I worked as a 911 dispatcher in a past life and made a lasting friendship with a guy who is not at all like me.
Jim Hewitt is a horse rancher and a deputy sheriff. He lives in the most secluded corner of Minnesota’s Kittson County where he and his wife Kelly have, and are still in the process of raising 13 kids.
All of his kids are home-schooled and as a former school board member that prompted a number of discussion between Jim and I on the virtues and pitfalls of both public education and home school.
But all of that is a another story.
What prompted me to write about Jim is best called my admiration and respect for him. Also the changes that he will face when he returns. He has very unique (at least unique in my world) beliefs and stands strongly on those beliefs. Yet he does not try to force feed them to anyone around him.
But what really peaked my admiration is that Jim, who is now in his late forties, volunteered to serve a year in Iraq, and is now considering extending that tour for another six months. Granted, he being well paid, but I really don’t believe that to be his motivation.
Jim was never in the military, yet has a very strong patriotic sense about him. He is also a former U.S. Border Patrol Agent, and it the former job that offered him the opportunity to take this job.
He works as a Border patrol advisor to his Iraqi counterparts.
I spent nearly 27 months total in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Maybe that is where my connection to this comes from.
I remember telling Jim the week before he left for Iraq that when he returns home, nothing will ever again be the same as it was. I really don’t think he understood what I was was telling him at the time, but I would venture he will have a very good understanding when he returns.
I was never a real beg fan of the Vietnam War, just as Jim does not like the idea of a war in Iraq. But for some there are moments where personal preferences are set aside in favor of a sense of some larger.
For me that something larger was Vietnam, for Jim it is Iraq. Others feel the same way about their opposition to serving. That’s fine with me, I have no real bones to pick as long as those feelings are legitimate.
But back to the subject - What I am trying, in my inept way, to get across is, there are events that we choose in our lives that have such a profound effect on us, that they alter our very being, There are similar life-altering events where choices are not given to us.
The two most life-altering experiences of my life came from each of those categories.
The first was Vietnam. It was the historical event of my time and I chose to stay as involved with it for as long as was possible.
The second of those was not by choice but was dealt to me without my consent. About a year ago I nearly lost my wife Deb to a fluke illness. Sitting by her hospital bed one morning I watched her sink back into the bed and saw the life drain from her eyes. (It is a scene I had become familiar with during the war.) Luckily a doctor was just a few feet away and they got her into surgery, saving her life.
The first of these two events shaped my early years, caused a lot of problems, taught me to deal with problems, taught me the value of life, defined my politics and my general outlook on life.
The second changed all of my priorities. Many stressful issues suddenly got moved way down the list when compared to family.
Jim may not know it at the moment, but his life is taking a drastic turn. What he does today will affect him and define him for the remainder of his years. It will be a few years before he realizes this.
A little off the subject - Jim’s daughter, Ashlee, is currently a contender on the NBC program, Nashville Star on Monday nights. She’s really doing a bang-up job.
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My niece has been in the Minnesota National Guard since she was a junior in high school. She is 23 years old. She has gone through one enlistment cycle and recently re-enlisted. She has spent about a year in Kuwait, and, in April 2009, she will be going to Iraq running fuel convoys, replacing a unit that is coming back shortly.
Her time in the National Guard has been one of the best things that ever happened to her. Her original motivation for joining at such a young age was payment for education. The residual effects have been way more positive than that simple goal, and her experience has really reshaped my view of the military and the positive things that enlistment can provide.
Even when she gets deployed and I worry like hell about her, I’m thankful for what she has been taught by being in the military. If she loses her life, of course I’ll be devastated, but I will also know that she lost her life in an endeavor of which she was very proud. She has learned many things, mostly about herself, that she may have never known otherwise. I’m very proud of her and all of our troops.
For me, my most life-changing event in my 44-years of life is the death of Dawn Netterlund when I was 16. It was something that I could have never imagined happening at that age. I was so self-centered. I had lost grandparents, aunts, and uncles by that age, but, for most kids, those deaths don’t really slap you in the face. This one did, and really reshaped a lot of my life at a very young age.
Another life-changing event for me was moving from the Twin Cities to Nisswa. I don’t have a lot of girl friends. It is difficult to move to a small community without children. It is very cliquey, as it is with most small communities. My “hanging out” time is mostly spent with Jeff and other men. And, most of those men are divorced or in the process of getting divorced. I’ve learned a lot about myself in my quiet times alone. I likely know more about myself than most people know about themselves. And, I’ve learned a lot about guys and how they think. Scary, isn’t it?
That, in and of itself, is life changing! :-)
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