Last month, seven service members died in what Trump called an \u201cexcursion\u201d into Iran. Among the dead was a local Sacramento native, Chief Warrant Officer Three Robert Marzan.<\/p>\n
These deaths brought back memories of the two dozen times I was a part of the Death Notification Team that knocked on Sacramento area homes, to bring the most unimaginable news.<\/p>\n
Since our president has noted that his \u201cexcursion\u201d might likely cause more deaths, I\u2019d like you to imagine being a part on this team that makes these death notifications. Imagine today that you are walking alongside one of these casualty notification teams.<\/p>\n
Our four-person team will meet inside a nondescript military office where we watch a training video, map our route to the home of a newly widowed woman and memorize our scripted lines. The commander will deliver the bad news, the medic will watch for signs of stress, and you and I will offer chaplain care.<\/p>\n
Within the hour of being paged out of our everyday routines, we drive our dark blue military sedan into a civilian neighborhood where we find an address that doesn\u2019t want to be found. As we step from the car, we look much like a small parade formation, a living breathing clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n
We park a few hundred yards from the house and you use the walking time to ask me questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill this notification be like your previous ones?\u201d you ask. \u201cHow long will we stay?\u201d and \u201cHow will the people respond\u201d you want to know. I can only tell you that my past notifications will give us no working schematic for this day. Nothing about these no-notice visits are ever predictable.<\/p>\n
All I can say is that in the past I\u2019ve heard an anguished father launch into a political diatribe blaming the president for his son\u2019s death. I recall another visit where I interrupted a child\u2019s birthday party, and in yet another instance, I recount stopping a family\u2019s airport reunion to tell them their son wasn\u2019t on the plane.<\/p>\n
You shake your head and I stare at the Disney welcome mat while the commander knocks on the door. I catch a side-glance of the commander mouthing his script. It\u2019s a script that will go something like this:<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you Mrs. John E. Jones?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs your husband Capt. John E. Jones?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMa\u2019am, the Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
It may seem rote, but the script is the only way we all get through without cracking. Our effort will be compassionate, but professional. Of course, it\u2019ll be unusual if we aren\u2019t interrupted by the sobbing screams of denial, but we will stay with our lines until they are delivered.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, you\u2019re not a part of this team today. Gratefully you\u2019re only reading a composite script of several of my team experiences.<\/p>\n
However, it is a script that churns in the mind of every person who has ever served in the military. Every person who wears the uniform of this country fears that their family may one day hear these words of regret from a team such as ours. Yet, despite their fear, they deploy. They do their jobs and most of them come home.<\/p>\n
Now, let us imagine being on the color guard at the funeral of Robert Marzan as a stiff commander accepts a folded flag and presents it to the Marzan family.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn behalf of the president of the United States \u2026 and a grateful nation,\u201d she says, \u201cplease accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation of Robert\u2019s service to our country. God bless you and this family, and God bless the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some parts of this column are excerpted from Norris\u2019s book, \u201cHero\u2019s Highway.\u201d All of his books are available on Amazon or at www.thechaplain.net<\/a>. Contact him at comment@thechaplain.net<\/a> or 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or at his church office, (530) 265-4711.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, seven service members died in what Trump called an \u201cexcursion\u201d into Iran. Among the dead was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1985,6163,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-218268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-lifestyles","tag-religion","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}