Holy crap. “And your other hobby is what?”
“Rasslin’. I like Stone Cold Steve Austin.”
If she could’ve kept her mouth shut, she would’ve been great. After dinner, I took her home. Didn’t even kiss her good night.
She was upset.
I am not going out on any more dates. There are no girls in Wayne County I really want to date.
On a Saturday afternoon, January 19, 2002, I was headed home in my truck with two chicken boxes from Sybil’s Family Restaurant. People drive from a hundred miles to eat Sybil’s chicken. Blake and I had plans to eat chicken and watch O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which I had already rented. My cousin Edward called me up: “Deidre and I are going out tonight. She’s got a friend, and we want you to come out with us.” Classical ambush.
“No.”
Two minutes later, Deidre called. “Howard, please. I’ve never asked you for anything. Debbie just got out of a really bad marriage, and she’s going out with us, but she doesn’t want to feel like the third wheel. Just show up for company. You’re a fun-loving guy. I’ll never ever ask you to do anything else again. I promise. Just do this for me.”
Total guilt trip. I was irritated, but I dropped off the chicken boxes. “Blake, I’m going on a date.”
“Really? I thought you weren’t going to date.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Edward and Deidre took me to Debbie’s apartment. Deidre told Debbie, “This is the guy I was telling you about who needs a date.”
Deidre had set up Debbie and me.
All four of us rode in one vehicle. I acted like, Hey, I am Howard Wasdin. You need to humble yourself before me. Show proper respect.
She threw my attitude back at me. Hey, I don’t care who you are.
Wow. That’s different—and she actually speaks in complete sentences using words with more than two syllables. Where the hell did she come from?
The two of us ended up having a great dinner, laughing a lot and enjoying our conversation and company. We even showed our appreciation to Edward by using words he could understand.
I remember the first time my hand touched hers. We were watching a Sports Illustrated bloopers video with Deidra and Edward. The spark of energy from that touch rushed through both of us. We continued our visit for a few minutes, and then I drove Debbie back to her apartment.
When we arrived at her home, we continued our conversation inside. Our talking led to laughter, the laughter led to a connection, that connection led to kissing, and the kissing rocked my world. The chemistry was unlike any I had ever felt. I lost track of time, but I knew that if I was going to be a gentleman, I’d better leave. We were both blindsided. Neither of us was looking for a relationship. Neither of us wanted a relationship, but our guardian angels had put the two of us in the right place at the right time.
We walked to the door to say good night. Leaving took all of my self-control. “I had a great time tonight,” I said.
“Me, too.”
“Why don’t you give me a call tomorrow?” I asked. Now, I had been raised in Screven, Georgia, by strict parents who would accept nothing less than gentlemanly behavior from me. It wasn’t that I was no longer a gentleman. It’s just that I was Howard Wasdin. I didn’t have to pick up a phone and call a woman. They called me. This girl had been raised to be a lady, though.
“I don’t know how you were raised, but my mama raised me not to call boys. If you want to talk to me, you are going to have to call me.” She closed the door.
Wow. It hit me. Girls who call boys today just don’t get it—they’re missing being chased and the thrill of it.
On the drive home reality set in. The speed limit was 55 miles per hour, but I doubt I exceeded 45. I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself. Even though I was raised to be a gentleman, I had become arrogant. She was absolutely right. What is wrong with me? I knew better than to say, “Hey, I’m Howard Wasdin, give me a call.” I respected her even more.
Sunday, I waited all day. I started to call her several times, but I didn’t call. Yeah, she’ll call me.
She never did.
Monday morning, I called her. We went to lunch. When the weekend came, we dated. Every weekend after that, we dated. Until we got married. Although I’d sworn I’d never tie the knot again, Brother Ron married Debbie and me on January 17, 2003. Even today, when we see him in public, he notices how happy we are together and makes the comment, “When I married you two, I used good glue.”
* * *
Car sales wasn’t fulfilling—even though the good people of Wayne County bought from me, showing their love and appreciation. They knew me from growing up in their community and were thankful for my military service. I had thought about becoming a chiropractor. I tried working at a chemical plant. My old CIA friend Condor told me about a job at a security firm in Brazil. I probably would’ve ended up in the security field forever. Like other Team guys who leave the navy. Do security work until I’m too old or too dead.
In October 2004, Debbie and I talked with my Veterans Affairs representative. They would pay for my college expenses to become a chiropractor. Debbie and I visited the university, but on the way back, I came up with all kinds of reasons I shouldn’t do it. “I won’t be able to work full-time and go to school full-time. We’ll have to tighten our budget. It’s going to take a long time. I’ll have to live near school until I graduate. A lot of driving back and forth…”
Debbie threw the BS flag. “You can go the rest of your life being miserable—never feeling fulfilled, never finding a job you really like again—or you can just do this. The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be done, and you’ll be happy with your occupation again. If you don’t, you’ll look back after four years and say, ‘If I’d gone to school, I’d be finished by now.’” I married the right woman.
In January 2005, at Life University in Marietta, Georgia, I started school to become a chiropractor. Although I enjoyed my studies, a small percentage of my classmates were hippie crackpots who opposed medical doctors, needles, and medication. Even one of my professors told us, “I will not give CPR or mouth-to-mouth to someone who is dying.” He would try to give the dying person a chiropractic adjustment and that was it. A husband and wife who were both chiropractors had met and married while in school. Three years after they graduated, the wife died from an ear infection because they refused to receive medical treatment for her—simple antibiotics would’ve saved her life. Their attitude was that chiropractors had the only pure discipline to cure people. Their mantra was Innate will provide. They reminded me of the witch doctor who unsuccessfully tried to cure the boy I helped in Somalia. Most of my other classmates and professors didn’t think this way, nor do chiropractors as a whole. It’s the small percentage of crackpots who give all chiropractors a bad name.
During my last year at school, my father had an abdominal aortic aneurysm. His abdominal aorta was blowing up like a balloon.
17.
Healing
I drove 268 miles to see my father at the hospital in Savannah—but appearances would be deceiving. He was awake, joking with my sisters. The surgical doctor said, “Your father is going to be OK. He’s in recovery.” So that night I left him to prepare to take final exams at Life University.
Several hours later, after I’d returned home, my youngest sister, Sue Anne, called to tell me that our father had had a heart attack. An hour later, around midnight, my cousin Greg told me Dad had passed away. Nobody saw it coming.
I tried to take my exams anyway. During the first final exam, Dr. Marni Capes told me, “Howard, you need to get up and walk out of here right now.”
“No, no. I can do it. I can do it.”
I found out I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was. My head was not in it. After I had become a SEAL, I didn’t worry about Dad kicking the crap out of me anymore. Our relationship had improved. After Somalia, I told him I loved him for the first time—then I told him every time I saw him after tha
t. We hugged. The passage of time had mellowed him, too. During a family reunion shortly before his death, he told me how he approved of my new wife, Debbie. “She’s a keeper. Don’t mess up.” He loved her. Regarding my new profession, he said, “When you open up your clinic, I’ll be one of your first patients.” Coming from a man who wouldn’t go to a doctor unless he was dying, which was part of his undoing, his confidence in my future skills as a chiropractor meant a lot to me. I had received the acceptance, respect, and approval from my father that I’d always longed for.
My mother told me that later in life Dad was disappointed that he and I didn’t have a better relationship. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that when I was home, he had always been a dictator. He didn’t have conversations with me—didn’t build a relationship. I didn’t cry as much about his death as I had about Uncle Carroll’s. As a kid, I could ask Uncle Carroll questions like, “Is it normal for me to wake up every morning with a hard pee-pee? Is there something wrong with me?” My uncle laughed. “No, that’s normal, son.” Still, my dad raised me the only way he knew how, and I was sad when he died.
One day, about nine months later, Blake asked out of the blue, “Would you like to meet him?”
“Meet who?” I asked.
“Your real dad.”
My biological father could have walked past me in the grocery store, and I wouldn’t have known who he was. “Yeah, Blake. You know, I think I would.”
We did a people search and found him. Then I made the phone call. At Christmas, I went to see Ben Wilbanks, my biological father. Ben said that my mother had taken us kids and run off to Georgia with Leon. In my mind, Ben’s story kind of explains the quick move from Florida to Georgia and the quick adoption. I’m inclined to believe him, due to conflicting stories I got from my mother and sisters. Ben said he had spent years looking for me and could never find me. He turned out to be one of the nicest and most loving men I’d ever met. When he hugged me, I knew that I was really being hugged. Seeing Ben Wilbanks seemed to explain where I got my affectionate side—my capability for compassion and emotion. Ben had served in the army as a military policeman and worked most of his career as a truck driver, which is what he still does.
Blake and I continue to maintain a relationship with my biological father, Blake’s grandfather. Whatever happened between my mother and Ben, she still hasn’t forgiven him. Nor forgotten. For my part, I refuse to hold decisions made in their youth against either of them, because I wouldn’t want to be held in contempt for all the decisions made by me in my youth.
When I was getting ready to graduate from clinic, I received a message from Captain Bailey. He’d seen a magazine article about me in his chiropractor’s office and sent an e-mail congratulating me, asking if I remembered him from BUD/S. It was a no-brainer remembering my commanding officer at BUD/S. I could be on my deathbed and still remember him securing us from Hell Week.
I graduated with honors as a doctor of chiropractic on September 24, 2009. I have always been a “show me” person and resisted going to a chiropractor for a long time, but chemicals couldn’t fix my structural problem. The chemicals only hid my pain. A general practitioner can’t do everything for a patient, and a chiropractor can’t do everything. Working as a team, as I learned my whole life, we become more effective. Local doctors refer patients to me, and I refer patients to them. The patients benefit the most.
When I first started seeing patients is when I knew I’d made the right decision. They trust me, I figure out what’s wrong with them, I help them feel better, and they love me for it.
I am now focused on my new career. Construction of my new clinic, Absolute Precision Chiropractic, was completed in April 2010. From the day I opened the doors, I have been blessed with busy days treating members of the local and surrounding communities. One of my patients, a thirteen-year-old boy, had been suffering from chronic headaches for four years. It turned out he experienced a bad car accident when he was little and lost the curve in his neck. He went from nearly twelve headaches a month on frequent medication to one or two headaches in the first ten weeks I saw him. Success stories like this let me know I made the right decision. I truly feel that this is the path God intended for me when he spared my life in Somalia.
Another affirmation for me occurred when I treated a young lady who had brachial palsy. Her arm hadn’t formed correctly, and she had a lot of nerve damage—she was barely able to move her right arm. I had been helping her with electrical stimulation, adjusting her, and administering other chiropractic techniques. She laterally moved her arm 42 degrees for the first time in her life. Then she flexed her arm forward toward me 45 degrees for the first time. My assistant cried. The fifteen-year-old girl cried from her exertion and success. Her father cried. I stepped out of the room—and cried. I had to walk around a little until I could hold back the tears. I grabbed a tissue and wiped my eyes. Then I returned to my patient as if everything were OK and said, “All right, here’s your exercise for next week.” Seeing her move that arm after hard work on both our parts fulfilled me. Helping patients like her helps lessen the guilt that still makes me wonder why I’m still alive when better men than me like Dan Busch are not. I understand better why God spared me—he really did have a purpose for me after my life as a SEAL.
Even though Blake is in his twenties now, whenever he visits, I give him a good-night hug. I give the same affection to my stepdaughter, Eryn, whom I consider my own daughter. I give my wife, Debbie, a hug or a kiss every time I leave or return to the house. Debbie and I are so affectionate that friends tell us, “Get a room.” Years ago I had questioned why my life had been spared. Today I am thankful that God spared my life and equally thankful for the path that was laid before me. I once again have a positive mind, body, and spirit. Professionally and personally, life is good again.
Epilogue
Four Somali pirates boarded an American cargo ship, the MV Maersk Alabama, 280 miles off the Somali coast—the first ship registered under an American flag to be hijacked since the 1800s. The pirates took Captain Richard Phillips hostage in a 25-foot lifeboat.
The USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) arrived and asked the pirates to release Captain Phillips. A P-3 Orion flew overhead, monitoring the situation. The pirates refused to release the captain until they received a million-dollar ransom.
Under the cover of darkness, a SEAL team parachuted into the ocean and linked up with the Bainbridge.
The lifeboat ran out of fuel, and the wind churned up the ocean. Becoming anxious about the rough seas, the pirates allowed the Bainbridge to tow it into calmer waters.
Sunday night, April 12, 2009, nearly 30 yards apart, both the Bainbridge and the lifeboat pitched and rolled in the dark. Inside the Bainbridge, one of the pirates negotiated a million-dollar ransom. On the fantail, three snipers and their spotters, dressed in black, observed the lifeboat, relaying information on all activity to the SEAL commander. Even with KN-250 night-vision scopes, the best, everything is flat—two-dimensional.
“Tango aiming AK at Hotel’s back,” a spotter reported. The terrorist was aiming his rifle at the hostage.
Two other pirates poked their heads above deck to see what was going on.
Each sniper had a square of Velcro on each side of his Win Mag. Attached to the Velcro was a signaling device. When a sniper had a pirate in his sights, he pressed the device, sending a signal back to the SEAL commander that shone as a green light. One light for each sniper.
Over their radio earpieces, the snipers heard their commander give the execute order: “Stand by, stand by. Three, two, one, execute, execute.” From the Bainbridge’s fantail, the three snipers each simultaneously fired one head shot. The three pirates fell. An assault team motored to the lifeboat and freed Captain Phillips. Other SEALs apprehended the pirate negotiating on board the Bainbridge.
Once again, the SEAL Team Six sniper standards have been tested—and the standards remain high. Most of the snipers’ missions remain classified to the gene
ral public, their own families, and even fellow SEALs. It is difficult for people to comprehend or appreciate the incredible amounts of training and risks those men undergo. For the most part, their commitment, sacrifice, and patriotism will continue to remain hidden.
SPECIAL OPERATIONS WARRIOR FOUNDATION
The Special Operations Warrior Foundation was founded in 1980 as the Colonel Arthur D. “Bull” Simons Scholarship Fund to provide college educations for the seventeen children surviving the nine special operations men killed or incapacitated in April of that year at Desert One in Iran during the failed attempt to rescue American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It was named in honor of the legendary Army Green Beret, Bull Simons, who repeatedly risked his life on rescue missions.
Following creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command, and as casualties mounted from actions such as Operations Urgent Fury (Grenada), Just Cause (Panama), Desert Storm (Kuwait and Iraq), and Restore Hope (Somalia), the Bull Simons Fund gradually expanded its outreach program to encompass all special operations forces. Thus in 1995 the Family Liaison Action Group (established to support the families of the Iranian hostages) and the Spectre (air force gunship) Association Scholarship Fund merged to form the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. In 1998 the Warrior Foundation extended its scholarship and financial aid counseling to cover training fatalities as well as operational fatalities since the inception of the foundation in 1980. This action immediately made 205 more children eligible for college funding.
The Warrior Foundation’s mission is to provide a college education to every child who has lost a parent serving in the U.S. Special Operations Command and its units in any branch of the armed forces during an operational or training mission. These personnel are stationed in units throughout the United States and at overseas bases. Some of the largest concentrations of special operations forces are at military bases at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Hurlburt Field, Florida; Coronado Naval Station, California; Dam Neck, Virginia; MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; Fort Lewis, Washington; Fort Stewart, Georgia; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Little Creek, Virginia; Fort Carson, Colorado; Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico; Royal Air Force Mildenhall, United Kingdom; and Kadena Air Base, Japan.
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