A Journey from Drill Instructor to Priest
A Perspective of Healing
by The Rev. Nigel Mumford†
I have survived nine near death experiences including several while a member of Her Majesty’s Royal Marine Commandos. Death has once again brushed past me. It appears I am not a cat, since I’ve now exceeded their “lives” expectancy! I have just been released from the hospital where I was sick with H1N1 for three months, three weeks of that spent in a coma. There was one night where my wife was told not to go home because they expected me to die before morning.
I am home now on a walker, breathing oxygen from a tube and recovering day by day. Being so close to death once again has resurrected so many memories. The best thing is knowing so many people were praying for me. When I could not pray for myself, others were interceding with God on my behalf. My personal walk with the Lord is even closer and more deeply reverent.
What do we do with the memories we experience in combat? Many suck it up and “get on with their lives.” I have found that many World War II vets do not talk at all about their combat experience. For more than half a century, they have kept the stories and emotions suppressed within. And too many other combat veterans follow their example.
At the Oratory of Christ the Healer at the Spiritual Life Center, we run a program called “The Welcome Home Initiative” (WHI). It’s a three day retreat that is free for all combat vets and funded by the generosity of the public. The veteran just has to get here. And it’s not just for Americans; all combat veterans are warmly welcomed.
I have been astonished at how God has been working on this program. We have conducted it eight times with veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. Plus several other hot spots that were kept quiet!
I have heard countless “war stories,” the most profound of them from a 92 year old who was at Pearl Harbor when he was 24. He had never told anyone else his story but he totally unloaded with us. It was so very moving. Witnessing history packaged up and put aside in his mind.
The main goal of the WHI is two-fold. One, to unpack unhealed memories, and two, to say thank you for serving your country and fellow citizens. There is a psychological modality that argues one should not go back to the memory, but I have found that by bringing the Lord Jesus Christ into that memory the very “frame” is changed. This is called “inner healing” or “the healing of memories.”
How does this transformation occur? God has given us free will. Free will follow him or not. Free will to be kind or not and so on. The human is perhaps the cruelest creature on the earth. Some witness the horrors of war, and sometimes the carnage caused by their own hand, with the knowledge that the Ten Commandments proclaim “Thou shall not kill.” (The correct translation is “You shall not commit murder.” This is something vastly different.)
I remember one Roman Catholic Vietnam vet who had been profoundly troubled by this commandment. Her told me he had shot more than thirty people. The weight of guilt was crushing him. He had no idea that the bible also writes in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes that there is a time for everything. A time to kill and a time to heal. I read directly from the Bible. It was a life changing moment as he was delivered from more than three decades of spiritual torture. His damning memories were reframed. He learned that even there, in the darkest moments of his life, and the final moments of the lives of those whose lives he ended, Christ was present.
The basic premise is that the Lord is with us always. ”I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrew 13:5, ESV). Therefore he is with you even during the moment of the most overwhelming combat operational stress.
In talking about certain memories I have the vet tell the story, if they want. No pressure. It could be that a weaker stressor might be chosen. The story is shared and I stop the story at a certain point. I then ask the vet if he or she can see the Lord in the memory. I am always totally surprised at what happens. For example, a United States Air Force colonel came to see me. His posture was distressing, hunched as if the weight of the world weighed upon his shoulders. He was a broken man, with a formal diagnosis of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). He told me he was at the pentagon on September 11, 2001. His job was to save people, but there was no one to save. After three years without noticeable problems he suddenly exhibited symptoms of stress and was given an extended sick leave. After talking through the memory I stopped him and asked him if he could see the Lord. He looked to his left and then moved his head. He pulled back when squared off, as if pulling back from the heat of the aircraft flames. I expected him to stop there, perhaps seeing the Lord pulling souls from the melee of flames. He kept turning his head. Then, when his head was fully turned to the right he smiled. He then told me that he saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing on a knoll. The look on his face was one of extreme sadness at man’s inhumanity to man. Now when the colonel recalls that terrible memory, he sees the Lord. A huge healing. (He has, of course, granted his permission for me to share his experience.)
This healing process has helped me personally. I was in Boston leading a three day retreat for therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. I was leading the conference on how to pray with and help combat veterans. On the third day I was having lunch with these doctors. I had a flash back, an abreaction. I had not had one since 1982. I was shocked. I was suddenly back in a “contact” situation where I had patrolled the streets of Belfast in 1972. I glanced at the patrol leader as we prepared to cross a street intersection. There was a loud report of gunfire and the section corporal fell to the ground. He reported the contact. We loaded our weapons and took cover expecting a full on fire fight. What can I shoot at, where is a target? Lying there waiting to be shot, without a target to fire at. What would it feel like? Where will the round land? So much went through my mind. An armored Saracen ambulance arrived and carried the section corporal away.
What happened next sickened me to the core. Four teenagers danced in his blood shouting, “Another #$%^&* soldier has been killed!” My blood was boiling. I so wanted to open fire on those teens. One arm pulled my rifle one way and my other arm pulled it in the direction of those kicking his blood all over the street. I had never shared this memory, even though I had been praying with so many others with bound memories. As I sat at the table I experienced all the sweat and anxiety of a flashback. Then all changed. I was, in my mind, looking at those kids, while lying next to a building across the street. This time I saw the Lord standing in the blood with the kids. He was looking at me. He spoke, “Nigel, it is time to forgive these lads” and I was so shocked. He then looked down at the teens. “This man was made in my image, this is my blood you are kicking around; stop it.”
For over thirty years I have not told anyone this story as I was totally ashamed that I wanted to kill those kids. Now, with the Lord present, the memory is healed. I felt a huge burden rise off my shoulders, a disabling memory healed by the Lord.
Why am I telling you this story? Perhaps you have memories that need to be healed. Perhaps your mind reels with the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man. I want you to know that all things are indeed possible in and through Jesus Christ, who is still in the business of healing. Of this I have no doubt. Something always happen when we pray. I know that the prayers of so many brought me through my very recent illness. I am alive today because of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray you will not carry around a burden of an unhealed memory for years to come.
The bottom line, if you are plagued with any memory that haunts or causes you emotional pain seek counsel and aid. It never occurred to me as a young Marine that I could find that help from a chaplain. The only debrief we got back then was twenty minutes off the streets, with a cup of tea. “You alright lads?” we were asked, and then back on the streets again. So much for a therapeutic debriefing! I was captive to that grim memory for over thirty years.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I was captive to that nightmare memory. The Lord has sent me free.
My prayers are with you and I pray that you will not be like the Pearl Harbor veteran who took sixty-eight years to tell his story. After the trauma, the battle begins for restoring our sanity. Be well, do good works and for the sake of God, love one another.
The Rev. Nigel W.D. Mumford is an OSL Member and Director of The Oratory of Christ the Healer, and of Christ the King Spiritual Life Center in Greenwich, New York at www.ctkcenter.org.
He is a combat veteran and PTSD survivor who began his adult life as a Royal Marine Commando and today is an Anglican priest.
To find out more about the “Welcome Home Initiative” a healing program for returning combat veterans visit www.christ-the-king-center.org/Welcome-Home/.