Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 10, 2014
No matter how much we can do now, someone else did it long before we ever thought of it.
Someone had to go on an adventure, map the territory so that others could find it easier than they did. First they had to have a desire to do it.
The problem with being these pathfinders is, no one knows who they are or what motivated them unless they spend a long time researching. Most of of the time they will never track down the person responsible for getting from "here" to "there."
It is a safe bet they had a very hard time being the first one. Lots of wrong turns, stumbles, giving up and getting up all over again. We never really think about them driving to places we've never seen before or going over a bridge as one piece of land is linked to another.
There has always been someone willing to think of things in a different way, look at the same things going on everyone else was but see something totally different. They saw it because they looked harder.
It may seem to you that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is some kind of new phenomenon simply because they didn't know it was all going on for a very long time.
As with most things, someone decided to figure out a way of getting from one point to another. Try to find a way to help other veterans find their way out of the darkness they thought they were trapped by a veteran decided to show them the way.
It happened in 1984 when a police officer was seeing far too many veterans being arrested, walking the streets and basically falling apart.
Point Man International Ministries Since 1984, when Seattle Police Officer and Vietnam Veteran Bill Landreth noticed he was arresting the same people each night, he discovered most were Vietnam vets like himself that just never seemed to have quite made it home. He began to meet with them in coffee shops and on a regular basis for fellowship and prayer. Soon, Point Man Ministries was conceived and became a staple of the Seattle area. Bills untimely death soon after put the future of Point Man in jeopardy.
However, Chuck Dean, publisher of a Veterans self help newspaper, Reveille, had a vision for the ministry and developed it into a system of small groups across the USA for the purpose of mutual support and fellowship. These groups are known as Outposts. Worldwide there are hundreds of Outposts and Homefront groups serving the families of veterans.
Point Man In Your Pocket
The current president of Point Man in Dana Morgan. He was a Marine in Vietnam. He is the longest serving from 2000. He knows what war is like but beyond that, he knows what healing is like.
There were others before him. There will be others after him because there will never be an end to the battles after wars as long as veterans live in this country after being in the "devil's sandbox" or cities, jungles, on the seas and in the air.
From Devil's Sandbox While other National Guard units escorted convoys and guarded bases, the Volunteers of 2-162 took the fight to the heart of the enemy and saw more sustained combat than any other National Guard unit since the Second World War. The Volunteers played key roles in the most significant events in Iraq and helped pave the way for the first free election in Iraqi history. In the process, they were ranked the best infantry battalion in Iraq by Lt. General Peter Chiarelli, commanding officer of the 1st Cav Division.
Author Bruning takes a close look at these remarkable citizen-soldiers, their families and their collective experiences during this critical time in the Iraq War. Mill workers and students, engineers and day laborers came together within the battalion's ranks with nothing in common save their unshakeable belief that service to the country was an honorable path.
In Iraq, their sense of honor was tested to the limits. With little guidance on how to fight against a ruthless guerilla foe, the battalion made its own rules, upheld its own standards. These standards sometimes clashed with the policies of both the American and Iraqi governments. In June, 2004, the Volunteers stumbled across a torture compound within the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. Instead of standing idly by, they stormed it, disarmed the American-supported Iraqi guards, and gave medical treatment to the dying prisoners. The event provoked an international incident, but the Volunteers prevailed: their actions secured the release of over a hundred tortured and abused detainees.
They put their faith in each other and it is by the side of one another they learn to heal together. To know the price of their service cannot be reduced to words nor paid back once a year on the 11 of November. It cannot be justified by medals but must be memorialized by the actions of the rest of us, honoring the fact they went where we did not, willing to pay the price to have as many as possible return to their families and friends.
It is by those willing to walk back to make sure others will find their way easier than they did. It is by their example they prove that love does not die in the darkest of times but searchers harder for what is good within them even in the horror of war.
Love lives. It survives. It survived when they grieved. It lingered in a memory. It took hold. It is by that strength they are able to heal and lead others from one point to the next.
PTSD isn't new. How to heal it isn't new either but just because you can't see Seattle from Key Largo doesn't mean you can't get there. Just because you didn't know something was on the other side of the hill didn't mean it wasn't.
Take a walk with the veterans making the map and find out how they got out of the valley you feel trapped in. Don't let the word of "ministry" confuse you with some other groups you may have heard of making you feel as if you just got hit with a bible over your head instead of hugged by someone holding one.
They have been there and back so many times that you can see the strength of their belief in your ability to not only heal but trust your love is so strong you will end up leading others into a better life as well.
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