The Notebook of a Hero

Last week I had the privilege of attending a very special memorial ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  It took place at the headquarters for the US Army Special Operations Command, (USASOC).  The ceremony was held to christen a new memorial wall for members of the Special Operations Community who have fallen in battle, and it was put on by General John F. Mulholland, the commander of USASOC.

Several thousand people came out on a beautiful sunny day to watch the new memorial be unveiled.  Many of them were family and loved ones of men whose names adorn the wall.  It was touching to see wives, mothers and children share emotional moments as they touched the names of those they have lost.

One of the names on the wall I recognized belonged to Corporal Benjamin Kopp, an army Ranger from the same batallion in which I served who was killed last year in Afghanistan.  I blogged about Ben after he was killed because his story was so inspiring.  Corporal Kopp, only twenty-one when he died, had chosen to be an organ donor, and through a miraculous set of circumstances, his heart went to a 57-year-old Chicago woman in desperate need of a new one.  The transplant was successful, and with the heart of a 21-year-old Army Ranger now beating in her chest, one wonders if she's running six-minute miles these days. 

Corporal Benjamin Kopp.

 Anyway, Ben's mother, Jill Stephenson was there at the memorial.  I stopped her just to say that Ben is one of my heroes.   And that's when events took an amazing turn. 

Jill thanked me and asked my name.  "Chuck Holton." I said.

Her eyes went wide.  "Chuck Holton!  Omigosh!  You have to see this!"  She grabbed my arm and pulled me over to her seat.  To say I was bewildered would have been an understatement.

Jill pulled a weather-beaten spiral bound notebook from her purse.  "This was Ben's journal.  They sent it to me with his effects from Afghanistan." She pushed it into my hands.  "Open it.  Take a look."

"Um.  Okay."  I did as I was told.  The first page was filled from top to bottom with Ben's neat handwriting.  But as I started reading, the words were familiar to me.  I'd read these words before.

Then it hit me.  They were familiar because I wrote them.

In 2002 I penned my first book, "A More Elite Soldier," about my journey into physical and spiritual manhood in the US Army Rangers.  The quotes in Ben's journal were straight out of my book.  The quotes filled six whole pages.

I looked up at Jill.  "What is this?"

She looked at me with eyes brimming with tears.  "You don't understand.  You were Ben's hero.  He loved your books.  He read and re-read them, and gave them away to his friends."

Now my eyes were having a little trouble staying dry.  "Wow."  was about all I could say. 

When I wrote that book, I had no idea how God would use it to touch people's lives.  And I'm sure Corporal Benjamin Kopp had no idea that he would himself become a hero to this graying old Ranger, and that one day I would be writing about him.  I have seven books in print now, and sometimes I wonder why I keep writing them.  Writing is, after all, the hardest work I've ever done.  Stories like this remind me of the message of Galatians 6:9.  "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

Thank you, Ben, for that amazing, unexpected glimpse into how my humble work touched your life.  I can't wait to shake your hand some day when we meet on the other side.