I have so many feelings welled up inside of me right now. Feelings of anger, hate, sorrow, elation and I don’t know how to explain it…I am so very angry that they are gone. If I swore honey, I would say nasty and mean things. I am angry at the Afghan people. We didn’t ask to come here, we didn’t ask to die here, but our Commander in Chief asked us to because we love our freedom and our country—we gladly put our lives on the line, every single day. We don’t complain or grumble, we just do what was asked of us by our President and you know what Jennie, most of the people in America don’t understand it. They really don’t understand why we are here. We have the best country in the world, and because they called us we are here. We’re here to make sure no one else will fly planes into buildings and kill innocent people. I think after that happened, we now begin to realize what some people face every day. Look at what happens in Israel. We know how they feel, they know how we feel. I can tell you though, that we don’t do it for money or for fame or fortune…(heaven knows I will never be rich), we do it for one another. For the men and women that are next to us. For our President, for our families, but most of all Jennie, I do it for you and our beautiful little girls. I do it so they can be safe and not have to worry about the evilness in the world. I am here because I believe in Democracy and that our freedom is worth the lives of my fallen brothers. I would gladly give mine in its defense.
All that aside, honey, I’m still angry and frustrated. I am so happy to be alive, I don’t know how to tell you what I am feeling right now. I don’t know how to express it to you, I only hope that deep inside you can connect with me and understand. Pray for their families Jennie, pray for them. I hope that I can meet with them and tell them that they didn’t die in vain. I was going to get into the details, but I just don’t have it in me yet. Maybe tomorrow. I cannot wait until we can be together. Give the girls my love. I will try and call tonight.
I love you,
Jeff
Terry A.Ward, the Mother of a Fallen Hero in Afghanistan, Asks Another Mother, Gloria Caldas, to Help Her Through Her Anguish
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Caldas Replies
On September 20, 2004, Terry Ward had just returned home after doing errands when a family friend rushed over to the house and told her to go inside and wait by the telephone for an urgent message. When the phone finally rang, it was Ward’s daughter-in-law, Tammy, calling to tell her the awful news that Staff Sergeant Tony B. Olaes—Ward’s thirty-year-old son and Tammy’s husband—had been killed in Afghanistan. Olaes was a Green Beret combat medic, and he and another soldier, Robert S. Goodwin, were shot during an ambush in Shkin, Afghanistan. A memorial page for Olaes appeared on the Internet, and while reading through the comments Ward came across a tribute posted by a total stranger that moved her deeply.
To Tony’s Family and Friends: On behalf of the Blanco-Caldas family, we send our sincerest condolences. We share the same loss…the same pain. Our prayers are with you in this most difficult time and we thank you for your soldier’s bravery and sacrifice. Sincerely, The Family of Capt. Ernesto M. Blanco-Caldas, 82nd Airborne KIA Iraq 12/28/2003.
Gloria Caldas (The Big Ern’s Mom) of San Antonio, TX
Ward felt an immediate connection to Caldas, and she sent her the following e-mail:
DEAR GLORIA,
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE CONDOLENCES ON THE FALLEN HEROES SITE FOR MY SON. MAY I ALSO EXPRESS MY CONDOLENCES ON THE LOSS OF YOUR OWN SON. I AM SO DEVASTATED AND I CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO GO ON. HOW DO YOU MANAGE EVERY DAY?
MY SON HAD 3 YOUNG SONS, 11, 10 AND 7. HOW DO I HELP THEM? AND HIS WIFE, WHO LOVED HIM SO MUCH. I KNOW I NEED TO BE STRONG FOR THEM ALSO, BUT I AM SO SAD MYSELF.
SO SORRY TO ASK YOU THESE QUESTIONS, BUT YOU HAVE BEEN THERE ALSO, SO I KNOW YOU UNDERSTAND.
PLEASE FORGIVE THE CAPITALS, BUT I AM LEGALLY BLIND AND HAVE A HARD TIME ON THE COMPUTER, IF THE LETTERS ARE NOT BIG.
I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND ME WRITING YOU, BUT I FIGURED THAT IS WHY YOU GAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. HOPE I AM NOT RAMBLING.
I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU, AND HOPE MAYBE YOU CAN GIVE ME SOME INSIGHT.
YOURS TRULY, TERRY A. WARD MOTHER OF SSG. TONY BRUCE OLAES KIA SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
Caldas responded right away.
Oh Terry! I know so well the pain you are going through. I wish no one else would have to go through what our families have experienced. During the first several weeks after Ernie’s “Homegoing,” I fell into a black hole.
I guess this was the Lord’s way of protecting me from the horror of the unthinkable. Losing a child is a bad thing. In my anger, the Lord and I had quite a few very lively discussions! But little by little, I began to climb out of the despair with the loving support of family, friends and my faith. Ernie was not married yet, but he did leave a grieving fiancee who has not yet recovered. They were scheduled to marry on June 12th. It’s now been 9 months since he was killed, I am finally able to provide support and comfort to those around me…his sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and all those who have also been deeply affected by his loss.
Tony B. Olaes
Normal will never be what it was before…we’ve all had to redefine “normal.” Nothing will ever be the same, but you learn to just take one day at a time. Sometimes there are bad days, sometimes worse days. But I know that as long as I have a breath in my body, my son will live in my heart. I’m sure you feel the same. My faith sustains me and I know that I will be reunited with him when I too go Home. I know I’m rambling, Terry.
My heart aches for you. Please get back to me. Tell me more about Tony. I’m sure your extremely proud of him, as I am of Ernie.
By His Grace, Gloria
Gloria Caldas and Terry Ward continued to send one another words of support and encouragement after their initial exchange. “JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I AM THINKING OF YOU AT THIS DIFFICULT TIME,” Ward wrote to Caldas after Christmas 2004. “I AM ALSO KEEPING YOU IN MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS AS THE ANNIVERSARY DATE OF ERNIE’S DEATH APPROACHES. JUST KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE.”
Gloria Caldas and her son, Ernie, on the balcony of his apartment near Fort Bragg, NC, the day before he embarked for Iraq. Gloria never saw her son again.
In an E-mail to Loved Ones, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Barnes Tries to Answer the Question “Where Is God?” in a Place as Violent as Iraq
Every generation of troops serving in a war zone struggles with the question, Where is God amidst such tragedy? And the military personnel deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq are no different. Frontline medics and doctors, in particular, have to face tremendous suffering on a constant basis, but many, like Lieutenant Colonel Scott Barnes, discover that their faith is nevertheless unwavering. Barnes left Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in August 2005 for Baghdad with the 86th Combat Support Hospital, and the forty-three-year-old doctor went on to treat hundreds of wounded and dying patients. On October 27, 2005, he sent the following e-mail to family and friends back in the States to describe the care they were providing not only for injured Americans, but Iraqis as well. (The ellipses within the paragraph are in the original.)
To All,
First I must apologize for the dismal communication. Most of you knew that I had deployed to Iraq in mid AUG but most of you haven’t heard from me since then. I have no excuses other than being quite busy and trying to maintain communication with my wife and children when I get some free time….
The work is great and terrible at the same time. The level of injuries is nothing that I have seen in this concentrated amount. I will have seen more here in a few months than I probably will see in the rest of my ophthalmology career as far as trauma goes. The Lord has been gracious and I have had some down times and been able to catch my breath…but for the most part my days start at 630 AM and end around 1030 PM or later. That is if I am not up through the night with a surgical case and that happens about 1–3 times a week….
But I have no doubt that this is exactly where the Lord wants me to be. I am convinced that I
am here for a reason. And I can see it on the faces of some of the soldiers and the Iraqi civilians on whom I operate…. When I tell them that I volunteered to come over here because I want to be the guy standing in the door to meet them when they get broken…I wanted to be a part of the greatest altruistic humanitarian effort that I believe any warfare has ever seen. We have medics that ignore bullets flying overhead just to get to a casualty; we have medevac pilots that will rush into a hot zone and won’t leave “until [they] have your wounded;” we have corpsmen and orderlies that run out to the bird and transport the patients into the bays of the emergency room where medics and ER docs work tirelessly to diagnose and stablize the patient; and then the OR techs, nurses, and surgeons who work all hours to mend the broken parts; followed by the awesome nurses who continue that healing and work to mend the broken hearts of young guys whose lives have changed in an instant. I have never been involved with anything in medicine as incredible as this operation. The cause is noble and the people are the greatest team of which I have ever been a part….
We also provide state of the art medical/surgical care for enemy combatants…even have an entire combat support hospital set up just for detainees. Can you imagine that?! One minute they are shooting at us, trying to kill us…and we capture them and immediately begin to minister to their injuries and illnesses. Evil Americans that we are and all! We are making a difference in the lives over here. The media has no idea what is going on or at least they chose to ignore the truth on the ground…there is only a small percentage of people that do not want us here…and just about everybody that comes in contact with the real heart of America over here, sees the incredible value. None of us want to remain here in the long run, but so many are very, very supportive of having us here in the present. Just don’t believe most of what you hear on the news channels and in the papers…this is a very just cause, and the good is overcoming forces of evil for Iraq.
But standing in the door to work on the heroes comes at a price. It is difficult to see all the pain and suffering. The loss of limbs, eyes, and life can be overwhelming at times. But it continues and we have saves in the midst of the losses and we continue to pour our hearts into every patient because we don’t know who will make it and who will not…. I can’t go into all of them because I said I would try to keep this short.
Some of my colleagues have wondered out loud how there can be a God with all of this suffering. I just remind them that He might just be right in some of our hands and working right beside us in the ER and OR…how else do you explain one young sergeant with a devastating injury where nearly his whole pelvis was shot away…he should have died even before reaching us, but he didn’t. He had such massive blood loss that he should have died before getting to the OR. But he kept living as we kept working on him and we were running out of blood to transfuse into him…but his heart kept going. We found guys outside and told them we needed blood and fast. Guys started lining up to donate blood in our back parking lot. Sergeants started going up to guys that weren’t even in this guys unit telling them that a young sergeant was fighting for his life and needed their blood.
They started calling their buddies located at bases close to the hospital and told them to get their backsides (translation from what most sergeants really said) over here ASAP because a fellow soldier (who most of them had never even met) was going to die without their blood. Soldiers started pouring in, asking no questions except where do they go to give blood…they don’t even know this guy, they just knew that another brother was in trouble and needed their help. They lined up in the parking lot and when their turn came, they had buddies watch their gear and weapons while they went in to donate. No questions…just soldiers doing what they think is just part of their job. I think about 60–70 guys ended up donating. In the US, when a patient requires 6–12 units of blood that is considered a massive transfusion and associated with a very high rate of death. This young hero required 207 units of blood (yes you read that correctly!)…and he lived. He was flown back to the states and back at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is still alive and off the ventilator.
Where is God…He is in the OR guiding the hands of the surgeons, He is in the will of the sergeants helping organize a blood drive as only they can, He is in the hearts of the soldiers who immediately rolled up their sleeves to give what they had to save a dying brother whom they don’t even know. I still cannot write about this without getting choked up…to see the sacrifice of the soldiers, the surgeons, the field medics who initially treated this young guy. This story alone should help make it clear why I consider serving over here this to be the greatest honor of my professional career. I get to see the real heart of the American soldier and the American military medical team…and they are as gold….
I’ll write more later…the pictures are of the soldiers waiting to donate blood in the above story….
May God Bless you as He does for me everyday, Scott
U.S. Air Force Major Sandi Douglass and His Beloved, Air Force Captain Donna Kohout, Exchange a Series of E-mails Emphasizing Their Love for One Another Despite the Hardships They Know They Will Encounter
Having one spouse in the armed forces can be difficult for any couple, but having two can make a relationship all the more challenging. Approximately one out of every six U.S. troops is female, and a significant number of them are married to fellow service members. Like their husbands, these women are courageously defending the United States in the deserts of Iraq, the mountains of Afghanistan, and at other posts throughout the world. As hard as it can be for military couples to be separated, many find that their faith helps them endure their time apart. “Sweetheart, we need to believe the truth that it is God’s will that we are together,” Air Force Major Sandi Douglass wrote in October 2005 to his intended, Donna Kohout, who was a captain in the Air Force. Kohout, thirty-four, had served in Iraq and was back home in New Mexico, and Douglass was deployed to Korea. He went on to write in his e-mail, which was written only days before he returned to Korea:
I think we will continue to figure out how to integrate our lives better and better as we spend more time together here in the states…I don’t foresee a problem…but I don’t know how you feel about this. I haven’t seen any show stoppers on my side of us. Just things to adjust here and there.
What is important is that the foundational things are solid…we both love God and want Him to lead us thru life…we both want to work in the Kingdom and spend our lives in service to Him…we both want a spouse who loves us unconditionally the way He intends. All the rest is detail. I don’t really care how you want the laundry folded or washed…just let me know and it will be as you wish…I am not going to let details get in the way of me loving you.
I love you and I love the way you love me. I think you are simply terrific and I think you are the most beautiful creature He has ever made….
ILY
“As I was driving away from the airport this morning, I realized how much I hate saying goodbye to you,” Kohout e-mailed Douglass. “But until you’re here again, or I’m there, you’re in His care…. He has a lot for you to do there, and I feel selfish wanting you to myself. I’m always impressed by your ability to give unreservedly.” Douglass’s virtues were even more impressive to Kohout in light of all that he had suffered as a child; Sandi Douglass was actually born Richard John Sanders in a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles to a single mom who died when he was only fourteen. He was adopted by Brenda and Clem Douglass and took on their last name. At the age of twenty-one he joined the Air Force, and eighteen years later he met Kohout. They dated for more than five months before he proposed. On October 11, and after receiving an e-mail from Douglass about the imperfections of this world (especially in comparison to the majesty of the Heavenly Kingdom), Kohout sent Douglass a profound, almost poetic e-mail about the mystery of God’s plans and the importance of placing their trust in His hands.
I’m beginning to realize another piece of where you get your big heart from
. God’s done a lot of healing, but you also had a great example in your parents. I couldn’t agree more that God doesn’t work in tidy, perfect little flower gardens as dramatically as He works in the vast mountain ranges of Colorado or Alaska. They’re not necessarily neat and orderly—they’re wild and wonderful, but beautiful just the same. There’re more colors in the weaving than we can begin to imagine…and I think God likes to make up new colors when He runs out of ones that exist already. I think I’ve told you the Weaver poem, eh?
Sandi and Donna Douglass, on their honeymoon in Korea, at the Yeouido (also spelled Yoido) Full Gospel Church. With 800,000 members, it is considered one of the largest churches in the world.
My life is but a weaving, between the Lord and me.
I cannot choose the colors; He worketh steadily.
Oft times He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper, and I the under side.
The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver’s skillful hand
As thread of gold and silver, ’neath the pattern He has planned.
Not ’til the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unveil the canvas and explain the reason why.
—Author unknown
I think it’s kinda neat that one of us is always awake. I was thinking about that as I did some errands earlier. There’s always one of us awake to pray. Would be neater to have you here, of course, but that’ll happen in time.
Grace Under Fire Page 12