FLYOVER

FLYOVER
by
Chaplain Kathie
The military folks love acronyms, so here is one to think about.
FLYOVER

Focus Looking at Yourself and Observe Variety of Events Reflectively

That has been the basic idea behind the best healing practices going back 40 years. Just about any worthwhile study I've read has had the PTSD veteran taking a look back at a time before that traumatic event claimed a freeze frame in his/her mind.

If the last image of something is evil in nature, they begin to believe they are evil now. If the last image is of extreme sadness, they begin to believe they do not deserve to feel anything else than sadness.

Many veterans begin to doubt God is real when they see so much horror and that is carried with them when they return home. They wonder how a "loving God" could allow so much and do nothing. They fail to notice one simple fact. The fact they lived through all of it and managed somehow to care so much, they cannot forget it. They didn't notice God was right there in the middle of all of it. Whenever they shed a single tear, He was there. Whenever they reached out a hand in kindness, He was there. There are so many times during war when there is evidence of God's love, but they cannot refocus their attention off the horror and onto the remarkable grace that lives even there.

God does not interfere with freewill and it is man waging war on man. He understood the need of defenders when He created a Warrior before He created man and that warrior is Michael. Christ didn't even condemn the Roman Centurion when he wanted Christ to heal his servant. Some people want to say that the Bible says "thou shall not kill" but they simply don't understand that throughout the Bible there were many wars and most of the heroes of the Old Testament were in fact warriors fighting side by side with their men.

There is a very powerful reminder of this when Christ was trying to warn of the way He would die. He said "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." John 15:13

What our veterans forget is that they were not only willing to do that, they were willing to do it for total strangers.

They forget so much that when it is all over, they can only see themselves through the eyes of all that was bad and not what was still good inside of them.

A National Guardsman had horrible memories of a family bullets from his weapon killed in Iraq because that last image of them in the car held him captive. After much work, he was able to remember that he tried everything within his power to prevent it. He was able to forgive himself for what he had to do.

He began to heal but had to repeat the same process until he made peace with all the events troubling him.

It can be done if the military stops repeating the same mistakes they keep making. PTSD is not their fault and training had nothing to do with PTSD picking on them. They are not mentally weak but they are emotionally strong. They feel things more deeply and that is how they are able to find the tremendous courage they need to do their jobs and face whatever they are asked to do. It is how they are able to leave all they have at home for as long as they are needed someplace else.

Treating them as if they are responsible for what comes home with them is like pretending the war itself was their idea.

As for anyone thinking they are selfish, and you know who I mean, it is also the reason why most will not even think of suicide while deployed but only allow themselves to feel the pain when they are back home again and their men are out of danger.