If you spend the better part of a minute around me you might find out that I like me some firearms but for even a longer time I've had a fascination with the military. I think it would be a conservative guesstimate that I have consumed over 300 books on the subject in the last 20 years. A good portion of those have been focused on the war in Vietnam (I read every book the Snohomish library had on the subject) . Lately my focus has been on three books written by three Navy SEALS, namely Marcus Luttrels "Lone Survivor", "American Sniper" by Chris Kyle and the latest book "Fearless" by Eric Blehm.
It would be to time consuming to go thru all of them in detail but I think I should give a little info on each of these guys.
Chris Kyle was a SEAL sniper who gained his reputation for the most kills for any sniper in US history. One thing that always interests me is how a man can witness death at his own hand time and again and remain, for lack of a better word, indifferent. Kyle's candid words on the matter are revealing.
Marcus Luttrell was the one SEAL that walked or as the case may be shot, fell, limped, fell, shot and bled his way through the day the US lost more SEALS in the history of the organization. I shed tears reading his account of those hours in hell.
Adam Brown. I don't know where to begin with this story. And I won't really be satisfied with anything I could say about this guy. I really laughed and wept through this entire book. Much like the Bible speaks of the warrior David, exposing all his shortcomings and falls from grace so does the writing of Eric Blehm about Adam Brown. From a mediocre football player with a ton of heart to a meth-head druggy who stole from friends and family until crashing to rock bottom in a jail cell with 11 felonies to his name where he finally came to salvation, to the challenge of becoming a Navy SEAL.And not being satisfied with that was accepted into DEVGRU, the top one percent of the top one percent. And achieving that after losing vision in his dominant right eye in a training accident and four fingers on his right hand when his HUMVEE rolled in a collision. Front there we read about a man who would not stop glorifying God for dragging him from the pit all the way up to his death in the desolate Hindu Kush mountains.
One of the things that strikes me most about these three warriors is their emphasis on family. Men who stare death in the face, see evil incarnate, men who see the depravity of humankind and yet went home to their wife and kids and were (or became, in the case of Luttrell and Kyle) family men.
In Kyle's words " People have an idea in their heads that fathers aren't able to spend comfortable time with their very young children. Hell, I had as much fun as they did".
Adam was known for giving Afghan children rides on his ATV and handing out shoes and socks that he requested his home church send- in place of personal care packages. He was winning hearts and minds for a different Cause.
To sum it up here's the stories of the top one percent of men among men, guys who got the Job done, who are the success stories and the thing all of them come back to is the priority of the family and especially in the case of Adam Brown,the mercy and grace of God.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
( A little side note if you geek out on these HSLD guys stories like me, Marcus and Adam both were in class 226 of BUD/S which makes for a nice parallel read if you're into that. Marcus ended up being moved to 228 due, if I recall, to injury and Adam graduated with 227)
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