Jason Lewis: October Newsletter

Sometimes we put our hair up and rock out. I don't think I sent this picture out yet but I have grown tired of taking pictures and had to mine the archives for a good photo. This is a lighter moment during the past year when I joined with a few other soldiers and we put a show on. It was only a one show affair for the 4 th of July and to the chagrin of my fellow rockers I quit the band to focus on coming home. The soldiers loved it and we had a great time practicing and doing the show. Oh yea, the band is called "The Haifa Street Project." You can Google it and read more about us.

I am 5 days out from the one year mark. One year ago I left my family to come over here. One year ago Elizabeth, Cambria and I were on Vashon Island in Washington to say all the things we needed and wanted to say (Cambria didn't say much except ba ba ba.). It was one year ago that we made that two hour drive to the Portland Airport feeling all the weight of what we were about to do-say goodbye. I had been to too many funerals over the previous three years to be ignorant of the fact that I might not come home. One of the funerals I attended in Texas was that of an Army Captain a year younger than me. His beautiful wife sat on the front row of the Church holding their
1 year old daughter. I sat in the back holding my 5 month old daughter. She looked haggard and dazed by the events of a past week and a signal moment that for her, took her husband away, left her a single mom, and thrust her out into an uncertain sea. I felt the agony for a moment of my wife being in that position. I touched her to make it go away. His father and younger brother-he only had one sibling-spoke a tribute together of their lost son and lost brother. They spoke of their confidence in his faith in Christ and how they would see him again. But they admitted with heart-wrenching transparency that nothing could be said or done to fill the void. The void was too dark for the moment and all they seemed to ask for is a moment to memorialize their hero.

Of all the losses that one hit the closest to home. So much of the blessings that can be had on this earth: A beautiful wife, a precious child, a home, a good job, health, future, family was gone for this soldier. I've often prayed in dangerous situations, "Lord, not for my sake, but for the sake of Elizabeth and Cambria, get me through this." I can't stand the thought of another man taking my place-an inevitable and practical solution for a young and widowed woman with a child. And I have prayed with the fervent conviction that no one would care for the wife of my youth and my child like me. God reminds me that he can-with or without me. Yet the promises of heaven can wait: just give me the time to raise my family and accompany my wife to old age, or so I find myself negotiating at times.

Regardless, I am alive today and focused more on the present. We have today and that is what we can count on. Someone asked Martin Luther what he would do if he knew the world was ending tomorrow. Luther's reply, "I'd plant a tree." I've learned that all of the ominous and actual tragedies that happen around us, magnified by the promotion of them in the news, can have the corrosive effect of wearing away our optimism and hope for the future. Even worse, we become introspective, selfish and isolated from the one true constant throughout the universe and why we are here-to love and be loved.
So with that thought in mind I propose to plant a tree, keep on rocking, spread the love. It began with Christ and continues to flow from there-constant, accessible, totally dependable. Always dependable. One news letter to go.

From: Dan Lao

19 October 2007

This will be one of my last entries of the deployment; it may be the last. I think this might also be the longest as I suddenly have so many memories I want to record. Some are still vivid and will be easy to recall. Others have already begun to fade and this is my attempt to hang on to them before they fade and join lessons of chemistry and history in the depths of my unused brain cells.

Right now I'm half sitting, half reclining on a bunk bed with my feet off the side of the bed propped up on a folding chair. My bunk bed is one of about 15 inside a tent with a few fluorescent lights and outlets, where I have been living with my platoon for the past week. The plywood floor is covered in dust and the smell of 30 pairs of feet wafts through the air. But it's a fair trade when thinking that this is only a transient place of lodging until we get on a plane that will take us home.

Looking back on this deployment, I will remember my first time on a convoy going to meet my platoon for the first time. I will remember being amazed at the sight of frost in Iraq. I will never forget the smell of that tent at Yusufiyah after our platoon lived in it for 45 days.

One of my favorite memories and some of my most fulfilling times will be those late nights while out on mission, staying up and talking to my Soldiers. I will remember sitting on top of our trucks waiting for darkness to fall so we could travel under cover of darkness; I'll remember talking with my guys about things we missed back home, hearing the occasional sound of small arms fire and wanting to pretend as if I didn't hear it.

My conversation with PFC (now SPC) Johnson is one of my favorites. It was too hot to sleep and the area we were in was generally safe, so I wandered outside to get some fresh air. I found two of my guys, Moisio and Johnson out smoking. I accepted a cigarette from them for two reasons 1) because it was one less that they had to smoke and 2) it was fun to flick off the ashes while they laughed at me and told me I hold cigarettes like a girl. After a while, Mo (Moisio) went to bed and left me and JJ (Jared Johnson is his full name) talking about life. We talked about his life, his family, how he used to be a good boxer, how drink and glamour made him a bad boxer, and how he joined the army. We talked about how he had almost gotten kicked out of the army, but had since gone on to do so well that the Sergeant Major wanted him as his driver. We talked about dreams and about his goal to again be a good boxer. He has since that night gone on to be the Sergeant Major's driver, and while I was sorry to lose him from my platoon, it is a great accomplishment for him. He has regained the rank he lost a year ago, and he has quit smoking. That night and nights like that are the ones I will remember.

Whenever I see the rear view mirror on a humvee, I will remember the mornings when those mirrors were used to shave some mornings; and how some of those mornings, nothing tasted better than a Blueberry Otis Spunkmeyer muffin with coffee brewed with an MRE heater.

I will remember fondly my conversations with SSG Ferrer about God, meaning, and morality. While we usually ended up at the same place we began, I thoroughly enjoyed our talks, our debating, and our struggling to use big words that neither of us could spell in an attempt to sound intelligent.

I learned more about cars and NASCAR than I ever thought or wanted to from SSG Greene. I didn't know that you could talk for 2 and a half hours about cars; apparently you can. With ease. I will remember how SSG Greene made it is secondary vocation this deployment to let me know whenever I made a mistake or miscalculation; and I did the same for him, always with a laugh and a smile.

I will smile when I think about how I sometimes laughed so hard at in our conversations. I will laugh when I think about how close our platoon became. Call it comfortable, tight, open; sometimes it was downright strange, but in a way that can only be understood by those who have laughed at their friends in their most embarrassing moments, our platoon became the most ruthless, welcoming, shameless, and fiercely loyal group I have ever been part of. Maybe it is only in the heat (literally) and stress we faced together, a group could ever be forged so closely together.

I will never forget the Soldiers in my platoon and the NCOs who led them. I will never forget how hard they worked and how they motivated me. I don't know at what point in time it happened, but sometime during the deployment, being able to say you were part of 3rd Platoon, "Third Herd" became a thing of pride; a badge of honor. That is because of the Soldiers. My successes and triumphs are a credit to them, and I hope that they realize that.

Sitting here, less than two weeks away from going home, I am thankful for this time to be drawing to a close, but will miss the time spent with my Soldiers. Over the past year, I cannot tell you how much your prayers, letters, and care packages meant to me. My Soldiers often joked that my room was like a small store because of all the snacks. Nobody complained when I brought all those snacks out on our missions though. As my time here runs short, please pray for me and my men. Again, thank you for reading as I haphazardly through my thoughts down. And thank you for your prayers.

See you soon
By Grace,
Dan