A soldier's song

'God Challenged Me:' A soldier's song
'I believed I was put on this Earth for a purpose; to take soldiers’ last living pictures.'
By Stacy Pearsall, special to HLN
Tue July 02, 2013

Editor’s note: Stacy Pearsall is a former Air Force combat photographer. She is featured in the HLN Independence Day special, “Stories of Courage: Soldiers' Songs.” The special features veterans and their families participating in a program called "SongwritingWith: Soldiers," which aims to turn painful memories into healing energy through music. Tune in for this special presentation at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, July 4.

“Beauty and the colors, the light and the shadows, I took the pictures of lives in battle,” sang Darden Smith as he gazed at me through tear-soaked eyes, gently strumming his guitar only hours after sitting down to write a song with me. Upon arriving at the Song Writing with Soldiers Retreat, I was quietly skeptical at the idea of opening up to perfect strangers about my combat experiences, especially in light of the fact that I’d barely revealed such intimate details to my own husband and fellow combat photographer, Andy Dunaway.

During the introductory dinner, I stayed relatively to myself, standing near an exit and giving caged one-word answers. The next morning at breakfast, the man behind Song Writing with Soldiers pulled up a chair next to me and just started chatting. I was taken off my guard. He had no guitar, no intimidating questions, and concentrated more on listening than talking. I shared some old military photos of my family, then some of me in combat and eventually pictures I’d taken in war. From there, it was as if the floodgate holding back my emotions had been opened and I couldn’t contain the torrent.
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