Veterans
ByTwo years ago a man attended a seminar for business reasons. At the conclusion of the event, this man walked up to me, put both of his hands square on my shoulders and with tears in his eyes said “Bill, I came here for a professional purpose and found out that this goes much deeper than the surface level of work. You see, I am a veteran….. promise me that you will help them because we all need healing….”
I took that word to heart and knew I had to help the vetereans. They have been through so much. Most of us have grown up in a dysfunctional home – be honest with yourself here. For many, your parents may have ‘checked out’ because they were so concerned about working to make ends meet that no-one was home to meet your needs as a child. However, for veterans, you take all the pain and emotional wounds from childhood and couple that with physical and/or emotional trauma from the war and you now have someone who is in so much pain they tend to numb it in one way or another. I have seen many that are in such pain and have repressed it so much, they have a difficult time remembering things. For others, they turn to alcohol, drugs, work, sex or other ‘things’ to try to deal with the pain of forgetting.
Remembering the promise and moving through the red tape brought me to a wonderful place last week. I was able to work with the staff at a veterans hospital and I am happy to report it was an eye opening experience. The staff realized they have been practicing customer service and technical training to ‘get the grade’ instead of focusing on the individual. The staff saw the value of connecting the heart to the head and allowed themselves to show unconditional love to each other and instantly knew from this experience they needed to extend this to the veterans. You see, as their needs of love began to be met, they felt more at peace and willing to serve the veteran in a capacity they did not know existed.
If you know a veteran or happen to see one – take the time to say thank you and affirm him/her for the hard work they do to secure our peace. It seems as though they may have lost their peace so we can have ours…..
