Traumatic stress creates the myth that you must regain control over your environment when you encounter too many dangerous situations that leave you feeling helpless. This is the approach psychology takes. Add alcohol to Dad's daily pressures of flight test at Bell Helicopter, and you have set the stage for years of misery at home. On the other hand, God gave me the Dad He wanted me to have. I’m good with that—now. I wasn't then.
​
I didn’t wake up one morning, see my need for Jesus, fall on my knees, and seek the Savior, far from it.  My life and marriage had to fall apart first.  I had to come to the end of myself.  This hole I’d fallen into bottomed out where Jesus directed me to land.  My union with Christ didn't rid me of combat's adverse effects.  Following my faith in Jesus Christ, rage, depression, and anxiety, the repercussions of combat were part of my life and marriage.  This unwelcome state was as good as it would get.  I could not understand the internal war raging in my mind and body.  I certainly couldn't explain it to my wife and children.  I had become my Dad to my family, minus the alcohol and violence.
 
I have discovered that learning more facts and knowledge does not mean more Christlikeness, and teaching the Bible does not equal greater holiness before the Lord.  Our failure rate is 100% each day.  The apostle Paul said it best, "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.  And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." (Rom.  8: 22-23).  Ephesians 4 informs us that spiritual growth amid our groaning comes as a result of church attendance where we partake of the means of grace--corporate worship, preaching the Word of God, the sacraments, public prayer, singing, and fellowship primarily.  
 
The effects of traumatic stress, no matter how or when it comes upon us, guarantee that groaning, suffering, and misery characterize our lives more often than we wish.  While psychology fills us with medication, seeking to deaden the outcome of combat and alter our cognitive processes and external behavior, the Spirit of Christ moves us in a different direction.  His work transforms our hearts, bearing the peaceful fruit of righteousness, making us more like Christ, even while we "groan within ourselves."
 
Psychology attempts to short-circuit God's work in the believer's life by refocusing them away from the purpose of PTSD, i.e., suffering, and toward changes in their thinking and behavior.  Joel Olsteen, on the other hand, believes we can live our best lives now.  Neither is the path Christ trod.  Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered.  If politically correct, I would steer a course far astern from suffering.  But it's through suffering we learn to cling to Jesus.  In the midst of the valley, we understand how much Jesus cares for us.  Suffering reveals our hearts--and God's. Suffering causes us to yearn for Christ's second coming.  This world is passing away.  In this world, you shall have tribulation.  But be of good cheer, Jesus, not psychology, not my efforts, not this or that, has overcome the world.  PTSD or traumatic stress is tailor-made for maturing us in Christ.
 
"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us." (Rom. 8:18)
​
"After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen." 
(1 Pet. 5:10-11)

​

The best way for me to explain my ministry succinctly is through the way our company, platoons, squads, and fire teams received the operational orders from the HQ level, down to the Regiment, and then to the Battalion level. The accrostic was SMEAC, (Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration,  Command and Communication). Our Company Commander would notify the Platoon Commanders who would communicate the pertinent information to the platoon Sergeants, etc. In my case at Khe Sanh, the Weapons Platoon Commander, Sgt. Predmore, would communicate to the section leader who would let the squad leaders know how mortars, machine guns, and rockets were to support the platoons when we ran into unfriendlies. I have adapted the Marine Corps' more complex Five-Paragraph Operation Order to fit my own Five-Paragraph Operation Order ministry.

​

The following is the SMEAC for my ministry. I hope it helps you.

 

FIVE-PARAGRAPH OPERATION ORDER

​

1. SITUATION: 

a. Enemy Forces:

1) Satan & his minions

2) Sin

3) the flesh

4) the world

5) suffering

6) death

7) the negative changes in the brain under stress. 

 

Capabilities:  

1) Satan, the god of this world, possesses the ability to keep us ignorant about how God causes PTSD to fit positively into His temporal & eternal redemptive administration. IOW, the Scriptures reveal to believers & their families the answer to the question: What is the temporal & eternal purpose of PTSD for your life?

2) Satan has the ability to keep Christian veterans focused on the effects of PTSD rather than the service PTSD renders to God in our lives.

3) Satan also possesses the ability to keep the yet-to-be-saved Christian veterans bound in sin and ignorant of how God uses traumatic stress to bring them to the Savior and keep them in the faith by grace. 

4) Satan can keep veterans in the dark about Christ's Person and work on their behalf.

5) Satan keeps Christian veterans ignorant of Christian testimonies of the Lord's work so they can have hope in this life and the next.

 

Indications:

Pain & misery

suicide

broken marriages & relationships

depression

rage/anger

anxiety

sleeplessness

suicide

health problems

alcohol/drug abuse

 

b. Friendly Forces: Comprehensively 

1. The Trinity 

 - Father 

 - Son 

 - Holy Spirit

Location of higher units: 

1. The Father resides in heaven, overseeing that His will is accomplished in heaven and on earth

2. The Son is in heaven, seated at the Father's right hand interceding for veteran saints. 

3. The Holy Spirit dwells in believers on earth groaning for then that they obey God's will 

 

Adjacent and supporting units: 

1. Church on earth 

2. Holy angels 

 

[POME (Point of Main Effort)]: 

1. Glorifying Himself throughout the cosmos providentially, through mercy and justice, and in the lives of His image bearers

2. Bringing all things in subjection under Christ's feet

3. The hearts of saints on earth

 

2. MISSION

a. To hold out the Person & work of Christ to sinners distressed with PTSD by grace:

1)  to admonish the unruly veterans/family through the means of grace

2)  to encourage the fainthearted veterans/family through fellowship & the Bible

3) to help the weak veterans/family through the means of grace

4)  to be patient with every veteran/family by grace 

5) to help veterans/family learn not to repay another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for other veterans and for all people

6)  to teach believing veterans/family to Rejoice always 

7)  to teach believing veterans/family to pray without ceasing for other veterans/family

8) in everything, teach veterans/family how to give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 

9)  to teach veterans/family how not to quench the Spirit 

10) to  teach veterans/family not to despise prophetic utterances

12)  to teach veterans/family to hold fast to that which is good

13) to teach veterans/family how to abstain from every form of evil through the means of grace (1 Thess. 5:14-15).

b. To teach believing veterans/family to distinguish between the law & Gospel

Gal. 3:24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

 

3. EXECUTION

Gen. 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Mt. 28:18-20 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Acts 1:8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.

 

4. ADMINISTRATIVE AND LOGISTICS

a. How will God's eternal purposes be carried out?

Eph. 1:3-10 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

Phil. 4:13, 18-19 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. . . . 18 But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, . . . 19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

 

5. COMMAND AND COMMUNICATION

a. Mt. 28:18-20 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me (by the Father) in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 

WARNING ORDER

a. Warning orders give advance notice of an order or action.

Acts 17:30 Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,

2 Cor. 7:9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.

2 Tim. 2:25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

2 Pet. 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you (Christian veterans), not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Rev. 20:11-15 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

​