American Spirit

by Taya Kyle

  Texas pays its state officials very little—$600 per month, plus a per diem under $200 for each day the legislature is in session. You almost have to pay the state to do the job. This is no federal position with ridiculous pay structures. State senators can accept no favors, no payment for any legitimate speaking engagement. The Birdwells spend far more than Brian makes as a senator. They already donate time and money to other causes and constantly help charitable efforts individually and through nonprofits. So why politics?

  For both husband and wife, the answers to those questions come first from their deep religious beliefs. They’re all of a piece, as the saying goes. Ask Brian why he decided to talk about his injuries and recovery or why he decided to go into politics, and the answer is likely to be along the lines of “the glorification of Christ’s Kingdom.” Mel’s answer will be a little more earthy—and don’t get on her wrong side!—but along the same lines.

  Brian’s story of survival is filled with many happy miracles and what-ifs. Had he remained in that office for just a few more minutes, he would not have survived. Had he turned the wrong way in the corridor after the plane hit, very possibly he would have been overcome by smoke. The flames around him suddenly went out. The door at the corridor opened at just the right moment. So many coincidences, say the Birdwells, can only add up to a miracle.

  What do you do when you are the recipient of a miracle? If you believe strongly in God, and it seems by all logic and emotion that you have been saved, you must ask yourself, Why?

  Why was I saved when my colleagues died?

  What debt do I owe to God? And to my fellow human beings?

  What am I supposed to do with this miracle?

  The answer to all these questions came to Brian while he was in outpatient therapy the winter after the attacks. One of his therapists asked him to visit a patient in intensive care who’d been burned in a farm accident. Brian spoke in simple terms of what he’d gone through and what the man would face; he encouraged him to look at his recovery like a mission, to follow the staff’s recommendations to the letter, to persevere.

  When he was done talking to the patient, Brian felt somehow fulfilled; he’d accomplished a mission he didn’t know he had. By the end of the day, he and Mel realized they could help others who’d been injured as he was. Both could tell others what they would go through and give them ideas on how to cope.

  “It’s not survivor’s guilt,” says Brian. “It’s survivor’s charge.”

  “You don’t go through something like this and not learn a lot of things,” says Mel. “We can relate to burn patients and families better than other people who haven’t gone through it.”

  “The word invalid might be too strong,” notes Brian, speaking about the condition of burn patients immediately after they’ve sustained their injuries, “but as an adult with an adult brain, and you can’t do a thing for yourself—in those moments, when you’re thirty-nine years old and you’re praying to open a milk carton. That tells you where you are in life.”

  It’s important for people in that position to hear from someone who has been there and gotten through. In a sense, his message is a bit of tough love—no bs about how everything will turn out fantastic, no sugarcoating the pain. But that makes it more powerful—Look, this is going to be terrible, but eventually you will make it. Be strong.

  As the informal meetings with fellow burn patients and their families multiplied, the Birdwells began formalizing their outreach. They had coins made, tokens similar to military challenge coins that were a physical reminder of Brian’s visit and his words of encouragement. Brian began combining hospital visits with talks he was being asked to give about 9/11.

  Both Mel and Brian stepped forward into the public arena, talking about what happened on 9/11 and afterward. They teamed with a writer and produced a book—Refined by Fire: A Family’s Triumph of Love and Faith—and the speaking engagements multiplied. As demand grew, the pair began Face the Fire, a special ministry that assisted burn survivors and their family. Money from the book and honorariums from speaking engagements went to the ministry, which then gave money to burn victims and their families to cover incidentals and things like lodging during treatment.

  Counting contributions the charity made to burn centers and other organizations, a little more than $400,000 was distributed before it was wound down in 2017.

  Before that happened, Brian had been asked a different question, this one by friends and acquaintances:

  Why don’t you run for public office?

  A Texas native who’d spent part of his childhood in California and had also moved around quite a bit in the Army, Brian was somewhat reluctant at first, though the suggestions and offers kept coming.

  Active military members are not allowed to be politically active and cannot run for office. The Birdwells were always “diligent” about politics, voting and making sure they were up on the issues, but that’s as far as it went.

  Once he was retired, however, he felt able to work in the Republican Party.

  “I don’t want to say that I was drawn to politics because I was drawn to war—that’s not the quote I’m looking for,” he jokes. But he does believe in Carl von Clausewitz’s famous formulation, that war is politics by another means, and vice versa.

  Eventually the suggestions that he run included a chance to become a state senator. Brian ran, won, and in 2010 began his first term representing Texas’s 22nd District from his hometown of Granbury. (Granbury is nestled on a bend of the Brazos River about thirty-eight miles southwest of Fort Worth.)

  It would be an exaggeration to say Mel was enthusiastic. She’s probably even less so now: “Watching the sausage being made, you’ll never eat sausage again.”

  Nonetheless, she’s not agitating for him to leave the Senate. His top causes include religious issues; an opponent of abortion and gay marriage, Brian has specifically worked to carve out religious exceptions on such social issues based on conscience. “If government can compel you to do something that is against your conscience,” he believes, “you’re on the road to totalitarianism.”

  More prosaically but importantly for constituents, he’s worked to make college education more accessible, strengthen citizens’ rights against eminent domain, and limit the power of state river authorities.

  “It’s easy to throw out the negative,” says the senator. You have to work to keep things positive. “The political world has become so callous, so crass. There’s a cottage industry of people out there who will tell you how much you suck.”

  Nonetheless, “duty is ours,” notes Brian, citing the writings and service of John Quincy Adams, who not only was president but also served afterward in the House of Representatives. “He spent years leading the fight against slavery. He never achieved it, but he fought the good fight.”

  Among the men he influenced was Abraham Lincoln, who would surely have met Adams as a congressman shortly before Adams died in 1848. The point being: you serve, do your best, and have faith that your efforts will one day pay off, whether you witness that or not.

  “Before 9/11, I had a good relationship with the Lord,” says Mel. “After 9/11, it was intense, and personal, and real. . . . There were times I felt that I could feel God’s arms around me.”

  In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, both Birdwells felt their faith become extremely intense, almost as if it reached a new level. As they have gone on since the event, some of that intensity has worn off, though both clearly remain firm believers.

  The senator has told his story of survival and recovery hundreds, if not thousands, of times, both publicly and privately. He feels it’s his duty as a survivor: “If we didn’t tell the story, and give the Lord the honor, we would be derelict. Too many things, too many miracles, too many people in the right places at the right time, too many circumstances that came together . . .”

  How did he manage to recover from his wounds? Certainly, one can call it a miracle. But as the saying goes, God works in m
ysterious ways, and usually through human beings. The trained medical people, not only at the burn unit but those who first found and cared for him en route to the hospital, surely played a big role in his survival. The willingness of his fellow soldiers to help him, the ingenuity and training of the medical staffs, the support of his family and friends—all of these were important, too.

  Brian’s background and training as a soldier must have helped give him strength. His experiences in combat surely eased him through difficult moments. His innate American Spirit undoubtedly helped him through rehab and helped him find his voice as an example for other survivors.

  But above all those things, I can’t help but think that Mel’s love and devotion was the secret to his pulling through. I can’t help but think the gentle mercies of his “pit bull” were the crucial ingredients in his recovery.

  After Brian was released from the hospital, Mel was more than a pit bull. She filled many roles, from literal crutch to chauffeur. For roughly a year, much of the weight of his recovery was on her shoulders.

  There were many times when she was angry as well as exhausted. Her wedding vows, her memory of Brian and their times before the accident, and her deep love and faith all must have pushed her to continue her fight to help him through.

  Watching both of them together, hearing them talk, it’s clear that they have a tremendous love for each other. They have a strong marriage, one that saw a lot of sacrifice even before that terrible day in September.

  As Brian healed, he became more of a partner again. And while they don’t always agree on everything—he’s far more enthusiastic about politics than she is—they still support each other, walking side by side as they go through life.

  That’s a testament not just to their faith in God but in each other. And to the American Spirit.

  Nine

  Spirit’s Wings

  Without Boundaries

  The American Spirit doesn’t stop at our country’s shores. It may be our greatest export, one that can’t be measured in dollars or euros or Chinese renminbi.

  When Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty, he placed a beacon in the copper lady’s hand, a beacon to guide the world to the notion of Liberty and its connection between the Old World, then thought of as Europe, and the New. But light doesn’t stay at its source. It flies out, illuminating all that is around it. Like the sun, it doesn’t respect the geographic boundaries that mankind imposes; it finds a way to shine in the darkest places, fighting through clouds and chasing shadows.

  Kindness, charity, concern for others—these core American values aren’t ours alone. They are embedded in all humans. But sometimes it takes a spark from outside for them to thrive. The entrepreneurial aspects of the American Spirit, the impulse not just to help but to help in new and different ways, can be that critical spark.

  At times, of course, we overreach. There is a danger in being arrogant—in thinking that we know best what others should do. But the greater sin is often not to act at all. Help guided by wisdom and a touch of humility changes minds and the world.

  The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen terrorists attempting to set up barriers to the light. In some ways, they have succeeded even among Americans, making us less willing to share ideas, money, and time with those in other countries, especially the Middle East. But they have not and will not triumph. Even as I write these words, Americans are reaching out across the borders to do amazing things. Whether they are billionaires like Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, reaching out to improve health and economic opportunities in third-world countries, or small bands of volunteers bringing clean water to threadbare communities, Americans are having an impact for the better, sharing expertise and the American Spirit.

  Into Satan’s Lair

  The Exodus Road

  In 2011, Matt Parker stood at the edge of one of the most notorious red-light districts in the world and said a silent prayer. Then he put his head down and walked into a brothel, about as unprepared for what he would find inside as anyone in the world.

  Raised as a Southern Baptist, the thirty-something-year-old had never been in a strip club before, let alone a place where women’s bodies were openly displayed for sale. He wasn’t there to have sex or even to ogle the girls. He was there to spy on the establishment for the Thai police.

  Matt’s visit represented the end of a long journey of conscience, prodded not only by his Christian faith but also by a deep sense of justice. At the same time, it was the start of a journey that would lead him across several continents, part of a mission aimed at rescuing girls and boys, men and women, held as slaves in the sex trade.

  Still, it was a strange place to be for a man whose closest encounter to a live sex display was ordering chicken wings at a Hooters.

  Today, Matt is the CEO of the Exodus Road, which by early 2018 had rescued nearly one thousand people, freeing them from the bonds that held them to brothels, Russian mobsters, pimps, and madams.

  While faith led Matt to that initial foray, the Exodus Road itself is nondenominational, working with governments and law enforcement officials of all religions. Its undercover operatives and social workers range from atheists to Buddhists to Christians to Muslims. Its primary goal is freedom for the rescues, though that freedom does not always lead to a perfect or even happy future.

  That’s the reality of working in the darker corners of the human condition.

  The Exodus Road story began more than a decade earlier, when Matt and his future wife, Laura, met in high school. They fell in love and married when they were twenty-one. Their first jobs out of school were teaching gigs in Saipan, the large island in the Northern Marianas, about 3,680 miles west of Honolulu. Laura describes the year they spent there as almost an “extended honeymoon.”

  The island is a place of great beauty, and even with their jobs and a baby, their lives were almost idyllic. But paradise was temporary, and as their contracts ended, they decided to go back home.

  Their return to the U.S. brought a variety of job possibilities—they even tried doing missionary work, again in the South Pacific. The missionary stint didn’t go well, and eventually they found themselves on the East Coast, looking for more conventional jobs and lives. With a family to feed—they would eventually have three children—Matt went to work as an investment counselor with Vanguard. Though never formally trained before getting to the financial firm, he found he was good at it . . . yet he hated going to work.

  “Every day I got up early and stopped at a coffee shop on the way to work,” Matt recalls. “And I asked myself, Why am I here?”

  The answer apparently was to wait for something better—which came with an offer to work as a youth pastor in Colorado. It turned out to provide the fulfillment of their shared interest in both serving others and sharing their love of Christ with others.

  They spent five years there. It was a great job, good for them, good for the community, good for the kids Matt mentored. As part of his work, he began taking some of his groups to help children in other countries. But a tragic, rare event changed both their lives: Andrew, one of the seventeen-year-olds in Matt’s tight-knit youth group, was struck by lightning and killed.

  Matt was among those who rushed to the hospital; by the time he arrived, young Andrew had been declared dead. Matt had to relay the news to the kids out in the waiting room. He still chokes up when recalling it.

  The young man’s funeral attracted seven hundred members of the community. The death touched everyone deeply, but perhaps none so hard as three of Andrew’s friends, who had been planning to spend the summer traveling around the world with him. The young men carried on with the plan, aiming to help orphanages along the way, dedicating the trip and their charitable work to Andrew’s memory.

  They were in the middle of the trip when arrangements for a visit to Thailand fell through. They asked Matt, who was back home, to see if he could make alternate arrangements. After he did, the parents generously
offered to send him to join the kids there.

  He was happy to go—even when he found out that he had inadvertently booked the kids into a hostel near one of the most notorious red-light districts in Asia, the Ratchadaphisek entertainment district in Bangkok.

  Not too much room for effective missionary work on that street. Or so they thought. But they found plenty of work at a children’s school and completed the trip in good spirits.

  Back in the U.S., Matt was surprised to get a call from the school’s main beneficiary, asking if he’d like to take a job as its director.

  Excited by the possibilities, Matt agreed, and Laura reluctantly went along. Arriving in 2010, they found the home—a boarding school for poor children from the northern provinces of the country—to be in far worse shape than Matt had suspected. The pair threw themselves into the work needed to improve it, learning everything from basic Thai to how to build water towers and deal with the Thai bureaucracy.

  They were still feeling their way when Matt was invited to a meeting dealing with exploited children—young boys and girls who were essentially sold into prostitution in cities around Thailand, including the city where they were.

  Unlike most of the others at the conference, Matt knew next to nothing about the problem or the ways that nongovernment agencies were attempting to cope with it. As the participants split into groups, he and two other men ended up together in the only session devoted to intervening in the problem. (The other groups were primarily devoted to prevention and helping those who had escaped or otherwise been able to leave their masters.)

  The situation was tailor-made for despair. The police, it turned out, had very little intelligence on the arrangements inside the brothels. Nor could they make arrests without hard evidence against the pimps and madams running them.