Love and Acceptance

Part 3 of the series,
A Warrior’s Journey Home

February 15th 2022 5:05 am, I wipe a tear from my eyes as I kiss Stella goodbye. I lean into her crib to tell her how beautiful she is, how deeply she is loved and how much I’ll miss her while I’m gone. I sneak into my bedroom to kiss my beautiful wife, Alex. She smiles through the sleepiness and wishes me a safe trip and a beautiful journey. I choke back tears and tell her I love her. I’m trying to keep it all together while falling apart. The torn cartilage in my knee throbs as I limp down the stairs, each step a gamble, some land softly, some land with a level of pain that takes your breath away. I clutch the hand railing I nearly pulled off the wall collapsing from pain last week. “It’s a long way to Santa Cruz, California,” I think to myself. l hope I can make it. I have to make it. As I step out my front door, I’m met by the wind, lightly blowing snow, and the cold. The cold takes my breath away and for a fleeting moment, I’m back… February, frozen to the bone in Helmand, Afghanistan. I limp my way through the airport. The infantryman, the grunt, the professional tough guy in me drives me forward, refusing to accept that a 3mm tear in my meniscus could cause me this much pain. Physical pain can be dealt with, it’s all mental. I watched a man walk 20 miles on a fractured ankle through shear teeth-gritting determination and anger. It’s not the pain that bothers me so much, pain was just part of life in the Infantry. It’s feeling broken and damaged that hurts the most. The mental, emotional, and moral suffering I’m feeling is the most painful, and I don’t feel capable of dealing with it anymore. Tears fill my eyes as I look out the aircraft window and pray for relief from this unbearable pain. I post a picture of my wife and baby daughter on Facebook with the caption “Every February I think of Helmand and what it’s like to live frozen in a hole in the ground, what it’s like to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes just to calm your nerves, what it’s like to see another medevac bird another body bag, what it’s like to watch a battle with a man whose nation is on the line. I think I’ll spend the future thinking about the warmth of your love and the beauty of your smile, the kindness you radiate to the world outside.” A hope for a different future, for reprieve from this pain, I’m speaking out into the universe. I just want to feel again, to feel anything but overwhelming sadness, anger, rage, and despair. I feel more akin to a homeless veteran living filthy on our nation’s streets than I do to some smiling civilian. I see myself in the faces of broken and damaged warriors as I look through photos of the second World War and Vietnam.

Just another broken and damaged veteran. That’s the last thing I wanted to be when I left the army. I spent the last six years rebuilding myself from a pile of broken parts. I thought I had done a half-way decent job. I wasn’t a filled with rage anymore. I wasn’t a puddle of booze-soaked despair and depression. I was happy, life was good. My wife and I were so excited to welcome our baby girl into the world. Then it all collapsed. Afghanistan. All that work in counseling felt like it all disappeared, like some ancient civilization washed away by the rising tide, once an actual place now just a memory, a myth. These last few months have been the hardest of my life and that’s exactly how I feel right now, broken and damaged. The collapse in Afghanistan brought to light the shocking disconnect between those of us who fought and those who watched that war. We all watched the masses of humanity at the gates of Hamid Karzai Airport, pleading to be rescued from the Hell of Taliban rule. Some of us had friends on both sides of that fence. Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, Green Berets, and Marines desperately trying to hold the line in a collapsing nation. Afghan interpreters and their families, stuck in the terror-filled Taliban stronghold that was weeks ago their capital city. All of it was just too much to take. How many fathers could you hear begging for their wives and children, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers to be saved before you broke down in tears? How many American children left behind in a hell of our own making could you learn about before it broke you? I don’t know what that number was for me, but I know that by the end of September, I was broken and deeply damaged by what had just happened. Everything we tried felt like it was in vain, every attempt to provide a pathway to safety floundered in bureaucratic bullshit and the inability of the administration to grasp the magnitude of their failure. The trauma of it all left me feeling devoid of love, unable to believe that anyone in this world could love me. I didn’t feel deserving of love. I didn’t feel worthy of love. I felt abandoned by my own nation. Love and acceptance is all I want to feel and right now it feels a million miles away.

I arrive in San Jose, rent a car and drive the 45 mins or so to Santa Cruz. I find a small park on the edge of a cliff over looking the ocean and take a seat on a welcoming park bench. The sunshine feels good on my skin and the ocean air fills my lungs and for a second I feel alright, this little ray of hope shining down on my soul tells me “at least you haven’t given up, at least you’re willing to try to heal.” I spend a few quiet moments enjoying the view of Monterey Bay, listening to the waves break across the shore and praying to God this works. I can’t take how broken I feel, I can’t take the weight of this failure anymore. All I want is to feel loved and accepted again. Tears fill my eyes as I look at photos of my daughter. I just want her to feel loved, to be happy. “I’ll do anything to bring her that happiness,” I think to myself. The truth sinks in, my breath shortens, I bite my bottom lip, tears fill my eyes and I know it, I know it through every fiber of my being. She’ll never feel the love she deserves, she’ll never feel worthy and good enough if she grows up with an angry father. She’ll be walking on eggshells to avoid an explosion like so many young men who spent months in Afghanistan, fearful of every step, fearful of the ground beneath their feet erupting. The life I want for my baby girl starts with me, it starts with my happiness. My phone buzzes in my pocket and my alarm sounds, the words of President Reagan stream out of my pocket and have never felt more timely: “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.” Yes we do, yes we do. It’s time to get on with the healing.

I drive the half mile or so to a beautiful house on a hillside, park on the street and gingerly limp up the driveway to a smiling Attila. “Welcome brother, how are you?” We make small talk and he walks me to the ceremony room built at the end of the driveway. I place my bags down on the Adirondack chair on the porch and we step inside. The smell of incense excites my senses and pulls me immediately to the here and now. Attila invites me to sit. I think he can see the discomfort building in me. The emotions of the last 6 months, the bucket handle tear in my meniscus, the bulging disc between my L4 and L5 vertebrae that sends sciatic nerve pain pulsating down my right leg, I shift my weight back and forth each time more carefully to the right. I slowly settle into the seat and the conversation and we get around to discussing what my intention will be for this journey. “I don’t know, I, I just feel kind of lost on that.”

Attila assures me that this is normal and that we can come back to discussing intentions after we’ve done the breath work portion of the session. “I’m here for the full experience. Just let go, just go with it,” I say to myself. Attila gives me a short lesson on meditative breath exercises. “I’ve heard about these exercises,” I exclaim. Joe Rogan podcast clips of Wim Hof and James Nestor come flooding back to me, random facts about physiological effects of increased O2 and CO2 in the blood stream punctuate my inner monologue, narrowing of visual perception, increased sensory awareness, endorphins flood the brain, a feeling of calm and oneness with the world, increased emotional response. “Well I know what some of those feel like,” I think to myself. Narrowing of visual perception, well that’s what it feels like on the Jiu Jitsu mats when you’ve fucked up and your training partner wraps their arms or legs around your throat and starts to squeeze the fight and the life out of you. If you don’t tap quick enough, you pass out and those moments of confusion right after your consciousness is pulled back into your body feel exactly like being blown up. Exactly like the first time I got blown up. I don’t really remember much before the blast but I remember the concussion, the lack of breathable air. The dust, the smoke, not being able to see my hands, random hands across from me in the truck slapping my knees, Johnnie Johnson’s voice booming through the cacophony “Slap my knees if you’re okay!” he yells. It sounds like he’s at the end of a long hallway, I reach out and slap whatever is in front of me. “Dismount, dismount, get out of the fucking truck,” a Staff Sergeant from the 1st Cavalry Division yells. Moments later, I’m sprinting across a short dirt lot into an abandoned building, reflexes take over, close quarters battle drills. I clear my corners as we move smoothly through an empty house, the next door punches me back out into the blinding Iraqi midmorning sun. “Breath, back to the moment,” I say to myself. That’s what PTSD feels like. One moment you’re engrossed in some new interesting experience then something hits just the right note, like a piano player playing your favorite tune, and you’re back there, back wherever that note takes you. Maybe its dancing with your high school sweetheart, or that last goodbye to the girl you loved and thought loved you. For me, in those moments, I smell the dust, the acrid smoke of a blast, the gut punch of concussive force from a high-order detonation, or the fear, the almost paralyzing fear of what’s on the other side of that door as you stack to enter and clear a building on a raid. I loved the moments after all that shit. “Not today motherfucker, not dying today!” You hug each other and laugh with your brothers as you share smokes or a dip and relish the fact that you’re still alive. Maybe I loved it too much. Don’t judge me, you would too. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not ten million dollars. No amount of money can buy that moment, that celebration of living with a man you’d give your life for.

Attila invites me to lay back on a mattress and we begin the breath work session. He puts on a playlist of soothing music and instructs me in the proper breathing technique. A short inhale using the diaphragm’s movement towards your stomach instead of deep chest breaths. The exhale is short and pronounced, simply releasing what is there, no forcing it, just letting it go. Letting go, that’s what I’m seeking, letting go of all that bullshit keeping me stuck. We begin the meditation, and I struggle at first to find a good rhythm but eventually slip into it. About 10 minuets or so into the session, Attila invites me to slam my hands and feet into the mattress and match his tone as we yell a loud “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” This expending of internal energy, this desire to scream that we have inside of us feels amazing. By the end of the minute, I’m starting to feel the cardio I’ve been missing. My heart pounds and my breath speeds up. As we continue with the repetitive breath, I start to see things behind the blindfold in the center of my mind, the third eye as some call it. After each one of these vocal tonings, I see a vision first of a police officer who was very kind to me that morning in a moment where he could’ve been cold and callous, I think he saw a hurting veteran just like himself. Then I saw a vision of my wife and daughter smiling, joy filled. Attila silently moves around me as I breathe. He gently presses a couple of fingers into tense areas of my body and reminds me, “It’s ok to be in your body. It’s ok to be alive.” And, “it’s alright to receive love.” Some of these affirmations bring relief from years of physical tension and pain, others bring emotions long suppressed and compartmentalized to the surface. Tears fill my eyes as I struggle to keep up with the rhythm more than a few times. The last toning session provides me with a stunning picture. Staring straight through my eyes, straight through my soul. A beautiful tiger. Tigers have always terrified me. Ambush predators, big cats, you never see them coming. Just a blur of violence before you go to meet your God. But this tiger doesn’t seem to want to hurt me. He wants to show me something, what I don’t know, but there’s something I’m supposed to learn from this majestic monster. The music stops. “Take your time brother,” Attila says. I breath heavily, trying to find some words to describe this incredible experience. All I could say was, “Holy shit, that was an experience, WOW!” I exclaim. My body tingles and is remarkably relaxed. Months of tension and pain begin to unwind. All of that available to me without a touch of medicine.

“I want to accept a healing journey in my life. That’s my intention, Attila.” He smiles. “Okay, brother, okay, go ahead and light your candle,” he says with a smile. I touch the tea light candle to the large flame dancing on the tip of a large white candle. “My intention is to accept a healing journey in my life.” Attila lights his candle and sets his intention on being a strong grounding presence to enable my journey. He thanks the wood that forms these walls and the roof that keeps us sheltered, the air for giving us breath and life, the water that keeps us quenched and the medicine for helping to heal us. He hands me a small bowl with three clear capsules, “Take two and if you want to go deeper, you can have the third one about an hour in,” he says. I’m taking that third capsule. I’m here for the full experience. Everything the good Lord has for me on this Earth, I’m here for it. “I go where God takes me” was always my retort in the army when asked what my plans were for the weekend. God brought me here to accept a healing journey in my life, and I’m here for the full experience. I put back the two MDMA capsules and settle in for the journey.

I lay down on the mattress and put on a blindfold. Attila softly beats a drum and my thoughts start to drift to Stella, to Alex, to my brother and my parents, to my dog Charlie. I focus on the moment and just try to take in all of this feeling. Do you remember the last time you took a drug for the first time? You don’t have to lie, I won’t tell anyone. I wait with my eyes closed contemplating if I’m immune to the effects of MDMA, or maybe I got a dud? Is that a thing? How long have I been laying here? It can’t be more that 10 minutes, right? Does MDMA not effect some people? Did I pay that bill? Is it hot in here? Why does my shirt feel so fuzzy? It feels SO fuzzy. “Ohhhhhhh, it’s starting,” I exclaim. The feeling is like energy building in your body. The vibrations of your life making themselves known. Trauma and anger, rage and remorse, sadness and regrets, these clanging jarring vibrations. The kind that makes you white knuckle your plane seat in turbulence or loose a string of expletives towards PennDot when you hit a teeth rattling, pray for my shocks pothole. I move my hands in front of my body. Under the blindfold I can almost, almost make out the ball of love I am molding like a potter building a masterpiece on a wheel. In my mind, it takes the shape of a grapefruit-sized ball of bright white light. I pull this metaphysical mass of love into my chest and it feels as if my body begins to vibrate at a different frequency, a little bit softer. A little less clanging angry vibrations and a little more lovely vibrations, good vibrations. I build another ball of love, taking my time to smooth all the rough edges. It doesn’t take long, love is an easy medium to work with. I breathe this love deep into my lungs, like a line out of the Isley Brothers wedding masterpiece “Shout.” The angry clanging vibrations a little bit softer now, a little bit softer now, a little bit softer now. The good vibrations a little bit louder, a little bit louder now, a little bit louder now… the feeling builds to a crescendo.

Our platoon is dismounted and moving through the market ahead of us and for some unknown reason, we’ve halted. I climb higher out of the turret and lock my eyes on him. My rifle instinctively draws down on him. I watch him struggle with something in this bulging pocket, my thumb flicks the safety to fire and my right index finger takes the slack out of the trigger. He’s one pound of pressure away from death. Both eyes open. I see the EoTech reticle painted across his face. At this range, there’s no missing. I’ve made this shot a thousand times on the range. “The moment that grenade comes out of his pocket, he dies. I’m going to kill this kid,” I say to myself. My heart is pounding out of my chest. The enormity of this moment is not lost on the soul hiding behind these eyes. For a second, he stops and looks up at me. Our eyes meet and all I see is terror. A scared kid moments away from death. He knows I have the drop on him, he looks up the street, sees my brothers sprinting towards him, he looks back at me. He makes the best decision of his life and runs for it. The weight of this decision hits me. My conscience screams, “What kind of monster decides to kill a child?!” This kind of monster apparently. Me. My legs wobble under me the adrenaline dumps from my system. I begin to hyperventilate and dry heave, my guts wrenching themselves in knots.

I’m watching this terrible scene like the second time you’ve seen a horror movie… it’s not so scary when you know the ending. And then it hits me like an overwhelming wave from the top of my head, it flows to my heart and then out through all of my extremities. A feeling I can only describe as what it will feel like when I meet God again… Love and Acceptance, Waves of Love and Acceptance crash over me, washing clean my soul. I can’t explain it, I don’t know how it works. I know that through 6 years of counseling, I could intellectualize myself as not being a monster, being put in an unthinkable situation, being forced to choose between taking life or living. Cognitively, I got it. But deep down in my soul, I knew I still made that decision that day to kill a child and it haunted me. Haunted me like a ghost who would find me in my happy moments to remind me of the horror, the terror. And in that moment, it all washed away. This horrific moment viewed through the lens of Love and Acceptance. I’m not a monster, I was a 23 year old kid pointing a loaded rifle at an 8 year old boy stuck between a rock and a hard place, death and a nightmare. Martyrdom the goal. I accepted this in a way I never had before. I felt the clanging vibrations of that horror fade away from the symphony of my soul. A little bit softer now, a little bit softer now.. the beautiful vibrations of self-love a little bit louder now. I accepted myself in that moment. I accepted that I was operating out of love – love for my brothers, love for myself, my body, my parents, my brother, and love for that child standing below me. On that day, in that place, in that moment… love saved his life and love saved my life.

Love and Acceptance. Love and Acceptance is all anyone is seeking. My journey continued. I saw myself sharing terrible news with an Afghan father and seeing his love for his son overwhelm him. Waves of Love and Acceptance wash over me. I saw myself and my men preparing to launch illumination rounds, initiating an Afghan National Army ambush. I kneel next to an Afghan Captain. He speaks decent English with albeit a British accent. We wait and smoke cigarettes he tells me about this valley and its history at the edges of the known world. A dozen or so Taliban fighters ride through a dry river bed on motorcycle. We launch 3 rounds from our 60mm mortar in quick succession. The valley bellow us illuminates. His men pour rounds into the Taliban as my flares descend right to left, the wind in my face lightly pulls them towards us. Three falling swinging stars, their white parachutes slowly lower them to earth. In this movie of the mind, The Afghan soldiers now resemble a pride of lions attacking the Taliban fighters. The Afghan captain no longer wearing the uniform of his county but inhabiting the body of a lion leaps and charges into fray tearing at the enemy fighters. A generation of Afghan Lions still fighting to free their nation. Waves of Love and Acceptance crash over me. Love and Acceptance travels from the top of my head, down to my heart, and out through all my limbs, each of these waves arriving with a lesson. A lesson about accepting yourself and choosing to view things through the lens of love.

My journey came to a close in a beautiful way, my intention coming full circle. I saw myself walking along a path, a warpath. In psychedelic journeys, you are sometimes presented with a picture… a vision. And in that scene, you have understanding of its context, as if this picture has already told you 10,000 words. I knew immediately that I had been walking this warpath for a dozen years. A dozen years had passed since I hugged my family and kissed my mother goodbye before walking off on a path to war. I could look backwards and see moments from both of my wars. I looked forward and saw that from this path – two roads diverged, I could not one traveler trod on both. I looked down the path more worn and could see in front of me men from my nation dressed in their combat attire, worn and weary, their rifleman’s kit hanging off their frail bodies. Men from the Great War, The Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan looked at me all aged and weary. They played war like children trying to recapture their youth given up in service to their country. They invited me to join them in this forever game of playing war, never growing past these moments of glory, of fear, of honor, and of terror. I looked down the other road, grassy and wanting wear. It was clear this was a path of healing. A path of feeling accepted, a path of being able to love others and to connect again.  A path of healing… one less traveled. My intention for this journey resounded loudly thorough my soul, “I want to accept a healing journey in my life.”

I chose to walk down the healing path, the road less taken. As I prepare to take my next steps on this path… I know I will now be walking with Love and Acceptance.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”