In the Shadow of Wrath: A Veteran’S Journey

By Jerry Mitchell

I am amazed at the story of the authors struggles and his overcoming. I was not able to put the story down. Arnold Gomez, Friend and Business Owner

In order to escape the disaster of the 1939 Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, author Jerry Mitchells parents had to make a difficult decision that would affect the family for the rest of their lives. His parents and four older sisters became a part of the massive migration of folks who left to look for a promise land of better things. This exodus marked the beginning of the separation of families and of family connections.

In In the Shadow of Wrath, Mitchell explores his life and how his parents early choices impacted him and changed his historical path. This memoir narrates his journey and includes a chronological recap of his experiences, from his schooling to his combat service in Vietnam, to his readjustment to civilian life, and the building of his own family.

Mitchell shares how he has risen and fallen just as the oceans tides, but because of the strengths of those who came before him, he has weathered well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491764589

Jerry Mitchell

Jerry Mitchell craves adventure, exploring the ocean and the mountains was only training for his greatest adventure; exploring the Bible. Digging through the language, culture, and history to discover the answers to the questions many people ask. With the tenacity of a hunting lion, he refuses to stop until every detail is justified, proven, and can be explained without speculation. Not afraid and unoffended by the truth he continues to reveal answers to the difficult questions.

Book preview

IN THE

SHADOW OF

WRATH

A Veteran’s Journey

JERRY MITCHELL

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IN THE SHADOW OF WRATH

Copyright © 2015 Jerry Mitchell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5606-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6458-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902339

iUniverse rev. date: 03/30/2015

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 Dust Bowl Days

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

TO MY LOVING parents, Fred (Bud) and Sally Mitchell, who sacrificed much for the children and gave up everything to escape the wrath. The difficult decisions they made literally changed the lives of the family. It caused a disconnection between the family ties of those left behind and the family that migrated, these ties were never restored. Each child had to learn and appreciate what little he or she had. The strengths derived from the decision, the changes, and the experiences in my life were huge.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my buddy and writer Jai Farris-Colvin for writing and reviewing the foreword and introduction and also for encouraging me.

A special thank-you to my lovely wife, who has been very patient and understanding and has been a great supporter in my efforts, putting her pains and illnesses aside.

Also a very special thank-you to my Navajo Indian and Vietnam combat buddy, Richard Kee Yazzie, for using his artistic creativity. He was able to view my sketch and idea and draw the cover for my book.

Most of all, I thank and give praise to the Lord, our creator, for giving me the inspiration and words to share with others the journey, changes, and decisions made and the paths followed in order to trust and utilize my given talents.

I also want to thank my good friends Arnold and Irene Gomez (Fresno) for their efforts, concern, and help in getting the work done.

Foreword

T here are many reasons to write a book. Some write books to remind themselves not to make the same mistakes. Others write them to pass on history. Some people write books in an attempt to understand themselves or the world around them. The author is writing this book for a collection of these reasons and more. He is writing because he has to; by the end, the reasons are clear. It seems there always comes a time in a man’s life when he feels compelled to tell his story.

These stories are what he remembers. His life has risen and fallen as the ocean’s tides, and he is proud to say that because of the strengths of those who came before him, he has weathered well. He recalls stories told by his elders that pushed him toward the life he was to lead. Many times they pointed him in the right direction or would be soothing in the rough times. A strong will and a marked desire to get things done have been handed down through the years from his great-grandparents, his grandparents, and his mother and father. Perhaps after reading this book, readers will gain a better sense of their own families and the history that makes them who they are. We as humans don’t just pop into existence—our lives are a series of events propelled through time by those who come before us and those who will come after us. The history of a family is entwined within its members, and for most, that history begins with a family name.

As we age, our curiosity about who we are and where we came from intensifies, and we find ourselves asking questions like, where did our family name originate, and how has it evolved through the decades? Where we were from, and what brought our particular family to where we are now? Many are surprised to discover the answers to these questions, and some even discover that their families have had an impact on so much more than they ever could have imagined.

History shows us that we are affected by those who have gone before us. The author has personally often wondered how his life would be different if the paths of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had been different. What if they had chosen a different fork in the road? What kind of man would he be today?

We as individuals are a direct product of circumstances in our history. We would not be us if our parents had married a different person. If our grandparents had moved to a different part of the country, if great-grandparents had settled in Canada instead of the United States, we would each be a different person … With one broad stroke of a different pen, our paths could have been drastically different. The author often wonders who he would be. How would he have acted differently? Would his values and ideals be different? In his mind, history is so important to who we are as individuals that the slightest change in the course of our lives can mean a totally different outcome.

Perhaps this is what truly makes us who we are; we are the sum of our experiences, good or bad. History is a part of the balance in our lives that makes it possible for us to be who we need to be in order to answer the very call of what our souls are meant to accomplish in the few short decades that we are here on planet earth. Much of the author’s own history is deeply embedded in one particular experience that he hopes to pass along within in this book.

As a veteran of the Vietnam conflict, he carries with him today the scars of what was through the memories of lives lost, battles won, and eventually a return home to a world so changed that many of the soldiers who were involved in the war hardly recognized it or themselves when they came home. His hope in telling his stories of that particular time in his life is that others who have family members who have also experienced war might better understand what their loved ones have gone through.

While writing this book, he came to realize how much of who he is was wrapped up in this youthful experience of being tasked with the responsibilities of men perhaps even before he was ready for it. So many of the younger generations today have no concept of the effects the war had on the generation who came before them. And today there are others coming home from fighting other wars who also have lived the experiences of the monumental task of protecting the country. These men and women have also come home with the scars of war. Hopefully, this book will also help their families understand them just a little better as well.

Although each soldier has individual experiences during his or her tour, there are also collective experiences that every veteran shares. This, the author hopes to share with you here. For those who went to fight in Vietnam, many weren’t ready. They went from having an ideal life in the comfort of their homes to the chaos that is war. The author didn’t have the benefit of this level of security. He joined the military after completing two years of college in an effort to make his own way in life. Once he finished his military basic training, the decisions made by his parents had clearly become his own.

When year eighteen hits, most of those same children will go off to a good college so they can obtain a good job and then continue the circle that is life with the creation of their own families. There is, however, a second group of children. These kids have lived a rougher path without the benefit of all that planning in their lives. For these kids, college is not an option. So instead, they join the ranks of the military in an effort to fill in the space left to them by parents who might also have not had the advantages of privileged kids. They too will gain experience like those in college; however, that experience will be very different.

At eighteen years old, when a person is supposed to be spreading his wings and stepping off into all that life has to offer, this group of kids instead is given a healthy dose of reality. They travel from the comfort of their homes to the actuality of what it means to be handed the responsibility of defending the rights of their fellow citizens. The cost of being a free nation is one that this group of kids is intimately aware of, because they will pay the cost with their very innocence.

The author was one of those kids. Right out of high school, the military is a shock to the average person. The lessons learned are far removed from adding and subtracting, geography and science. The lessons of the military are foreign at first. Learning to fight, handle a weapon, and survive. Although every new recruit goes through the same training, it affects each and every one of them differently, depending on their life experience thus far.

In basic training, the drill sergeants take a person’s physical, mental, and spiritual strengths and tear them right down to the core. Long gone are the days of running to Mom and Dad; here at basic, you will be rebuilt. During training, the new soldiers are broken down until all that came with them from home is torn from their very souls. The soldier is then reprogrammed to handle the deadliest of weapons, live in the moment, and apply himself to the very core beliefs of the military, which may mean the difference between life and death once the soldier is on the battlefield.

Once the training was done for the author, He learned that he would be deployed to either an area of peace or one of conflict. The conflicts the United States usually gets involved with are ones in which another country has asked for our help. While deployed, the newly minted soldier begins the long arduous task of reinventing his or her family.

Long gone are the little brothers and sisters of yesterday. In their place is a group of people who have each been reinvented. A soldier begins to bond with the people within his squad and platoon. He begins to build a sense of trust that he will take with him everywhere he goes. These are ties that will bind a person for the rest of his life, and somehow, in the beginning, he senses this. There are many kinds of soldiers in a war. Some come to pull their duty and go home. These folks are only interested in serving their time.

Then there are the ones who don’t know how to come home—the ones who become so connected to the fighting and surviving that they reenlist time and time again. These guys are so connected to the idea of standing for something greater than themselves that they learn to live within the conflict. To insinuate that the soldiers who are left behind when their tours end will somehow suffer is a driving force for some soldiers to reenlist. These guys sign on the dotted line once more, unable to stop protecting those with whom they have bonded. These guys want a normal life with a home and kids and a wife, but somehow, due to their time serving, the concept of normal eludes them.

When they do finally make that leap back into society, they discover that it’s more difficult than they could have imagined. Many of these soldiers come back to a world that they never quite feel like they belong to. War has affected them forever. There are many words that get thrown around when a soldier returns from war. Post-traumatic stress disorder has now replaced words like damaged, inconsolable, angry, and depressed. Some carry home with them physical scars, some emotional ones, and some carry both. But no matter what the damage looks like, the damage is there, and these soldiers are forever changed.

Their readjustment back into the mainstream is painful at best and debilitating at worst. The life they once knew before the war is forever changed. These soldiers of freedom find themselves like fish out of water with no water in sight. Many family members who receive their loved ones back from a war have a tough time understanding what has happened to these guys and girls that they have sent off to war. They have a tough time relating to these strangers who are now standing in their living rooms, especially those involved directly in fighting. These once young kids return weathered and worn by war. They see the world through different, more pessimistic eyes. They have seen the world they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy.

Hopefully, you have received a sense of what it was like for these young kids. It is important that a person understands how the soldier lived and how he survived and, more importantly, how he returned. You are going to need this understanding to hear his story.

When he returned from his tour of duty in the infantry after serving his time in the Republic of Vietnam, the author was different. He was changed. He was also damaged. And to make matters worse, soldiers returned from the war they didn’t start or ask to fight in. They were spit on, snarled at, glared at, and called baby killers. By the time they returned from the Vietnam conflict, the popular opinions of the bulk of the citizens of the United States was that we were somehow a part of the problem. Our loyal service to our nation in the name of freedom became something to be despised. Many of them didn’t understand then nor now, almost forty years later. It can honestly be said that in some ways, many still don’t understand.

On one level, many do get it. Most people watched the news and believed what the media told them. Some couldn’t stand the idea that fellow citizens were capable of killing others in the name of anything. Most households were removed from the real fighting of World War I and II because television didn’t bring it into their living rooms. The Vietnam conflict was different. It was up close and personal, as well as being brutal. Most of the veterans from the Vietnam conflict still struggle to recover today. They live with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), which consists of a bevy of side effects from their time in service.

Today, the author still struggles, although quietly and with more reserve. He can only imagine that for many of the others, the Vietnam conflict continues. Only now it is a struggle within.

Introduction

H ave you ever watched a grandparent, uncle, or aunt thumb through old photos? They seem to somehow place an importance on those photos that, unless you understand the story behind the picture, you likely won’t get. They treasure those memories. Just like that old, worn family Bible or that small garden patch that your mom put in when you were little. It still yields a few tomatoes. Those photos are part of the foundation that makes us who we are. Holidays spent with older family members can be eye-opening or a learning journey into the family history. Older generations have something the younger ones don’t yet. They have history tradition.

These folks understand the importance of our past and what it means to preserve it for future generations. For most people, the way they learn about their history is through older relatives. Elders recite stories about traditions and culture to those generations who will follow them. For most of the history of man, this is how we as a species have survived, by passing on our history to our young so that they might learn from our mistakes and correct their own paths accordingly. Within each branch of man, from family to extended family, to the human race as a whole, our history is often complicated and extensive. Without the verbal history being passed down from generation to generation, mankind might cease to exist

It is with this in mind that I now convey my story, my history if you will. I have a long and involved history that includes both English and Irish traditions sprinkled with a bit of Dutch on my father’s side of the family.

On my mother’s side, I have roots in the Native American tribes of the nations. A great-great-grandfather who served as a Chickasaw chief gives me a deep sense of connection to the land that I was born in. I would not know of these beginnings if I hadn’t had my family elders to pass along this information to me. I know other people who have no idea where they are from, and I have to say that I feel blessed that I do.

It is with this deep sense of history that I am able to add to my own story in the pages that follow. Heritage and roots are the solid bases from which I tell my stories, tracing my traditions and culture to times before I was born or even my father was born. I have used a great many resources while researching my family history.

Written and oral records are joined with church rolls, property ownership records, and even court records in the writing of this book. Along the way, I have uncovered many interesting stories about my ancestors that have helped me to understand some of my own personal history. I have listened to my elders tell their stories, and in doing so, I began to build a living family tree.

That family tree is long from finished growing. I, as well as those who will come after me, will continue to add to that tree, and it will forever grow toward new heights with each new generation. I’d like to encourage those who may have picked up this book to also consider tracing their heritage. There can be great joy in exploring the past through old family Bibles, stories of the past, and even scrapbooks.

Following your own story into the past may answer important questions about health issues or personality traits. It is intriguing to follow the story into days gone by, and once you begin, you just never know where that story might take you. So now we begin my story—one of strife, struggle, and eventually survival of a simple family made up of the sum parts of the cultural melting pot that is America.

I will guide you through the struggles of my parents as they attempted to find their place in the world through the tough times of early America when the land was as young as the people who were trying to tame it. And finally, I will lead you into my story. I believe that by the end of this series of writings, you will see the clear connection between my family’s past and my own present.

In chapter one of this book, I mention John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. This story is and always has been very important to me because my family lived through the times Steinbeck describes in his story.

My parents and my four older sisters lived the dust bowl years and survived to share their stories. Through the eyes of my sisters, I saw the after effects of the dust bowl years—like the way they saw food, for example. Having to go hungry gave them all an appreciation for hard work and a good meal that many folks today could never understand. Through my family, to some degree, I survived the dust bowl years