From Fear to Faith: A Story of Bravery

Funny, but it kind of ties into a former prompt in which I said “Risk” was something I learned from my Grandpa.

To me, Bravery is a little like a tree falling in the forest. If no one is around to hear it fall, did it make a sound. To me, bravery is something that happens because we have to survive. It’s not jumping out an airplane for the thrill or handling a reptile or such. It’s not overcoming your fear.

Bravery is something you do because without it, you die.

Allow me to defend my thinking with my life.

Flashback, 1986.

I’d been living in Questa, New Mexico. Questa was an interesting town in that most everyone who lived there was employed at the mine. The kept the town afloat. And when the mine closed, the community was soon on its way to becoming a shadow of its former self.

So, I’m trying to find another job someplace. Here’s the problem. another job would have meant moving even further from the familiar. We were still close enough to home to visit often and the support system wasn’t far away. It would be safe to say we were operating with a safety net.

But jobs weren’t happening. If life is indeed a game, I had a busted straight and no hopes of getting a good hand. My pile of chips was almost zero. I wasn’t out of the game yet, but I was certainly eyeing my hat.

I needed to get dealt back into the game. And only risk and the courage to try would get me a good hand again. So, I’m trying everything to get that new hand.

And I kept getting crappy cards.

One day, I’m walking down the street in Alamosa, Colorado. I’ve just put in an application at McDonalds. Talk about aiming high!

I pass the Army recruiters office and see a sign that talks about Army Opportunities. I said to myself, “What have you go to lose?”

I walked in.

There was a Staff Sgt sitting at the desk. “Can I help you,” he said.

“You’ll probably toss me out when you find out how old I am,” I said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine,” I answered. The cutoff for Army enlistment at the time was twenty-eight.

“Well, what do you bring to the party?” he asked.

“Four years of college and almost ten years of law enforcement experience.”

“You look like you’re in good shape,” he said. He told me I could get in on a waiver for age, but thought I’d do fine in the military.

I spoke to my then wife about it.

I spoke to my folks.

The overall consensus was it was stupid thing to do. That maybe I should stay nearby and go to work (insert place here).

My answer. “I finally know what I need to do.”

The next day I went back to the recruiter’s office and a month later, I’m the oldest male PFC in the United State Army that hadn’t been busted.

It was an act of bravery based in desperation.

But it changed me forever. I finally figured out who I was because of it. It effectively cut the umbilical cord to home. It made me able to stand on my own and to value who I was. And it taught me faith.

Now, Faith is often described as stepping out on nothing and finding something there. I’d argue faith is often times the result of courage. If you didn’t have the courage to risk it, then you have no faith. And the day I graduated from Basic Training and became a soldier; I felt I’d finally taken my place among the living. At the risk of sounding square, old fashioned, and just plain stupid, that’s when I can honestly say I became a man.

Granted, there were a few things that happened I could have lived without, but I became Captain of my Life. Because of the courage to risk failure and looking stupid, I won.

My lesson?

Sometimes you have to be brave enough to walk away from the known and safe and risk it all for tomarrow.