Bittersweet Season: Death and Resurrection

Flowers are blooming, and buds are emerging from tree branches. In Ohio, that means it’s below freezing at night and somewhere between last winter and third spring. The season approaches with mixed emotions every year. For almost two decades, it’s taken mental preparation, prayer, and an eye to the sky to brace for a dissonant season that brings both the hope of life and the shadow of death.

In my earlier days, I looked forward to the changing of the season—from basketball to baseball, from gray clouds to green grass, from layers of clothes to t-shirts and shorts. I also expected hiccups along the way, like snow-covered baseball diamonds, freeze warnings in April, and tornadoes with the intense thunderstorms that ushered in the same life and vitality bringing forth the color wheel of Mother Nature.

But early in my military career, spring became synonymous with loss and conflict.

At the strategic level, spring introduced me to death from a distance: as a Cadet with Operation Anaconda and Roberts Ridge in March 2002, the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and recurring announcements in the West Point chow hall taking collective moments of silence at lunch to pause for the death of the latest graduate killed in the post-9/11 Global War on Terror.

At a much more personal level, spring became a consolidated time of mourning friends, brothers-in-arms, and heroes I had the privilege of serving with. It started as a young lieutenant during the Surge in Iraq when Apache Company, 1-501st PIR, lost SFC Chris Brevard on 16 March 2007.

Later, as a company commander in the 82d Airborne, spring gave me the worst day of my life: 25 April 2012, when two mass casualty (MASCAL) incidents left our unit shocked by the loss of CPL Ben Neal and SPC Sam Watts, along with others wounded—including an amputee—and the death of two Afghan Army soldiers.

May of that same year marked the tragic death of an Afghan elder—a former mujahedin fighter against the Soviets—whom I had convinced to serve as our Afghan Local Police Commander. When he died stepping on a pressure plate IED while carrying ammo to reinforce a forward position in contact with the Taliban, I walked behind a mine detector operator, SPC Donovan Batterson, with rubber gloves to pick up pieces of the elder’s body to repatriate to his family for burial.

Early March of the following year, 2013, we would also lose that same Paratrooper behind the mine detector to suicide—a stark and tragic reminder that departing the physical battlefield isn’t the end of war’s reverberations as we return home.

May gives way to June annually by way of Memorial Day weekend. In our community, this “long weekend” can cut both ways: opportunities of time off to spend with those we love, yet often an incapacity to be fully present with those same people, our thoughts and hearts exported elsewhere—to foreign lands and cold tombstones visited by the tears of Gold Star families across the country.

Again, in June 2012, we lost SPC Jarrod Lallier to a “green on blue” attack at a checkpoint that caused another MASCAL event—a painful end to a season of heartbreak and a tough deployment for Battle Company, 1-508 PIR. June 18 should have always been a happy day for me—it’s my parents’ wedding anniversary—but it’s now overlapped with a sad memory that reminds me of the betrayal of some we hoped to help, thousands of miles away from our families and homes. A dagger in the back on what was likely the toughest of my 14 deployments.

Later, on March 15, 2019, our nation lost an incredible Ranger NCO and Silver Star recipient, SFC Ethan Carpenter, to a tragic freefall training accident. This served as a brutal reminder of the clause in the Ranger Creed necessitating our acceptance of “fully knowing the hazards of my chosen profession,” even in training. Our profession requires us to incur risk to ensure our mission forward gets accomplished—so that these capabilities are ready to deliver the right can of whoop-ass to the right enemy at the right time.

But in the midst of what feels like a constant dark rain cloud looming beyond the hometown tulips, Little League baseball games, and the opening of seasonal ice cream shops, I ground myself in one of my favorite holidays: Easter.

In the midst of dark dates, black remembrance bracelets, salutes to the fallen, and memories of hardship, dismemberment, and tragedy, I am reminded of the resurrection of Christ—the sacrifice required for my eternal security in heaven. Its foundational story is rooted in the ultimate hostage rescue mission carried out by the Son of God, who took His place on the cross for the payment of the sin of all mankind, including my own.

Quickly, I’m jerked back to the reality of the situation: that I’m not in control, that I can’t shape the outcome of life, and yet—despite my shortfalls, my sins, past bumps, bruises, and losses overseas, and my deserved place in hell for eternity—Christ atoned for all our sins through His death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God.

In the same season where so many scars still carry the marks of former times overseas and at home—reminders of loss and death—by His stripes we are all healed. With an acceptance of Christ as our Lord and Savior, we can take solace in the truth we have in Jesus, stop dwelling on the temporary things of this world, and take refuge in Him who gave us the gift of eternal life.

John 15:13 states, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Soldiers who have lost those they served with fully appreciate this level of love—required to stand in the breach for another. Thank God we have the One who laid down His life for all of us.

Christ is the one who sheds light in the darkest places—whether that be the steepest valley of Afghanistan or the depths of our own minds. It is the stone being rolled away, the redemption and baptism through blood—not by fire—that gives me hope for the future.

And it is a peace I hope you may come to know, if you don’t already.

_______________________________________

Mike Kelvington grew up in Akron, Ohio. He is an Infantry officer in the U.S. Army with experience in special operations, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency operations over twelve deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, including with the 75th Ranger Regiment. He’s been awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Valor and two Purple Hearts for wounds sustained in combat. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, a Downing Scholar, and holds masters degrees from both Princeton and Liberty Universities. The views expressed on this website are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army or DoD.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.