 strapped around my body knocked repeatedly against the side of the hatch and the mangled remains of my seat. The barrel is bent, I thought to myself. That’s odd.
“Take your harness off!” someone bellowed from above. I unsnapped my harness and was jerked free from what was left of the truck. The tugging from behind stopped and I fell to my knees. Unable to stand, I glimpsed the remains of the smoldering truck as I continued to gasp for air and try to find my voice. Lieutenant Watson, the company executive officer, had been riding in the seat behind me and had been able to escape the destroyed Humvee. Once free himself, he began to help the rest of the crew still trapped inside. I tried, and failed, to get off my knees and began to hoarsely bellow for PFC Bedard, the driver of the Humvee—the blue-eyed, blond-haired 19 year-old who had been sitting inches from me before the earth exploded. “Bedard! Bedard!” I croaked. There was no response, and before I knew it, Watson had me under his arms and was dragging me away from the wreckage.
Smoke.
Heat.
Hood of the Humvee immediately behind us in a crater.
Truck bed up ahead.
Plumes of smoke blotting out the warm rays of sunlight.
“Corpsman, up!”
“IED. Two vehicles hit,” I groaned over my radio.
Watson helped lift me into the back of a truck and closed the doors to protect me from potential enemy fire. Before I had time to think, the back doors were flung open and Marines lifted our corpsman into the truck beside me. Doc “Leo” had been sitting behind PFC Bedard in our gun truck. “Hey, Sir,” Doc Leo exclaimed weakly. His dark brown eyes betrayed the pain he was choking back. Lieutenant Watson and I tried to make Doc as comfortable as possible, holding his hand and giving him sips of water when he asked. Leo’s right leg was twisted nearly off below the knee; it held on to his body by a few threads of yellowish skin and sinews of gnarled tissue. A self-administered tourniquet stopped the blood loss from his leg but not from his mouth. “How bad is my leg, Sir? Is it still there, Sir? Can I have some water, Sir?” “DON’T MOVE,” ordered Lieutenant Watson. Doc ignored the company XO and proceeded to attempt to treat my wounds, all the while gasping and choking on his own blood.
How are you, Sir? Is that your blood, Sir? Here, take this gauze, Sir. How am I doing? My God, this guy is unbelievable, I thought, my mind racing as my eyes fogged with burning tears. Once Doc Leo was convinced that I was stable, he obeyed Watson’s orders to stop moving and softly asked for some more water. Watson gave it to him in slow, deliberate drinks.
My mind raced. How could such an amazing man be wounded so violently? Where were PFC Bedard and Lance Corporal Seeley, the gunner in the vehicle’s turret? Had someone said that there was a KIA? Who was it? What should I do? Could I get up and move? Why wasn’t I? Why wasn’t I even trying to get back up? Unable to make sense of the chaos surrounding me, I simply closed my eyes and prayed as the truck raced toward Ramadi medical. Please God, help us.
We arrived at the medical field hospital. The nurses brought Doc Leo in first where he was quickly assessed and brought directly to surgery. I was brought into hospital; became somewhat “snow blind” from being brought out of the piercing sunlight into the relative darkness of the hospital; placed on a medical table; surrounded by medical personnel; stripped down; quickly assessed. I had deep penetrating shrapnel wounds to my left hip and hamstring as well as what appeared to be less significant lacerations on my left hand, under my pointer finger, and under my chin. I remember feeling the deep pains in my left leg, but believed I was dealing with nothing more than a broken leg. A shotgun style blast of shrapnel had entered my left hamstring and penetrated deep into the leg. The entry wound was jagged and portions of tissue and muscle were protruding from the site.
“Ok, Ok, this will definitely be sore for a while. But I think you should be good to go in three months,” said the first nurse—before he looked at any X-rays. Another nurse told me that I was probably in shock. “Don’t tell him that,” said a 3rd nurse. I then felt warm saline flowing through my arm, tingling my face and releasing floods of pain relieving dopamine once it reached my head. I felt like I was being wrapped in a warm blanket. My first experience with morphine left me feeling the temporary opium “veil” of no pain.
“1st Sergeant! That you? Over here. Where’s Bedard?”
Silence
“He’s gone, Sir.”
Gone.
Please God … please God … be with him.
I was later told that the explosion had blown Bedard out of the driver’s seat onto a sand dune several feet away from the vehicle. The marines searching for him had struggled to locate his body. He was covered in a thin layer of sand. He looked as if he had been laid down gently; his arms were folded across his chest as though he were sleeping serenely. The three-hundred-pound Humvee door—his door—was just feet away from him.
Before leaving for Iraq, I had gone on pre-deployment leave in Virginia and stopped by my Aunt Leslie’s house on the outskirts of Old Town, Alexandria. As my Uncle Jim, Aunt Leslie, cousins Taylor and Olivia, and I said our tearful goodbyes, Aunt Leslie handed me a small New Testament Bible. The leather-bound Bible was very small, smaller than an iPhone. As Aunt Leslie choked back tears, she opened the Bible and showed me the inscription on the inside cover: Read this wherever you are and you will come back the way you are. Someone had given the Bible to Aunt Leslie’s uncle before he went to fight in the Korean War. Struggling to hold back tears and finding it hard to breathe, I took the Bible and put it in my pocket. A month later, as I prepared to deploy with my unit, I put the Bible in a small zip-lock bag and placed it in the breast pocket of my blouse—where it remained the entire time I was deployed.
The Zippo clicked as I pulled the first comforting drag of blue smoke deep into my lungs. The Marlboro cigarette hung from my lips, the smoke stinging my nostrils as I sat staring at a small laptop in the lieutenants’ room of the Snake Pit. “Orientation … Situation … Mission …” my fingers typing out the plan designed to keep the fog of battle at bay for as long as possible. For no reason at all, I stretched and tapped my chest, my fingers noticing the small Bible in my left breast pocket. I pulled it out of my blouse and coincidently flipped to Psalm 23.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want …
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou
art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me …
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.
A sense of calm came over me like a warm embrace; I no longer felt anxious about where I was or the mission we were about to undertake. I had never been much of a Bible reader and was unfamiliar with specific biblical passages, so the fact that I randomly turned to Psalm 23 and had such a calming reaction to the words seemed like more than just a coincidence to me. I felt compelled to share this message with my platoon. I had never prayed with them before—I didn’t even know if they were spiritual. But in that moment, I didn’t care if they were or not. I wanted to share with them the mollifying message of love that I had just experienced, even if I didn’t fully understand it myself.
When I had finished issuing the five-paragraph order to the dimly lit, concrete-walled room full of marines, I “asked” if I could read them something from the Bible. The room became dead quiet. Taking the pristine silence as their collective consent, I read the Psalm. When I was finished, I closed the small Bible and waited for some sort of reaction from my marines. I wondered if anyone would speak. No one did.
“You are in Baghdad and we will take care of you.”
“Well, looking at these X-rays, you’re certainly going home.”
“That’s right, to The United States of America.”
Two six inch incisions were now visible on the front of my left leg. The gaping slits started at my groin and seemed huge—big enough to put a hand into.
“Look at all this shrapnel we took out of your leg—wow.”
“We almost lost an intern in your wound!”
I scream into the waist of the doc as he rips something from deep inside my leg.
“STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“We need to pull these bandages out of your leg to take off the dead tissue and ensure that the leg has good blood flow.”
“Umm. This is a lot of blood. Let me get a surgeon.”
“Are you Catholic? Are you Catholic? Lt. Hendricks, please open your eyes. Are you Catholic? ‘Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.’ ”
Well that was nice.
“I hate this war. I can’t find anymore shrapnel to take off your femoral besides these pieces. I know there are still more in there. I just can’t get them. They’ll help you in the US.”
“Where am I?”
May I have another shot of morphine? Please …”
“Welcome home. Welcome to the 5th floor of Bethesda. We got you, OK?”
“Lt. Hendricks? This is Captain Quinn.”
After a brief conversation discussing how I was doing, he got to the main point of his call. Several Marines in my old platoon had been severely wounded in a catastrophic series of IED blasts. The survivors were being evacuated to Walter Reed and Bethesda. Captain Quinn wanted to know if I would visit them when they arrived and provide him with periodic updates on their progress. It didn’t take long for them to trace the path home that I had and soon after the phone conversation, I found myself meeting with one of those Marines at Walter Reed Medical Center. Cort had been a tall (maybe 6 foot), kind, likeable young man. His affable smile stretched across his dark skinned face as I leaned down to give him a hug. His usual gleaming eyes were dulled and hazy—side effect of the narcotic painkillers. My heart truly sank as I looked down at his chair. Both of his legs were gone above the knees. The air sucked from my lungs. A flood of emotion seemed to engulf my head. I stumbled backwards to my chair, using as much bearing as I could muster to keep my composure. As we talked, we recalled the October night when I had read Psalm 23 and had prayed with the men.
“I wish all officers would pray with their marines like that. I felt like nuthin could hurt us after I heard those words,” Cort struggled to say. His voice hoarse from the extended incubation period he endured immediately after his IED attack. His emotions still raw from his experience and seeming overwhelmed by his own words, we both struggled with the power of the moment.
I can’t understand the indifferent, cold sneer of who lives and who dies in war—Bedard and I were separated by 12 inches. He is dead. I am alive. There is no meaning found here.
Why did I tell Bedard to take that road? Why did he have to die? Doc Leo lost his leg and had severe internal injuries; Seeley’s body was busted. Did I cause Bedard’s death and the injuries to Seeley and Doc Leo in some way? If a different lieutenant had been sitting in my seat, would they all be OK today? Am I a coward for requesting and agreeing to begin the medical evaluation board process to see if I was qualified to remain in the military?
No therapist was able to answer any of these questions for me. No medication could make the guilt or shame go away. No amount of alcohol could wash the memories from my mind. Not even family members—such as my most beloved wife Lynn—were able to provide me with complete peace. So what was I to do? Those black plumes of smoke that blotted out the sun’s rays that fateful morning weren’t clearing from my soul. They were beginning to choke me.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” Isaiah 43:2
My spiritual metanoia did not happen over-night. There were many long nights filled with nightmares and mornings of self-doubt that made me question the decisions that I made in Ramadi in the months after I returned. I have questioned and doubted the ultimate “plan” that people kept telling me exists and in which I should have faith. “What plan is that?” I would often think to myself or say to a person attempting to console me.
I have felt the soul-consuming fires of rage, revenge, anger, fear, and the self-destructive pangs of guilt and self-hate. I have felt alone—even after going to a church service or hearing my wife tell me that she loves me. The temptation to mourn, to doubt, to loathe myself or others is always just around the corner. I have doubted the wisdom of God’s plan and even scoffed at the power of prayer or point of believing in a God who could allow such things to happen. I have ignored going to church.
The change began for me in small whispers. The fall after I was discharged from the marines, I began working in a Catholic high school and found myself busy, engaged, needed—I’d become part of something bigger than myself. I was surrounded by people of faith and young teenagers filled with hope and optimism. Required to pray with my students before each class and attend mass as a school community once a month. I honored my teaching responsibilities for nearly 5 years before I actually began to understand and believe in the words that I was speaking and hearing.
I was blessed with some very good people who became part of my life and shared their faith stories, thus encouraging me to develop a relationship with Christ. My wife helped me with my spiritual injuries more than anyone else. She never left my side. She never became angry with me. She kept pushing me to continue breathing. She brought me back to church. She is the one who initially helped me to turn to God during those dark moments. She is the partner who took me by the hand and guided me—even when I wanted to let go. With her help and the help of other close mentors, I slowly began to turn to prayer and faith as a path to spiritual recovery.
I soon realized that not all those positive elements in my life were chance; they were not random; they were not luck. They were God’s grace. My re-established faith was simply allowing me to see them for what they were: Whispers of God’s grace present in my life all the time. I now pray every day: “God forgive me; give me the strength to do what is right; to be a good man; to be a good husband and a good father; to live a worthy life—one that Bedard would be proud of—one that honors the blessings You have bestowed upon me. Give me the strength to accept Your will and faith to understand that I am not in control.”
As I pray, I do find solace and comfort. God’s love guides me through the darkest moments and helps me to “get up,” shake the dust, and ready myself for the goodness sure to be found in that day. I go back to church on Sundays—even if I have had a bad Tuesday or Wednesday or Friday. I go back. On my knees, I thank God for my wife Lynn and our children, Hadley and Sean. I thank him for my parents and sisters. I thank Him for calling me to be a teacher. “My children are angels that deserve a father who is present for them mind, body, and soul. My wife is all that is good in this world. I love them all so much and know that their presence is a miracle that cannot be squandered. They are cornerstones of my life—Your grace personified. Help me to be a good father, a good husband, a good son, a good teacher,” I pray. In addition to prayer and attending church, I read the Bible. While reading the inspired words of God, I do believe that I begin to discover who God, who Jesus Christ, and who the Holy Spirit are; I begin to understand the healing power that comes by fostering a relationship with Him.
Ultimately, I must choose to have faith and I must choose to live a better life. I have learned that my faith must be the center of who I am because when it is, all other aspects of my life flourish. Acknowledging that some readers may find my faith in the healing power of God’s grace hard to believe, all I can say is that I hear your doubts. I have lived your doubts. By choosing to live those doubts, I experienced nothing but more anger, more frustration, more fear, and much more sadness. By flipping the script—over time—and choosing to live the life of a believer, I have experienced love, joy, success, and hope. By choosing to have faith, I recognize God’s grace which has enabled me to become a committed husband, a loving father of two living angels, and a dedicated high school English teacher charged with helping young people achieve their dreams. I am able to thwart the darkness in my life and allow love to guide me with purpose in my heart. My message to anyone, to any veteran, who is struggling to find answers and hurting in the darkness of your personal experiences: Give God’s love a chance. You may be surprised by the resulting light that you see in your own life.
While almost nothing else that I was actually wearing on the day that we were hit by the IED explosion—not even the contacts in my eyes—made it back to the US, somehow the small Bible did. I choose to believe that this truth is not a random coincidence. Every day I look down at the deformed wound and jagged scars on my left leg and fully embrace the periodic sharp pains that come from living with a wound of war. I look at the medicine vial filled with chunks of shrapnel that I keep in my family room display hutch. I take the fragments out and roll them between my fingers. My nose cringes as I smell the metallic pong and I am screamed back to that transformative, dark October day. Instinctively, I reach for the small Bible resting next to the vial and continue to read the healing words—embraced by the light of His love.