I started to have flashbacks. I was at the tail end of my first journey across country, up to the north. I was exhausted from visiting my soldiers and was waiting on the Air Commodore to finish his meeting with general officers from that region. While waiting, I found myself in the office of a young Air Force captain. Here is what I wrote in my blog soon after the experience:
It's funny how often the enduring highlight of a given event is not what you anticipated it to be. I loved traveling across the country and the new experiences, and I loved seeing these soldiers again. But it was folks who would've otherwise remained on the periphery who came into sharp focus.
The Air Force officer who coordinated our trip told me how excited he was when he found out a chaplain was coming. He was a Mormon who converted to Christianity and was having a hard time finding a Christian fellowship at his post. We talked a lot about how he came to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and his rejection of the heresies and self-salvation of Mormonism. It is always interesting to track the thoughts/feelings of someone who has been so graciously delivered from the bondage of deceit. (Blog from 8/16)
More memories began to deluge my heart and mind. This captain was reading On Killing by Dave Grossman, a modern military classic. I was reading the WWII Liberation Trilogy and was recommending the books to him, though he self-admittedly wasn't much of reader.
Though he lived in Colorado, he was preparing to be transferred, and I suggested he try to get assigned to the DC area. He also grieved all of the time apart from his wife, who was deployed in southern Afghanistan, and was eager for them both of them to get home, for her to leave the Air Force, and to start their family.
Above all, what impressed me most about this airman was his desire to grow in knowledge and love of the Lord. That was the heart of our conversation in his office, and what carried us through dinner when we sat separate from all of the commanders to continue to talk about Christ. He was still young in the faith, but hungry, and grateful and devoted to a wife who had grown up in the faith.
Captain David Lyon, 28, was killed by a VBIED one mile from here on December 27th. He was leaving to travel back to the north after spending Christmas with his wife, Dana, who was stationed here and a regular participant in Operation Outreach and our Sunday evening chapel service.
I had no idea that the blast which shook our post several days ago took the life of a dear brother in the Lord who helped forge one of my great memories from early in this deployment. I guess that is war--when morning joys turn into sunset tragedies. He was due home in February. One of the more subtle, sad consequences of death is the reminder that memories are not permanent. So much of the substance of my interactions with David are lost because they were not so highly valued until now.
I only spent a few hours with David, but I will miss him and I will miss his dreams. He loved his wife so very much, which is why he was able to wrangle a trip down here for Christmas. Like me, many others remember David for his rare gift of making friends of strangers. Yet, the more pronounced memories of David concern his constant love and devotion for Dana. And my heart breaks for her, realizing now the caliber of the husband she lost.
Dana was due to arrive back in the States yesterday, alongside her husband's flag-draped coffin. May the Savior of her soul shepherd her through this dark and lonely valley.
"The saviors come not home tonight. Themselves they could not save." -A.E. Housman
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