Robert Lively grew up in suburban Washington, DC. When he graduated from Virginia Tech, he left for a six-month, 2,100-mile hike through the Appalachian Trail. When Robert returned, he went to work for a small trucking company, met his future wife, got married, and was then transferred to central Indiana. There, after much reflection, he decided that he wanted to live his true goals and visions and joined the Army. He was twenty-seven when he started basic training. After twenty-eight years and twenty-eight days of service and multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, Robert retired as a command sergeant major.
On June 17, 2001, I have my lower lumbar fused—L4, L5, and S1—the result of having slipped on a vehicle over in Europe and breaking part of my back. Now I’m looking at a long recovery at Walter Reed. I’m thirty-seven years old.
Here’s my daily therapy back at Fort Bragg: walking in the aquatic pool with eighty-year-old veterans and ladies, trying to get my back right. I’ve got only one shot.
Three months out, I’m walking down a hallway back at headquarters to hand off some paperwork. On one of the TVs I see a plane fly into a tower.
What the hell is that guy doing? It’s a pretty day in New York City, not foggy or anything. By the time I reach the other end of the hallway, a second plane hits, and all the guys assemble around the screen in the squadron lounge.
We all know what has happened.
The command sergeant major of the squadron comes into the lounge. “Hey, fellas, it’s on now. You know that, don’t you?”
My first thought is, I have six more months to recover. Holy smokes, I’m going to miss going to war.
I get into my truck and drive to Walter Reed.
“I need to get an assessment on my recovery,” I tell them. “I need a bone scan. I need to see how far this thing has advanced, what my recovery looks like.”
They do a bone scan and tell me I’m looking really good. They agree to cut me loose for about thirty days of aggressive physical therapy. But I have to start real slow.
“That won’t be a problem,” I say. I have a solid athletic background—avid hiker and skier, and before I went to college I played football and trained hard to try to make the NFL—so, at some level, I know what I need to do.
Thirty days later, my squadron deploys. I miss them by about a week.
I call my doctor. “I’m feeling good. You need to let me go.”
He pauses, thinking.
Then he says, “Put your gear on and go run a couple of sprints and tell me what it feels like.”
I hang up, do a couple of sprints, and call him back.
“It feels pretty good,” I tell him.
“I’m going to cut you loose. Go ahead and go.”
The Army manages to get me a flight overseas. It leaves in six hours. I need to go home and pack.
My wife and I don’t have cell phones. Right now, Cathy is at soccer practice in Pinehurst, North Carolina, with our girls. I call the Pinehurst police department and ask them to go get my wife and kids and tell them to come home.
We spend a couple of hours together. My kids are crying. They’re old enough to understand where I’m going, what it means to go to war. I don’t know when I’m coming back. I kiss them good-bye and then run off to catch up with my guys.
My first deployment to Afghanistan is short but intense, aggressive, and focused. I don’t want to take a day off. I don’t want to rest. I just want to be here. That’s the Army’s business strategy: deliver maximum sustained impact; come back, refit, recover, take on new responsibilities; and then be able to dial back in and go at it again.
Each deployment is different. Doesn’t matter if it is six, nine, or twelve months: the environment changes, the enemy changes—everything changes. And for my personality, I love that.
When it comes to war, if you’re going to pick up a gun, you cannot have an imbalance of commitment. You have to be ready to go, ready to fight, and ready to die. It’s like my coaches used to tell me in football: you can’t play like you’re afraid to get hurt or you’re going to get hurt. You have to be committed and you have to be all in.
I don’t know of another woman, another mother or military spouse, who is any stronger or more committed than my wife.
I was never a big technology guy. During all my deployments between 2003 and 2005, even when I could Skype with my family, I didn’t. What Cathy and I tried to do was let the kids be kids. Let them go to soccer, let them go to school. When I was home, we’d have a nice leave together, and then when it was time for me to go back, we’d go on a shopping spree and the kids knew it was time for them to up their team play at home: to pitch in better, to make sure they didn’t give Mom too much trouble as teenagers. And when I got home in a few months, it would be like Christmas and we’d go on another vacation. I tried to bookend my leaving with two things that were fun and exciting.
And in the meantime, I expected them to be kids. I didn’t want them doing stuff like military student programs. I just wanted them to be hanging out with their friends and not worrying about what’s going on in another part of the world. They’ll have the rest of their lives to worry about that.
During those three years, my mother died. Cathy’s mother died and her father died. I lost several guys. Cathy’s grandparents died and my grandmother died. I never missed a deployment, and I never got a single negative email from her. Cathy never said, “I need you home with me.” She never complained. My kids were never late for school and never got bad grades. She never missed a soccer game or an athletic event or a school function. She carried that like no one I have ever heard of or seen.
I don’t think anyone realizes what she did during that time frame and how well she did it.
We never really planned that she was going to be a military spouse someday. I never really planned to join the Army. This is just more affirmation that God has a mission or plan for people, and if you just watch it and try to listen to it, you’ll end up there. Build a growth mindset and next thing you know you’ll be handling things pretty well. You’ll be able to have an impact on yourself and others in a way that you never dreamed you possibly could.