Just Drive Through It: Thoughts to Live by and Embrace

By Sierra Tango Alpha Romeo

Mental health is still a taboo subject, but it affects so many. In Just Drive through It, author Sierra Tango Alpha Romeo shares a chronicle of his life and the struggles of dealing with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and PTSD.

From his birth in Appalachia, to his service in the military, and his love for aviation, this memoir recalls Tangos many life events, including the near-fatal traffic accident while on active duty with a drunk driver that changed his life and the lives of his wife, children, and extended family forever. It narrates his battle with his many demons after the accident and tells how his deep faith in God helped him overcome the negative encounters that blocked his progress.

In Just Drive through It, Romeo writes about family, friends, his relationship with God, the United Methodist Church, and answering the calling to be a certified lay speaker. Its a love story filled with Gods presence, love, anger, disappointment, euphoria, wealth, health, transgressions, forgiveness, and memories that most people never dream of.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Dec 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781489705730

Sierra Tango Alpha Romeo

Sierra Tango Alpha Romeo is a husband, father, grandfather, and disabled veteran. He had a career in building construction and building inspection. A private pilot, he loves classic cars and has owned four Corvettes.

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Copyright © 2015 Sierra Tango Alpha Romeo.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-0572-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0573-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918212

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 12/9/2015

CONTENTS

Preface

This Book Is Dedicated

Introduction

Chapter 1   In The Beginning

Chapter 2   The Cruel World

Chapter 3   Exodus To The Southwest

Chapter 4   Travel To Hell And Back

Chapter 5   I Missed The Desert

Chapter 6   Introduction To Aviation

Chapter 7   Welcome The Irish

Chapter 8   Puberty Explained

Chapter 9   Introduction To The Military

Chapter 10   Work Ethics

Chapter 11   Love And Marriage

Chapter 12   Lesson In Survival

Chapter 13   Finally, Where I Wanted To Be

Chapter 14   Operation Haylift

Chapter 15   Premonition

Chapter 16   Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley……..

Chapter 17   Apprehension

Chapter 18   I Slipped The Surly Bonds….

Chapter 19   Deception, Dissapointment And Redemption

Chapter 20   There I Was At 10,000 Feet…..

Chapter 21   Big Business

Chapter 22   Reality Check

Chapter 23   Down Time

Chapter 24   Back To Forty Hours A Week

Chapter 25   Looking For Relief

Chapter 26   General Contractor….Again

Chapter 27   The Kids’ Grow Up

Chapter 28   Back On Life Support

Chapter 29   The Family Grows

Chapter 30   Gary

Chapter 31   Finally, My Dream Job

Chapter 32   Toys, More Family And Mom

Chapter 33   The Good Fight

Chapter 34   Now It’s My Turn

Chapter 35   Movin’ On

Chapter 36   911

Chapter 37   The Aura

Chapter 38   Trouble In River City

Chapter 39   The End Of The Journey

Chapter 40   Validation

Chapter 41   Vacations!

Chapter 42   Olio

Chapter 43   Ecstasy

Chapter 44   Health Or Wealth

Chapter 45   The Captain

Chapter 46   Expectation

Chapter 47   Courage And Dignity

Chapter 48   Rebooting

Chapter 49   Beginning Of Betrayal

Chapter 50   Sad Goodbye

Chapter 51   The Beginning Of The End

Endnotes

PREFACE

MY NAME IS NOT IMPORTANT but the words in this book to help others are paramount. It is written about an ordinary man that came from humble beginnings worked long and hard to make a life, marry, have children and succeed. I was not prepared for many of the events I experienced and know that God led me through the good and the bad. I want this book to let people know that he or she can experience life and its trials, happiness and disappointments and at the end of the day still be standing. This book is written in a chronological order of events; ergo the subject matter sometimes shifts back and forth and lacks on-going continuity.

Mental Health is still a taboo subject in so many venues. This book is not written in a clinical venue with the many facets of PTSD or a self-help manual but a chronical of one person’s battle with my demons after a near fatal accident left me a different person to live life adapting along the way. It does not explain or attempt to validate any medical opinions or remedies. It is simply a journal of one person’s life and struggles of dealing with depression, anxiety, panic attacks and PTSD and my attempts, some futile, some helpful to navigate through life with the tools I had available. Portions of this book were hard to write as doing so took me to places and situations I did not want to re-visit. It also gave me the ability to take complete ownership of my failed marriage. Other portions of the book brought tears of joy and sadness, as I wrote about family, friends and my relationship with God, the United Methodist Church and answering the calling to be a certified lay speaker.

Just drive through it! This term as I understand was coined by drag racers to describe the safest way to avoid totally losing control of the race car and crashing due to losing traction, having a competitor’s car malfunction or explode and scatter shards of parts (obstacles) all over the strip, react and avoid them. Every event described herein is factual, not embellished or judgmental, biased or presented in a negative (but some cases a blunt descriptive manner). I know God will not give me more than I can handle, but some days I wish He didn’t trust me so much. Without God in my life I would have been just another lost soul, a nomad wandering this earth without purpose and love. There is no mention on these pages about wanting to take my own life or thinking of doing so. I refer to First Corinthians, Chapter 6 Verses 19 & 20, (KJV). What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which is God’s. I am seventy two years’ young and do not know what time I have left before I go home to be with the Heavenly Father but I will continue to just drive through it. If this book gives just one person the perspective to stand tall in adversity and just drive through it then I feel that I made a difference. I have come to terms with my issues, take medication and live a useful and productive life with PTSD, laced with bouts of chronic pain, clinical depression, happiness and disappointments. These emotions do not have to dictate and rule our lives and with God beside us we can prevail. So as you read; I feel certain you will be able to relate to some of the emotions of euphoria, elation, humor, anger, sadness, hopelessness, loneliness, isolation, feelings of rejection, transgressions and unconditional love written on these pages. Remember, Just drive through it!

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

TO: MOM, WITHOUT HER LOVE, guidance, patience and fortitude I would not be here. I love and miss you.

TO: Precious Angel, Thank you for relighting a passion in my heart that lay dormant four decades, for your unconditional love, faithfulness and showing me how to live with adversity from old programs. I love and cherish you.

TO: My Ex-Wife for her love, giving birth to our children, nursing me back to health and sticking by me when she deserved so much better, you are an amazing lady. I will always love you.

TO: My children thank you for your love, patience, not giving up on your dad and giving me the beautiful grand-children. Thank you.

TO: Dr. J. Gordon Hedrick, without his amazing healing hands, knowledge and steadfastness I would just be a past tense in this world. Your memory is in my heart.

TO: Dr. O Thank You to a beautiful, gentle, loving, caring lady that took the time and patience to listen to me and use your expertise to guide me through understanding and living with PTSD. I love you!

TO: Our pastor, dear friend, confidant, fellow pilot and car lover that helped me keep the ball centered. Thank You, I love you.

TO: Gene, The man that pulled me back from the threshold of death. God bless you!

TO: Jackie, Thank you for teaching me how to love, share passion, be faithful and teach me how to love women with compassion and respect. I love and miss you.

TO: Bruce, who taught me to be passionate about learning new things, sharing his vast knowledge with me, and in his final years taught me how to, if needed manage illness and impending death with courage and dignity.

TO: My friend, the best damn pilot and flight instructor I ever met, who had the patience and skills to teach me how to slip the surly bonds.

TO: The family, many dear friends and acquaintances that believed in, supported me and guided me to succeed in life, Thank You.

INTRODUCTION

MY DAYS WERE FILLED WITH anxiousness and foreboding even though I could not recognize the source of the feelings. I was born in 1943 in Appalachia and lived in a rural area on a small farm. Mom, my half-brother and I lived in a small wood frame house with a cellar underneath that contained an old stove and shelves to hold the many jars of fruit and vegetables that mom and I harvested out of the garden to can and provide food for the long cold winters. We had a smokehouse where pork hung, two cows that mom milked using the milk fat to make butter to sell for extra money. I remember sitting on a wooden stool and hand churning the milk fat into butter that she would make into squares using a wooden form. The house had a pump on the kitchen sink with cold water only. The only heat in the house was a large black pot-belly stove fired with coal that sat in the middle of the living room. The bathroom was an outhouse about one-hundred feet from the house. It had two places to sit and toilet paper was literally a catalogue. It was unlit, unheated and probably unsanitary as well.

Mom was a resourceful beautiful high cheek boned, blue eyed, black haired lady with Cherokee blood in her veins from her father’s side and a direct descendent of Daniel Boone from her mother’s side. She never sat still and was busy in the garden, sewing, crocheting or cleaning the sparse house. She was a proud woman that would not accept help or charity. A man named Don was in and out and I was told he was my father and a long haul beer truck driver. He was small in stature and had a violent temper, especially when he was drunk, and drunk he was most of the time. I had chores to do from the time I was old enough to understand work. My half-brother was ten years older than I and was never home much except late in the evening and did nothing to help mom. He doted on Don and since their physical appearance was similar I assumed they were father and son. Mom was a strict disciplinarian and never spared the rod, in my case a maple switch I had to go and retrieve from one of the many huge maple trees surrounding the house. I at first picked the smallest in diameter I could find as I thought they would hurt less. I quickly learned with welts on my backside and legs they cut the skin very easy and I began to choose larger diameter switches for my punishment.

Mom worked outside the house doing many jobs but took in sewing and baked bread for sale. Many times when Don came home they would go down to a bar beside the highway, leaving me home alone. Being so young I was terrified and hid under the bed and cried until they returned late in the night. I know Don saw other women and I believe mom saw other men, but was very discreet about it. I never judged mom as she was the only stable person in my life and very loving to me. She made my shirts out of feed sacks and they were beautiful and I was proud to wear them. I had dungarees for winter and shorts for summer. Bath night was Saturday in the cellar in a number twelve washtub heated with water from the old stove and soap made from lard from the hogs and lye. I was clean and red from the scrubbing. Sunday was church and I was allowed to wear my shoes. I thought every kid lived like this! This is the setting for the beginning of my incredible journey in life.

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE BEGINNING

AS THE COLD WINTER GAVE way to a mild spring and warm summer, it felt good to be unshackled from the inside of the house and run barefoot in the grass. The huge maple trees that surrounded the house and protected it during the storm season beckoned me to climb the strong limbs and scamper about twenty feet off the ground. With no siblings my age my imagination took me to places where a five year old could lose the reality of the life I experienced in the house. Some days were spent looking skyward at the puffy cumulus clouds slowly making their way to another part of the sky and being replaced with new shapes. Sometimes I was a fighter pilot scanning the horizon for targets. I know these childhood fantasies lead me to my love of aviation, the Air National Guard and later a pilot’s license.

As the day wore on and the sun arced across the sky, that I later learned was west, it slowly began its descent into evening. The feeling slowly began to encompass me inside and out, uneasiness at first, then labored breathing, sweat and rapid heartbeat. I would peer down the road searching for the lighted Indian head emblem on the hood of his Pontiac convertible wondering who would arrive first, my fifteen year-old half-brother or Don; the abomination mom was married to. I was told he was my father but I knew the gentle soul I was would never do what I observed that went on in the house after he came home so I detached from him and considered him the enemy.

Mom worked the garden canning everything she grew to see us through the winter, made my shirts from chicken feed sacks, patched and re-patched my short and long pants. Shoes were only worn on Sunday for church or other special occasions. After a hard day’s work she would cook a meal for my half-brother, Don (if he came home), her and me. My half-brother would try to come home before Don to set the stage for the evenings. Don would come in in usually drunk and picked a fight with mom over some inane issue Gary brought up. Don carried a pistol and would wave it around, hit mom with it and finish off the evening by looking around making eye contact with mom and me and declare, When the sun comes up in the morning only Gary and I will be alive. I was frozen in terror having heard this threat before. Mom would take me to the bedroom and wait for Don to pass out/fall asleep. Many nights I never closed my eyes until early morning lying on the hardwood floor under the bed feeling my heart pounding against my rib cage. This scenario repeated every night if he came home and once in a great while would emphasize his threats by firing a bullet through the living room ceiling. The disparity in all this have and have not’s was mom’s aunt and uncle that lived nearby. Gary was the apple of their eye. They showered him with gifts and money. I found out later that they owned the house we lived in. We lived in poverty and Gary wanted for nothing, even living with them on and off.

Nothing changed and summer turned to fall and we had a mother cat with some kittens living under the house. I love all animals and have a special bond with them and would hold the kittens and pet them at any opportunity. One evening Gary and I each brought one of the kittens into the house. The atmosphere must have frightened them as they squirmed away from us. As we found and picked them up one scratched Gary on