The Folly of Faith

For those who got scared off and thought I would be quoting Bible scriptures, have no fear. This installment is talking about faith, not religion. Faith has many forms in our life. In Chapter 2, faith was everywhere. Faith in friends, family, the car starting when it needs to, our POTUS will make the right decision, in our brethren, in our relationships. So, why is it we threw it all away in Chapter 3 of our lives until we hit rock bottom and then demand that which we have faith in to stand up and fight for us? Where the hell did it go?

Let’s start with faith in Chapter 1 of our lives, before our service to this beautiful country we live in. As children, most of us were given our faith by our parents. In my generation (insert, ok boomer, here) our parents handed to us faith in some God or idol or prophet. We were told that it was important so we blindly followed along until we were capable of making our own decision. Many of us were also told to have faith in law enforcement, our teachers, our religious purveyors, and our family. And we did, maybe naively, maybe out of our faith in our parental units. It was likely by rote. Just trusting because we were told to, which isn’t real faith, it’s following. More of a socialist-type faith than a democratic faith, to inject the only politics you will ever see me do.

So, then, we made the decision to join our Nation’s Armed Forces. Again, on rote faith that it “would change your life” or “its what you should do” or “it worked for your father, so it will work for you” or “do it or go to jail, boy” (totally different article for later). In basic training, or as you Air Force peeps call it, summer camp, we were taught to be trustworthy and to trust in our brethren, first by rote, then by deeds. As they say, fake it until you make it. And that is what we did. We weren’t sure about that kid from New Jersey or the farm boy from the mid-west. Hell, I wasn’t sure about myself. Slowly, but surely, we started to believe in something; the process. We believed that this training and spending 24/7 with like-minded soon-to-be Warriors would yield an unbreakable bond.

And then we went to our first duty station. And our next. I remember my second duty station as a young and dumb Private First Class. An aircraft rappelling accident had caused the severe, paralyzing injuries of a young Warrior and we were part of the accident investigation. Our task? Recreate the accident to determine what went wrong. “PFC Bean, grab your gear and meet us at the rappel tower.” So, down we went to the tower. The concept? Throw PFC Bean off the rappel tower in various possible screwed up ways to see if we could recreate it. Cool. Wait, what? You want to do what? Trust me, said then SSG Stone, someone who would be my best friend and big brother to my daughter, and then later be killed in action by friendly fire in some country called Crapistan or something. So, I looked into his eyes and trusted him, over and over again as I launched myself off and inverted so many times I became violently sick. But, I wasn’t scared. I trusted him, and so, it began.

And so, I spent 23 years implicitly trusting my brethren. Ridiculous amounts of time on the range with newer Warriors handling machine guns, live fire exercises, rock climbing, scaling Mt McKinley tied to two brothers with thousands of feet of death on both sides of a two foot wide summit ridge. Never a flinch. These are only a few stories that we can all share. Many people reading this have multiple deployments in multiple theaters trusting their brethren. Along with that faith in the Warrior’s beside us, we had faith in so many things. Faith that our spouse was taking care of the household, our children, our very existence in the outside world. We trusted in our immediate and distant leadership that what we were doing was for good reason and well planned. We trusted that Uncle Sugar would take care of us if something bad happened like an injury or worse, like if we had to travel home under a red, white, and blue draped coffin. We just had faith. Some would call it reckless trust. Sure, I can see that. When I gather with my brethren, we tell these war stories as if to challenge the other’s faith to see who believed more, like two vestil virgins on the edge of the volcano wanting to outdo each other. Those who aren’t around to tell their story were the first virgins to jump, and the winner of the faith challenge that nobody wants to win but will take that trophy any day of the week, still. Summing it all up, we had faith in so many things.

Then, we put down our right hand, took off our uniform, and threw our equipment, and our faith, at some idiot civilian at the CIF who we later realized was one of us, a retired Warrior. And when we went back to Fort Living Room, faithless, we had no idea what we had done. We had turned in our faith like a dirty canteen. We had zero faith in our employer, our family to understand what we were going through, our new “friends”, or any of our local and National leaders we once answered to. We now questioned everything we had faith in, everything. We questioned if we had done the right thing, had served a good cause. And the first time we opened the door of faith to folly, folly jumped in and refused to budge like a Sherman tank. Was ANYthing we did worth it? Is anything in this stupid new job of any value? Are any of my co-workers worth the $20 an hour they are paid? Is the Nation worth saving?

And then folly starts to infiltrate our self-worth. Do we have faith in ourselves? Do we have faith in our newly-refined meaning of life? Do we faith in our spouse? It’s not paranoia like many think. I have spoken with countless Veterans whose family think they are paranoid or don’t understand them. NEWS FLASH fo my brethren: you don’t understand you either. You think you know you and your reactions to certain things but if I were a betting man, and I am, I am betting that in your rediscovery of who you are and who everyone else is, you are portraying yourself as someone different than who you really are. It is only natural to think that we are still that cold-steel killer of commies, lover of women, beer-cooled, MRE-fed, barrel-chested, freedom fightin’ SOB we once were. Oh oh oh my brethren, well, no. If you have been following this blog at all, you would understand why Chapter 3 is very different than Chapter 2, for good reason. THIS is where we grow my brothers and sisters.

Seriously SGM, you couldn’t have just told me this crap up front? Nope. You wouldn’t have bought to it in without the reason behind it. We grow by understanding the levels of faith we have in things, the trust we let out, and the belief that anything can have meaning. So, it is time to gain back our faith, in anything. Time to fake it until we make it, like in Chapter 1. Listen, it is not going to be easy. Our faith will be tested and it may be disappointed. But, if we don’t have faith in something or in ourselves then we are going to struggle. The faith doesn’t have to be absolute, life or death. But when we have faith, we have hope. When we have hope, we have perseverance. When we have perserverance, we have success. If we are to have success in our transition from Chapter 2 to Chapter 3, we must start with faith.

So have faith my Warrior brethren. Believe in your family, the VA, your coworkers, your new friends, your boss, our neighbors, your local and National leaders. When you have faith, even a little, you let people in a little. When you let people in, you share some of you. Sharing some of you helps others understand you, understand our Warrior ways and makes Chapter 3 much easier and better for all of us. I have faith in you.

—SGM DTB—