Always My Hero: A Sister's Inspiring Story of Love, Sacrifice, and Hope

By Renee Nickell and Allen West

Always My Hero is the inspirational true story about a young woman whose Marine brother is tragically killed in action. She must fight her way through grief, come to terms with the estrangement of her father and face her past or risk losing everything.

Her world came crashing down when she got the call saying her brother had be

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeWise Books
• Release date: Jun 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781947279711

Renee Nickell

Renee Nickell, is best known as an author and Gold Star sister. She has been featured on The 700 Club, The Hallmark Channel's Home & Family, FOX&Friends, FOX Radio, Military Connection, and SOFREP Radio, as well as many radio, podcasts, and publications. As a Gold Star sister and military spouse to her husband Gentry, she is very familiar with the pride and pain that flows along with service. Renee penned her first non-fiction memoir, Always My Hero, based on the life and tragic death of her beloved, slightly older and wiser brother, United States Marine, Major Samuel M. Griffith. In 2011, Sam was killed in action in Afghanistan Renee's passion is to increase awareness of what the whole family left behind goes through so that we can better help them endure and recover. She also works alongside her parents who hold an annual golf tournament in Sam's memory to raise support for the non-profit charity, Renewal Coalition and service members wounded in combat. Seeing a lack of opportunity and connection for military loss siblings, Renee's future plans include starting a foundation in her brother's name to help support veteran's and provide opportunities for siblings that have not yet been afforded them. Renee has used all book proceeds to pay it forward and give her book at no cost to Gold Star Families and combat veterans. Renee has served in several ministries, to include an international ministry, worship and youth ministry, and small group studies in her home. Renee and her husband have four children whom they homeschool, travel, and teach about our nation's history. You can learn more about Renee at www.reneenickell.com.

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Always My Hero

A Sister’s Inspiring Story of Love, Sacrifice, and Hope

RENEE NICKELL

Copyright © 2019, 2018 Renee Nickell

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the author.

Disclaimer: Some names, identifying details, and relationships have been changed or omitted to protect the privacy of certain individuals. While this book is a true account, the conversations gathered from personal interviews, testimonials, and memory are not necessarily word-for-word. They have been recreated from memories to give the reader a better sense of the individuals involved. Some stories have been slightly altered or information omitted to maintain anonymity. Some events may be chronologically out of order in the interest of story flow. The opinions and recollections expressed are those of the author and may or may not reflect the opinions and recollections of others portrayed in the work.

Published by:

PO BOX 1072

Pinehurst, TX 77362

LifeWiseBooks.com

To contact the author:

ReneeNickell.com

ISBN Perfect Bound: 978-1-947279-69-8

ISBN Hardcover - 978-1-947279-70-4

ISBN Ebook - 978-1-947279-71-1

DEDICATION

To Sam, the best brother ever and the reason this book was written…I’d rather have you.

You’ll always be my hero.

1979 - Sam and Renee in Homestead, Florida.

Courtesy of Kathleen Bischoff.

SPECIAL THANKS

To my family. For always believing in me. Even when things seemed impossible, you remained faithful to me and the dream.

I love you.

Contents

Foreword 

Introduction 

Chapter 1: Our Childhood 

Chapter 2: Journey to the Marines 

Chapter 3: Wings Were Made to Fly 

Chapter 4: Hanging Up His Flight Suit 

Chapter 5: Assignment Afghanistan 

Chapter 6: Operation Enduring Freedom 

Chapter 7: The Immediate Aftermath 

Chapter 8: Year One 

Chapter 9: The Hard Stuff 

Chapter 10: The Overlooked Grief 

Chapter 11: Where I Go, There You Are (2014) 

Chapter 12: Journey To Healing 

Chapter 13: Moving Forward 

Chapter 14: Called To Write 

Resources 

About The Author 

Works Cited 

FOREWORD

Ido not believe in coincidences. When Renee Nickell reached out asking if I would write this foreword, I knew it was something God ordained. Renee is a Gold Star sibling, something I could have easily been as well.

My dad, Herman West was a Corporal in the US Army during World War II. He embodied everything it was to be a proud American man who served his country. When I was fifteen, he looked me in the eye and said, There is no greater honor than to wear a uniform for the United States of America as one of its warriors.

After sharing with me his pride in being a soldier and combat veteran, he challenged me to be the first commissioned officer in our family. With honor, I accepted. On July 31, 1982, my dad stood at my right, and my mom, Elizabeth, at my left, on the campus of the University of Tennessee, and together they pinned the gold bars of a US Army Second Lieutenant on me. I had achieved what my dad asked of me. It was a proud day.

One of the first phone calls I made after the ceremony was to my older brother, Herman West Jr., Lance Corporal US Marine Corps, Vietnam War combat veteran. He was not drafted into the Marines, he willingly volunteered. To me, my brother was the epitome of a lean, mean, fighting machine.

Born in 1961, I was just a little fella when Herman Jr. went to serve in Vietnam. I remember praying to God that he would come back home. Back then, there wasn’t email, video chat, or any of the modern means to regularly stay in touch with deployed loved ones. There were just letters and polaroid pictures that travelled at the snail’s pace of international mail. I cherished the pictures he sent from Vietnam where he fought against communism, defended our freedom and way of life while protecting a foreign people.

It was 1968 when Herman Jr. let us know that his unit was in Khe Sanh. It was evident from the reports that Khe Sanh was at the center of a very big fight. When we watched the news, I would hold my breath praying that I wouldn’t see my brother being carried away on a stretcher, or worse. I paid attention to the combat casualty reports, and at times, looked to my dad for reassurance.

Thankfully, my mom worked for one of the US Marine Corps District Headquarters in Atlanta and was able to get unclassified, yet valuable information beyond what the news reported. One day we received word that Herman Jr. had been wounded in an attack. He was alive, but severely injured and would be coming home. I was relieved to know that my brother, the tough guy I looked up to, had survived.

When I finally saw my brother again, I hugged him tightly, so grateful he was home. Years later, when I visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington DC, I remember asking myself, What would it have been like to come here to this black, granite slab and find Herman Jr.’s name listed among all the other fallen from the Vietnam War?

So often we think about the moms, dads, spouses, and children left behind from those who made the ultimate sacrifice, but, do we ever think about the brothers and sisters? The forgotten mourners?

There is a powerful bond between siblings. When a brother or sister is lost, it can have a very injurious effect on the ones who will forever be separated from their blood buddy with whom they shared countless memories and hoped to share more.

This is why Always My Hero is so important. It is the story of a surviving sibling, one not often told. Renee lost her brother, US Marine Corps Major Samuel Griffith in 2011 in Afghanistan, and his story is personal for me.

Samuel was the Detachment Officer in Charge for the 4th US Marine Corps Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (4th ANGLICO), based in West Palm Beach, Florida. During my military career, I was selected as an exchange officer to the II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) at Camp Lejeune, NC. My initial assignment was the 2nd ANGLICO as their Operations Officer, before being transitioned to the II MEF Operations staff. It was there, at Camp Lejeune, that I earned my Marine Corps gold parachutist wings, the same worn by members of ANGLICO units.

Upon my own return from Afghanistan, I ended up running for US Congress in Florida’s 22d Congressional District, which included West Palm Beach, and the headquarters of Samuel’s 4th ANGLICO unit. 2011 was the year that Samuel lost his life as well as the year I was sworn in as the Congressional Representative.

While most of us will never experience what Renee and other Gold Star siblings have gone through, we must recognize them and honor their pain. Renee’s story of weathering the storm of life after loss and her own battle with PTSD, provides us a glimpse into the plight and enormous sacrifice of Gold Star siblings.

I heartily admonish you to read Always My Hero and seek out any Gold Star siblings you may know and do one simple thing – love them. We must remember that while our country lost a warrior the day that Major Samuel Griffith was killed, Renee lost her brother. Let us commit to not allowing any more Gold Star siblings to become forgotten mourners.

Lieutenant Colonel Allen B. West (US Army, Retired)

Member, 112th US Congress

INTRODUCTION

Ifind no other appropriate time to begin to reflect on one’s life than the age of 40. It’s when the youth of our past seems like yesterday, yet we wonder where all the years have gone and what the future will look like. Shortly after my 40th birthday, I was driving with my dear friend, Amanda, to a women’s conference. She asked me, When are you going to write that book? It was a question I never expected, yet something I needed to hear. When will I?

The term Gold Star describes a family member who lost a loved one in the military. As a Gold Star sister, myself, I had a story to tell. I spoke to Gold Star sibling after sibling. We all had a very real pain in common–we all felt forgotten in our grief. Siblings spend more time with each other in the span of their adolescence and young adulthood than with their parents or later, with their spouses. This is not to negate the pain of the parent or the spouse, but rather to highlight that siblings are often required to suppress their pain to support the grieving process of others. I learned from a grief counselor that most siblings do not even begin the grieving process until two years after the actual event.

There are complications that happen within a family in relation to the trauma of a military death. People become un-relatable, relationships change, some families…many families, are torn apart. Parents can’t cope. Spouses can’t cope. Siblings can’t cope. No one is able to be there for the others the way they are expected to be. I can’t tell you how many Gold Star families I’ve met that are not able to have a meaningful relationship with their deceased child’s offspring. There are broken families and broken relationships. It’s all a terrible tragedy, and I was no exception.

I’ve discovered through my life, there is no time like the present. I could make all types of excuses. I’m a stay at home mom. I homeschool four children who need me. I don’t want to expose my downfalls, my insecurities or my failures. I could choose many other excuses for not finding time to tell my story…to tell my brother’s story.

Major Samuel Griffith, affectionately known as Sam, has a story worth sharing. We both do. I decided in one moment I was going to write this book. I did not care who the target audience was going to be because I wanted everyone to read this powerful story and be changed by the person my brother was. I wanted other siblings to feel validated in their grief, and I wanted to bring some healing to other families, even if not my own. That was enough motivation right there.

As I began to reflect, I discovered much more than I had previously imagined. I am not a seasoned writer and I questioned whether I could, in fact, write a book. I investigated ghost-writing. I felt someone else could do the job better than I. Once God started closing the door to that option, I realized, no one could tell my story better than me. No one could capture my brother the way I would. This meant I had to do all the hard work, the time management, the interviews, and the research. I had to dig deep inside myself, regardless of how painful, and recall the memories, good and bad…but mostly good.

I’ve questioned what I should tell and what I should withhold. I debated with myself about who to mention and who to leave out. So many people made an impact on both my brother’s life and my own. I wanted to give recognition where recognition was due. My only regret has been my reliance on others from our past to help me remember things I had long forgotten. In this painful process, I also began learning new things I’d never known about my brother. Many of these stories were very impactful on my life.

I traveled over 3500 miles to collect the pieces of the puzzle to make this book possible. I began interviewing people I had never met before. But they knew Sam, loved him and wanted to share this journey with me. I used to think I would be a private investigator because of my knack for researching, investigating, and seeking truth regardless of the implications. It is one of my obsessive faults. I wish it was directed more toward keeping my floors clean and my closet organized. It’s not. I will choose to believe it is a God-given blessing.

I love to discover new things. Sometimes that means discovering things are less than colorful. In this instance though, I discovered beautiful things about my brother I never knew. I discovered some painful parts of his story where he confided in only his deepest, closest, most trusted confidants. I held these pieces close, yet at the same time was sad he never came to me with them. Knowing the kind of man he was, I can understand why. It was like they were lost stories in the vault of the past. This has been a healing journey not only for me, but for many others who relived their memories to help me share this story.

In these pages are stories describing who Sam was in this life. As I began to write, I hit the delete button many, many times before I decided the direction I wanted and needed this book to go. I discovered I was far more capable of capturing who Sam was, to me and to others, than I first believed of myself. That was the goal.

This book evolved from being a memoir about my life into this beautiful gift to all those who knew and loved Sam. If you didn’t know him, you will feel like you do after reading this. I’m sure you’ll regret never meeting him. He captured the essence of what it was to genuinely care about others, with no notoriety or recognition. That made him so easy to love.

During this process, I had to also discover who I was. I had to examine my own heart and my own motives. This is why I believe God called me to change the entire book after the first 30,000 words were written. It didn’t feel quite right and I was grasping at straws. I wanted my story told, but I also wanted to include the legacy of my brother and our sibling bond. That is when I began to pray. I stopped writing for a couple months to reflect and investigate some other information. Through divine intervention, God brought additional people into my life who helped guide my way.

I knew I did not want a tell all book, although I believed it would probably sell better. A friend of mine told me, If they didn’t want their behavior talked about, then they should have behaved better. While that may be true, I did not want to leave readers feeling they were snooping into the dark pain of our past while I called people out for their bad behavior. I also felt that doing so was counterproductive to the healing process…for all parties. I certainly would never want to bring dishonor to my brother, regardless of the hurts we both had to overcome. Some challenges I didn’t learn about until after this book writing process began.

This journey forced me to retrace my steps as a daughter, as a wife, as a friend, as a sister, and as a mother. Most importantly, once published, my words are forever spoken; and I want my own children to remember the most important things in life–to always tell the truth and always forgive. Telling the truth can be quite painful, but not as painful as living a lie.

Truth brings freedom. Truth may also divide relationships. I have always taught my kids the same thing my father taught me: Always choose the harder right than the easier wrong. While this life motto may not have always played out well in my life, regardless of the poor eloquence of my words of the past, or the tactlessness I displayed at times; I was always willing to sacrifice relationship over truth. I can look myself in the mirror with no regret. Some may see this as a downfall, but this is where God taught me unconditional forgiveness.

The hardest action to take towards another person is forgiveness. My children watch me forgive time and time again, not only through my own rejection, but theirs as well. I say with upmost honestly, that forgiveness is not easy. A mother’s deepest desire is to protect her children, or at least it should be. I could not protect them from the actions of others against them. These innocent little children, with hearts of pure gold, had to learn some bitter, hard life lessons through my grief-lessons most adults never learn. I’ve sat beside them and cried with them as they prayed blessings over those who rejected them and hurt them. I lived in darkness in some parts of my past and have had to rely on God to help me find my way out. Sometimes, His light was the only light directing me. That being said, this journey wasn’t just my journey as a sister, but as so many other things. I am as authentic as I could possibly be without causing already-estranged family members more pain by airing dirty laundry.

In certain places, I felt it wise to cover the identity of some who may not deserve such protection, but my mother always taught me that none of us deserve anything, and she is right. It is only through Christ Jesus that our sins are covered. Times when I did not want to forgive or I did not want to even try to make things right, she was my voice of reason. Do it anyway, she’d say. It is not about them. It’s about Jesus and it’s about releasing them. It’s about displaying forgiveness to those who don’t deserve it. She was right. The more I chose forgiveness, the greater the freedom I experienced. Finally, I came to the point where I was able to write this book in love.

This is a story about a girl who once had a big brother. This big brother impacted her life more than any other person in this world. No doubt, I am not the only person who feels this way about Sam. This book would not have been possible without the stories shared by so many of Sam’s friends. I cannot take credit for this story. I may have written the words, but it is truly the sharing of so many that made this possible. For that I am forever grateful. To this I say, read on. Share in the laughter and the tears. Walk away from this a better person. Perhaps we all need a little bit more of Sam, and a whole lot more of Jesus.

1982 - Sam and Renee.

Courtesy of Kathleen Bischoff.

Chapter 1

OUR CHILDHOOD

The River

Iopened the front door. There she was. A robust woman, with short, wavy, strawberry blond hair. Somewhere along the line in my short little life of five or six years, she had placed the fear of God in me. I was scared to death when I saw her because she and I both knew I had just been somewhere I was specifically told not to go.

My grandmother, whom the family lovingly referred to as Nanny, cared for my brother and I for the majority of our lives from the ages of three to ten. My mother left when I was three, although she remained a part of our lives, and my father worked full-time. We lived in a small town in a mountainous region of Pennsylvania and shared a winding driveway with my Nanny and Papa.

My life growing up was just as complicated as anyone else’s. Some memories from my childhood remain so vivid in my mind.

2015 - Nanny and Papa’s house in Dauphin, PA.

Courtesy of Google Maps.

Some, I wish I could forget, while others are still a pleasant taste of the past. Somehow, when you lose someone as close as