Robichaux An Unfair Advantage

Victory in the Midst of Battle
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4245-6177-3
Verlag: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

Take a journey with Force Recon Marine and Pro MMA Champion Chad Robichaux as he shares glimpses into the life of special operations, professional fighting, and deep insight into this world's spiritual battles. Chad shares successes and failures experienced in Afghanistan, the MMA cage, and his biggest fights: struggling with PTSD, a near divorce, and almost becoming another veteran suicide statistic. Each chapter shares parallel stories of biblical warriors who faced similar struggles and reveals the unfair advantage that led them to victory in the midst of those battles. Discover that same advantage for the battles you face, and unlock the warrior spirit sewn in your heart by God himself.  

CHAD ROBICHAUX is a former Force Recon Marine and DoD contractor with eight deployments to Afghanistan as part of a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Task Force. After overcoming his personal battles with PTSD and nearly becoming a veteran suicide statistic, Chad founded the Mighty Oaks Foundation, a leading nonprofit, serving the active duty and military veteran communities with highly successful faith-based combat trauma and resiliency programs. Having spoken to over 150,000 active-duty troops and led life-saving programs for over 3,800 active military and veterans at four Mighty Oaks Ranches around the nation, Chad has become a go-to resource and is considered a subject matter expert on faith-based solutions to PTSD, having advised the Trump administration, Congress, the VA, and the highest levels of the DoD. Currently, Chad serves as the chairman for the Faith Based Veterans Service Alliance (FBVSA) collaborating with the White House on behalf of a coalition of faith-based Veteran Service Organizations, and is a surrogate speaker and national board member for Veterans Coalition for Trump. Chad has written five books related to veteran care, donating over 100,000 copies to the troops during his resiliency speaking tours. He is regularly featured on national media, such as Fox News, OANN, The O'Reilly Factor, The Blaze, TBN, The 700 Club, USA Today and has appeared in a short film by I Am Second. Currently, a life-story motion picture is being produced based on the stories in this book. In addition to Chad's military service, he is a former federal agent and law enforcement officer who was awarded the Medal of Valor for bravery. Chad is married to his wife, Kathy, and they have a daughter and two sons. Hunter is a third-generation Marine Combat veteran in the Robichaux family. Chad and his two sons are lifelong martial artists. Chad is a third degree Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Carlson Gracie Jr. and is a former Professional Mixed Martial Arts Champion, having competed at the highest levels of the sport.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Robichaux, Chad

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1

THE KILLING POOL

Above all else, guard your heart,

for everything you do flows from it.

PROVERBS 4:23

Before leaving for my first trip to Afghanistan, I spent four unexpected days alone in Virginia Beach waiting for a military flight. As is common with such flights, I was getting “pushed to the right,” meaning delayed for days and shoved chronologically down the calendar. I was frustrated. My preparations were complete. I had already said goodbye to my family and felt at peace although it felt like someone ripped my heart out of my chest after watching my kids stare at me through the car window as they drove away from seeing me off.

I was ready to go—ready to be with my team members in Afghanistan. I was flying out with operators I didn’t know, but they were seasoned warfighters who I admired. Since I didn’t know any of them personally and they had their own things to do, I stayed to myself. The four days of waiting seemed incredibly long, but all the training and buildup was over, and soon I was actually going to be doing my job. In those four days, I spent a great deal of time running to burn off nervous energy (I wasn’t really nervous, just eager). As I ran along Virginia Beach each day, I passed a giant statue of Neptune, the Roman god of the sea. That statue was warrior-like, and it served as a somewhat grim reminder of the seriousness of what was ahead for me.

For hours at a time, I sat near that statue and stared across the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean trying to imagine what it would be like once I arrived. I realized that somewhere across that ocean was someone who would try to kill me when given the chance. Despite all my training and life experience, I understood that I was still naive as to what it would be like over there, and that unknown intrigued me.

Departure time finally arrived by way of a C-130. I had been on this aircraft many times before on Military Free Fall (MFF) or High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jumps. As I walked across the tarmac, the fact struck me that I couldn’t remember when I had actually returned to the ground inside of one of those planes. I always jumped out before they landed, and to this day, something about the smell of burning jet fuel makes me feel like jumping.

I walked up the back ramp and into the cargo hold. It was loaded with pallets of equipment, supplies, and a small group of operators—some rugged-looking dudes! Unlike some in the military who leave on an international flight with the look on their faces like they may be marching to their deaths, these guys were cracking jokes and seemed excited about doing exactly what they had trained so hard to do. And it was clear that they had done this a time or two before—this was definitely not their first rodeo.

One of the operators I met earlier that week began handing out Ambien sleeping pills for the ride. He was a monster of a man—about six and a half feet tall and stout enough to be in the NFL—and, like many of these men, he sported long hair and a giant, thick, blond-haired beard. He looked like a Viking. He started to offer me an Ambien but then stopped and pointed at the giant bag next to me—a bag of cash that I was carrying for our team. (He knew about the bag from a briefing we had both attended.) “Why don’t you take two of these and then sleep next to me?” he said.

“Not a chance!” I laughed.

He just smiled and handed me the pill. The teasing made me feel welcome among the men for the long journey ahead. Nothing about flying on a cargo plane for twenty-two hours is fun, but like the rest of the guys, I found my own little spot atop a pile of gear, took my Ambien, and balled up like a cat for a long nap.

After a stop in Germany, we arrived at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, in the middle of the night. The other guys disembarked and headed off as if they’d been there a hundred times before, but I had an escort to get me squared away. It would be a few hours until I would meet my team. I walked around the outside of the compound, both excited and curious. I wanted to see Afghanistan, but it was still too dark. The cool, dry desert air gave me a familiar feeling of my time as a young recon marine training in Twentynine Palms, California.

I looked at the stars, finding the Big Dipper and the Lazy W to orientate myself north, something I always like to do at night even when I have a GPS. I thought to myself. (HESCO barriers are earth-filled metal cages used to make perimeter walls, and concertina wire is coiled razor wire also used at the perimeter.) This thought fascinated me. A few hours later (before the sun rose), I was leaving the safety of HESCO barriers behind and joining my team off base.

In my initial days, I spent a fair amount of time praying but not for God to save me from my situation; rather, I prayed that I would do a good job and my family would be safe without me. I probably prayed more ritualistically than from any strong confidence that God would take direct action in my family’s lives or my own. It was definitely shallow. And instead of allowing my situation to bring me closer to God, over time I allowed it to separate me from him. It didn’t take long for God to become an abstract distant concept rather than someone I could lean on in the trials to come.

I was laser focused on my mission and extremely excited, fueled by a passion to take part in retaliating for the attacks on America on September 11, 2001. Like many military personnel who had not served in combat yet, bravado and naivety filled my mind, viewed through patriotic lenses. At the time, I gave little thought to understanding the impact America has globally.

But a short time later, I had an awakening. The things I witnessed on that day (and the following ones) in Kabul, Afghanistan, would change me forever. It wasn’t the combat that changed me but rather witnessing the Afghan people on a personal level. They weren’t Taliban. I saw life through their eyes. And even though they had a dark history in their nation, they also had a deep appreciation for America.

A local national named Bashir invited me to his home. Over the next few years, Bashir became a trusted teammate and friend. He had invited me to his home to watch the 2004 presidential election unfold. I thought it was strange that he would care, but since I was personally living like a caveman at the time because of my assignment, the prospect of good food and seeing the American election sounded like a great break.

So, another team member and I went to Bashir’s home, and to our surprise, the house was packed with his family. There were wall-to-wall people, tons of food for celebration, and every eye was glued to the television, waiting in suspense for the next update. I thought it was incredible that they cared so much about the election of the president of the United States. I had never seen a group of Americans this focused, and these were Afghans! The atmosphere felt like a big Super Bowl party.

These Afghans’ candidate of choice was President George W. Bush, and when the results rolled in, the party erupted with dancing, hugging, laughter, and joy. Their reaction blew me away, and in truth, I shared in their excitement. They based their joy on the knowledge that there would be a continued presence of United States and Allied forces in Afghanistan—US forces that had already freed Kabul and many parts of the country from Taliban rule. They feared that, as president, John Kerry would withdraw forces and allow the Taliban to regain control. I understood their thinking, but it would be days later before I had reason to comprehend the depth of their passion.

Over the following days, I continued to talk to Bashir about how amazed I was that his family cared so much about who the US president would be. Bashir decided the best way to show me why they were so passionate about the election was to take me on a tour of his city. What I was about to witness changed my life and heart forever.

Bashir first took me to a four-story apartment building on the east side of Kabul, just off the Jalalabad Road entry into the city. Bullet holes scarred the concrete walls of the apartment building, and the Taliban regime had ripped out the power lines that had once provided electricity to the complex. Bashir had previously taught English here in secret in the basement of the building. He told me heartbreaking stories of how the Taliban would come into the building, raiding it like a prison inspection and searching for contraband and violations of their rules and laws. Many of the young girls would be raped, beaten, and sometimes killed for having violated their rules or for no reason at all.

Bashir showed me the stairwell leading to the roof where many girls (including one of his twelve-year-old cousins) had committed suicide by throwing themselves off the fourth story rooftop after Taliban thugs had raped or beaten them. Some jumped to avoid such a fate. As I thought of these young girls, I couldn’t imagine a fear so deep that it would cause a person to throw themselves off a four-story building to their death. But then I envisioned terrified workers inside the World Trade Center buildings who chose to jump to their deaths rather than burn alive.

The next place we visited was known locally as the Killing Pool. Bashir parked at the base of Mahrus Hill on the north side of Kabul, and a short hike to the top of the hill had us standing in front of a full-size...