“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” —Psalm 34:18
Our marriage had been forged in the chaos of war, built on fleeting moments of passion and desperation. It was not love; it was survival. We clung to each other, hoping to outrun the darkness, but the shadow of war seeped into every crack, leaving only rubble behind.
I poured another cup. As I sipped, the memories became a distant echo. Our foundation had never been built to last; it was destined to crumble beneath the weight of what we could not fix. My thoughts pulled me back to the whirlwind that had brought me to this point, to a woman I once believed could help me outrun the shadows.
Rachael Kelly Farris—her name an echo of a time both chaotic and unexpected. It was two thousand two, Afghanistan. As a Sergeant First Class with the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, I had earned a “get the hell out of Theater” order after threatening a lieutenant who had kicked a dog. Lucky for me, friends with stars on their collars smoothed things over, and that exile brought me to Barcelona.
She was a Captain, a company commander in Alpha Company, Seventeenth Signal Battalion. I was passing time on an Armed Forces Recreation Center trip; she was sightseeing. Fate intervened when we crossed paths at a mixer. Rachael—graceful, commanding, magnetic—blurred the formalities of rank as we retreated to the hotel after mere hours of conversation. For four days, the world outside ceased to exist.
Somehow, she secured an assignment to Bagram Air Base. It was not coincidence—friends with stars on their collars made it happen. Two months to the day after Barcelona, we reunited under the Afghan sky. Two months later, we exchanged vows—a quiet wedding bound by the urgency of military life.
Another four months passed, and Rachael began to show. She transitioned to Fort Bragg to finish “cooking the bun in her oven,” as she lightheartedly put it, her humor softening the weight of it all. It marked the next stage in a journey both exhilarating and overwhelming—unfolding too quickly, propelled by fleeting connection, sustained by fragile hope, and bound by an urgent mix of passion, desire, and the ever-present shadow of mortality.
Looking back, I see now we were chasing something beyond each other. For me, it was a desperate attempt to fill the void left by combat. For her, perhaps it was the need for companionship. Passion never grew into love, and what we thought was a foundation crumbled beneath time and distance.
Echoes of the Battlefield
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” —Psalm 147:3
I closed my eyes for a minute, and my mind went where it always goes.
The battlefield blurred in and out of focus—a churning mess of sand, smoke, and fire. Somewhere behind me, the earth still trembled from the blast that had knocked me flat. Each breath scraped like sandpaper against raw flesh, and my chest—God, my chest—was ablaze. Blood seeped from wounds I could barely feel anymore, pooling beneath me, soaking into the unforgiving ground. My trembling hands pressed weakly against the ragged holes, but it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough.
My ears rang with a piercing whine, swallowing the screaming chaos around me. Shouted orders, frantic cries—enemy or ally, it didn’t matter anymore; the desert didn’t care. The taste of copper filled my mouth, bitter and metallic, as I gasped for air that refused to come. I tried to move, to drag myself toward the twisted wreck of our Humvee, but my body was a traitor, frozen and lifeless. The barren wasteland stretched on, endless and pitiless, and I thought: This is it. This is where it ends.