Warriors with Holy Hands

By Peter Toeg

Warriors With Holy Hands is the story of Ruth Falk who finds herself lost in time, her life for three years spiraling downward. Stricken mysteriously ill and then orphaned, Ruth looks to the past for answers.

Searching through family diaries and records, Ruth discovers several extraordinary relatives whose lives span three generations.

Ruth also learns a curse spoken by one ancestor engaged her prayer-warrior grandmother in a pitched spiritual battle.

With increasing paralysis, Ruth joins a friend in the faith on a journey to the Southern Highlands, where it all began. There in the course of seven daysover ten monthsall that has unraveled in recent years comes together. Life as she knows it will never be the same.

Warriors is a mystery that is finally, stunningly, revealed as serendipitous fruit from the branches of a family tree. It is a story of encouragement for those who seek God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512764932

Peter Toeg

Peter Toeg was a technical writer for over twenty years and a trained journalist who taught communication and media writing for fifteen years at a small Midwestern university. A believer for thirty years, he has roots that extend both to Iraq and Judaism, two themes in Warriors.

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Copyright © 2017 Peter Toeg.

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 author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-6494-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6495-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6493-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016919425

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/23/2017

Contents

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Epilogue

The perfection of God is His love; His will to communicate His own blessedness to all around Him.

- Andrew Murray

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt;

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low by thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

- John Wesley

Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.

- Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Part 1

Ruth, 2005

T he military fatigues were tortuously rough against my skin. Sand. The weight of the pack pressed against my spine in the cramped quarters of a moving, crowded armored personnel carrier on a desert road. My uniform was already soaked in the stifling early-morning heat.

Near Tikrit, Iraq. April. I sensed our convoy creeping slowly over the baked road surface as wind skipped dust from the three vehicles visible from my tiny window. I looked down at my weapon—protocol to carry—but figured there would be no need of one in territory well entrenched by the Army. Surely this was a simple training mission, and we had an escort of sorts but different military parlance. Three months into my assignment, I had yet to relax. Not now.

I pictured my ailing father stateside in a rehab facility. How proud he was of my assignment as an operating room specialist 91D in the desert. He called me a hero and supplanted my worries for him with his worry for me. Here I was, a stressed medic with no OR.

Now, half-sitting in the APC, I scanned the six others in my squad. I was the lone woman on the team, sporting a tomboy look in desert camo. I didn’t think of myself as pretty; sure, everything in place on my face, no unsightly bulges. Everyone looks the same in desert fatigues, enough to make me one of the guys—respected. So far.

One mile out from base on a simulated Medevac procedure and back, loading and unloading, a drill I did not know well. I sat low on a bench seat with torn pads, knees pulled up, back against a metal wall, and head bowed under the overhead rack, my friends having grabbed the opposing seats with no rack. Room for six soldiers, if you stretch the idea of room. I estimated my five-ten frame was reduced by more than half. Some bulwark was sticking in my back, and me claustrophobic. No real view and dim light.

Across from me, Bart smiled at something Clay said amid the noise. Warneke dozed in the tight quarters as did Creatureman, the medic assistant. Rotor and Leonard were exchanging gear for some reason. A similar routine was likely taking place in the three other APCs ahead of us. I took off my helmet—one less load to carry and now I could hear communications being broadcast, the commander’s voice clearer. I fingered my mousy hair, purposely cut short since I couldn’t do anything else with it, and it now clung to my head. In a pretzel formation, my tired body ached inside the belly of the whale. I detached my four-point harness to shift and reposition. Thumping sounds all around and creaks were mingling with the grinding of gears and intercom chatter and curses.

A thunderous noise was followed by sounds like muffled fire. I grabbed a hand-hold to keep from falling over as the truck took a quick swerve to the left. The fear reflex kicked in, and involuntarily I went rigid—nowhere to go and totally dependent on events, a sickening gut feeling. This sudden movement didn’t seem right and I had no control over my body that was not strapped in, my arms reaching for anything secure. Terror.

A louder report and then confused shouting sounded. Bart’s eyes were now ablaze, and gear thrown about as the lights went out in the APC. They will not go out, the sergeant had said at indoctrination in Germany. But they did.

Another explosion, and I fell hard to the floor, tossed back as the truck spun. I finally must have come to rest against the carrier rear wall that my head struck. That and—

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B linding pain. Headache. I was prone on the ground, head raised. I hadn’t walked. A blur bobbed in my vision, and my eyes focused on a comforting face. A dull pinch in my arm—an IV? I looked down at myself—like being removed from my body—and saw the left chest of my uniform stained with blood. Mine? I didn’t recall being moved. I saw an APC—somebody’s—now in front of me, smoking. I had no time reference.

I looked back to the face—a very familiar face in my spacey shock world.

He was a sergeant from the compound, wearing the caduceus insignia, but he was not my team. I vaguely remembered him from base. Leaning over me, he said something I couldn’t recall, but his eyes never left mine. All I saw was sun at his back and tasted dust in my mouth and nose. I felt cold.

I brought my hand to my head and saw blood on it from my ear. Hemorrhage came to mind automatically. I could feel the uncomfortable pressure building from intracranial bleeding and the same soldier—a medic, right—must have spotted it. He yelled something about an evac helo.

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I f only that were the end of my day.

I clenched my hands. We took small arms fire. It’s a typical insurgent strategy I was told: lay a roadside IED and then strafe the scurrying survivors afterward. Patrols know the plan. But we were just a medical transport, caught off-guard, you might say. The APC was surely disabled. We were to be transferred to the other APCs, but I would be getting a flight out. At that moment I was not betting on anything.

He—the medic—and I were isolated from the rest, the last to be moved. I remember the other members of my team walking around and ordered away after one of them helped the sergeant lift me. Leonard, Rotor, Clay, Creature—they were about to board a second APC, a bigger armored carrier. I was on the stretcher taking fluids, probably in shock. I smelled the sharp nitrates from gun powder. I heard a loud rick-tiketing sound.

We started taking close fire and our defenses behind me lit up. Some of our people fired back. It all started breaking loose. Someone called A runner! He’s comin’. I would learn later one of the enemy was sprinting wildly toward us—he had to be crazy!

I swallowed against a constricted throat and made a move to get up, but the medic held me back. The runner was coming for me like I was a wounded deer! I took a deep breath. It all happened like in a Spielberg action film. My hands were so clenched my nails dug into my flesh.

Someone, one of ours I guess, had a lock on the guy with a rifle and shot the runner. It didn’t even slow him down—just a flesh wound, but we didn’t know it at the time. The two of us were wide open, and my medic didn’t have a gun, probably lost in the confusion, if he ever had one. I remember this part before the blood loss rendered me unconscious. He stood and faced the moving killer, not twenty feet away, looking directly into a Tabuk rifle wielded by the crazy man. My medic was literally a human shield over me.

Rotor, Creature and the others went after their M-16s. Creature got to his about the time my medic stood his ground, but his gun misfired. I closed my eyes against the memory. He told me this later.

My medic made the only move possible—and the most dangerous.

I paused and took a breath, one of exhilaration. My hands went loose.

The medic ran, full-tilt, at the enemy, closing the distance and catching the runner completely off-guard. An unarmed man, whooping like a wild man while yelling an old Chickasaw war cry. Creatureman told me the sound could have curdled milk. The medic hit the guy full-stride in his midsection and severed his femoral artery with a scalpel he unsheathed at the last second. The guy, I was told, was bleeding out when he hit the sand.

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Y ou never said the medic’s name all this time, said Fletcher, my counselor who was working with me nearly a year later to bring me back to some emotional normality.

David. David Lee Mayfield. I sat in the safety of Fletch’s basement office in my home city. My hands were unclenched, and I calmly related the attack details without going into an emotional tailspin.

I was told his name later. It’s on his Army Commendation Medal certificate. Most observers agree his action merited a bronze star. I’d have given him the silver, myself.

Quite a man. Fletcher glanced at a photo on his wall of his days in Vietnam.

I smiled. "Before we’d formed the convoy, I’d taken a rushed breakfast at the base and glanced up to see him. I remember thinking: Who’s that man? I’d seen him in passing in the compound before, each time a quick smile, my nod in return. He was a staff sergeant, tall, about my age, strong walk. I almost did a double-take but thought better. Somewhere, somehow, this soldier had crossed my path—before he actually crossed my path. The powerful feel of recognition went deeper than a flash memory, but I couldn’t place him."

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T here were plenty of other counseling sessions. Fletcher listened for the most part. The man was big and tall—nearly six two. He was not soft and had a ruddy complexion. He looked as if always in thought, and when he sat, he hunched, head forward, as would a priest hearing confession. He laughed hard and made me feel at ease with a hand on my shoulder or a hug if appropriate. He was the quintessential Norman Rockwell grandfather to me, the one I never had.

I actually enjoyed meeting regularly with Fletch, a widower of eighteen years, a seminary graduate, and former-alcoholic-turned-counselor.

After surviving the Tikrit ambush a year ago, I spent time in recovery and was discharged three months later, only to develop unexplained pain and weakness in the weeks following. My limbs ached and I lost sensitivity at times in my hands and feet. My balance was affected. The Army said the symptoms were not related to my head wound. But they were there and occupying my thoughts.

Your father? Fletcher directed the conversation while sitting in his office on another warm day in a city far from the desert. A safe place. How did he react to your hospitalization and recovery? He was injured himself and hospitalized for other reasons.

I dodged the question. "Dad changed my life in every way possible. He encouraged me and guided me with his words. He was almost driven as if I were the most precious thing in his life. He left a powerful impact on me growing up, but this period stands out."

Are you? asked Fletch

Am I what?

The most precious thing in his life?

That’s the funny thing. It’s like as a result of that one day, I became everything he lived for. I looked straight into Fletch’s eyes. He used those exact words. I looked away. Everything.

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A week later, the weather having cooled and a storm rumbling in the distance, I pondered what I had told Fletcher—that I had become everything my father lived for. I’d never really thought about our relationship in those terms, but the words had come out in the conversation. A little too dramatic? Not really. The intensity of our relationship was not the result of a rescue in the desert. Just what had made Dad say I had become everything he lived for, I didn’t know.

I gazed at my father, sleeping in the bed of the rehab facility not far from my apartment. The exercise session had run long. Dad’d made progress, and he’d wanted to go further. Fatigue and pain ended his quest for the day.

A nurse—I recognized her as new to the floor—entered the room, clipboard in hand. She looked at the dozing figure and turned. I’ll come back later.

I went back to watching my dad and thought about the car accident and how, even then, I must have played some role in my father’s actions. Racing to my need through stormy weather to assist me alongside the road in a disabled car, the rain-slicked pavement and the tires losing purchase for just enough time to veer into the oncoming lane of traffic. I imagined the crushing sound of metal and the demolished car coming to a long, winding halt on the shoulder. My mother died instantly. Oh God!

How I love you, Dad! I know how you love me, I said aloud to my sleeping father.

I cherish the many times during my schooling when I saw you watching me performing on the piano in recital, during some inconsequential sporting event, in the chorus. You always singled me out and fixed on me in rapt admiration and showed love, almost palpably.

There were repercussions to such intense attention as well. I strove to meet the merit given to me. I sought to excel, to achieve, to be worthy—if that could ever happen. But deep inside, I knew he loved me unconditionally and wholly, and nothing I did would change it.

At times, I failed, deliberately, as if to test his love and release the burden that love extends. It was selfish to withhold my best to test or even hurt my father. I hated myself when I did that, but I did it anyway.

My dad never wavered in his devotion, and my rebellion became directed at my work and ultimately in love for others. I entered into the medical field really a fledgling in the faith, readily venting my wrath at God for injustice on the battlefield and now my own pain. Too many unknowns, I told my dad and he’d smile and agree, the smile telling me he knew more than I was willing to concede. We’re here to sow seeds, baby, he’d reply. Everything in time.

And there was David Lee. He was another seed sown one hot day that kept me and my father together.

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M y father awakened. I caught him watching. He was smiling. My eyes held on him.

Someone on your mind, babe?

Just studying an old crotchety guy who reads minds in the most annoying way.

He took my hand and, as he so often did, began with, I have much to tell you.

But as he began one of his long narratives I had grown accustomed to, the young nurse walked back into the room.

Am I interrupting? she asked, a sheepish look on her face.

Not at all, dear, said Dad in bed, shifting as if expecting a needle.

Just some information. For the records, Mr. Falk. Nothing really personal, but your daughter might want to leave. Rules and all that.

I smiled and gathered my things. I’m on my way out.

I’m not Mr. Falk, he said in false seriousness to the young woman.

You’re not? said the woman looking down at the notes on the clipboard.

"I’m Thom, he said with a big smile. Thom, with an ‘H’."

Thom, 1974

Ruth remembered first hearing the story when she was twelve. Her parents sat her down and initiated her in the family history with their own story, of which she played a small part—residing in the womb of her mother on a fateful weekend. She learned about David—not the David Lee from Iraq, but another David, the story being told to her with details added as her questions mounted to form one amazing tale. David was not family, but what happened as a result of his actions changed ours, as her father put it.

We shared a campground for two days before our lives intersected, her dad began. "A young married couple, we had arrived three days earlier at the north entrance. The elongated park stretched southward with the Gatlin River flowing to the lake and then beyond through rolling, then challenging, forested terrain. We passed through the one campground north of the lake, and then circled the lake on high ground, where we camped the first night on our meander southward. On the second day, we made the second campground in the early afternoon, some three miles south of the lake on the river.

"Our first misadventure occurred when your mom spotted another young woman who turned her ankle coming off the slope at the entrance to the camp. Earlier rains in the week had made many of the slopes and rocks treacherous. The woman fell hard, but her pack actually cushioned her fall.

"Before her husband, several steps behind, could react, Gabby was at her side. I trailed as usual, carrying more body weight.

"‘Stay put, girl,’ your mom said. ‘Let’s take a look,’ she said with her look of a professional and her great warm smile. By then, David, who was the woman’s husband, had rushed down, only to be reassured by Gabby. ‘I’m a nurse in the real world,’ she told him. ‘Thom here needs one full-time with his coordination.’

"I had to grin at that remark. It’s true. Anyway, that was our introduction to David and Beth, married just a couple of years. We took to each other immediately.

"Within twenty minutes, David and I had half-carried Beth to our campsite and Gabby wrapped the ankle. No break, just a turn. We had a couple of cold packs that should’ve kept the swelling down. Not even a bruise. She tested the ankle and we agreed she’d be able to travel out, maybe a step slower.

"We shared a meal that evening—trout I’d caught earlier on the river—and a bottle of wine, with our laughter level gradually ascending. The cloudless sky of the afternoon melded into overcast, obscuring a three-quarter moon, and the wind picked up.

"We were going to stay another night and I was gonna go for the trout in the river the next day again. David said their plans had changed now. He was referring to Beth, of course, and she didn’t look all that happy for not being consulted. I think she bit her tongue for the moment.

"Three hours around a campfire and no moon visible, the sangria had mellowed everyone, except David. He smiled and talked, but he was often distant. He even wandered off on short walks a few times. When he’d leave us, Beth watched him and explained he was enamored with nature and creatures. She said he didn’t laugh the hearty laugh of her brother and father and male friends, with bravado and freedom. He was, she confessed, restrained somehow, held in place, like many Vietnam vets.

"I remember asking him whether he’d ever run the rapids at Cedar Bend. David smiled at the question—an odd smile—stoked the fire and answered: ‘Not yet, but I’d like to someday—to experience the rush of water again.’ I remember that reply.

"David and Beth left the next morning. Early.

"That night, the rains came with the wind and buffeted our tent, sending rivulets along the inside flaps. I tied the sash and we hunkered down for what we thought must be a passing shower. I thought we were on high ground, so any water wouldn’t get in.

"We were actually forty yards from the river in a flat bed area at the base of an incline that paralleled the river. David had told us that the river carved a winding path to Lake George two miles downstream. The earthen dam from the 1930s and the government’s WPA—cheap labor that fed lots of families—had created the lake that later became the popular forested Lake George Park where hikers plied the threaded trails.

"Toward daybreak, the wind had abated somewhat but the steady rain persisted, the water now seeping through the seams of the tent.

"I left the tent and didn’t like what I saw. In the dim light, the river raged not ten feet below me on the bank. The water rushed by, strewn with debris, dark and evil. At that moment, I thought of the dam David had talked about and recalled how he had noted the incongruity that something so fragile could hold back over two million gallons of water.

"In ten minutes, if that long, we’d broken camp, leaving a sodden tent and a lot of gear; we packed just important items that hadn’t been washed away by the few inches of rushing water. It was rising fast. I don’t even know why we packed anything. It would have been better to simply get out, away from the raging river.

"We paused for a second then moved faster when we heard a roar. I didn’t know it then, but the dam had been breached and the sound came from the torrent of water cascading down the river, gushing violently and beating against the rocks and shoreline.

"In fact, we learned later a large embankment slide had occurred on the face of the dam over which thousands of gallons of water flowed. The main structure of the dam held—for the moment—but the river could not contain water. It ran fast and hard, overflowing the banks within a few hundred yards, shearing saplings and eroding the bank. It probably took a matter of minutes to reach our campground three miles south of the break.

"We took to the trees. That’s how crazy it was. Not even time to run. With water swirling around our feet, I boosted Gabby into the crook of one until she had established a perch and then took to the other nearby, the less sturdy. Both choices were not the best, as the current had already worn the roots, now exposed. For nearly forty-five minutes, your mom and I held on, talking to each other constantly for a while above the wind and sheet rain.

"Your mom and I clung to some branches a few feet off the ground on two, I dunno, birches right next to each other. We were shrouded in our slickers and as wet as if we hadn’t had them on. The water kept rising and coursing, the wind and water roared. It seemed like an hour passed since we abandoned the tent.

We stopped after a while…talking. He took a deep breath. "Fatigue and fear as the water rose weakened us. Our hands were wet and losing their sensitivity. Our grips were failing, and we didn’t know it for a while until we began to slip. I had given your mom my belt so she could strap herself in.

"Gripping the tree limb, I heard the roar grow louder, I guess at the point the dam broke. The current became deadly. I watched everything not rooted deeply being swept by me and away, absolutely terrified and feeling so small in a wind-and-water-run world.

"And of all the least expected sights I might have imagined came a figure running in fast water over his ankles, headed toward our tent. The tent was pitched on higher ground but the man was still struggling against the powerful current from the river overflowing its banks. He yelled, just as the water rose and the tent began swaying, toppling. He grabbed a tree and held tightly. It was David.

"Not knowing whether my voice had enough energy behind it, I screamed, ‘Get off the ground!’ I remember saying that. Over and over. Your mom pointed to another tree nearby and I motioned him to it. His feet were in motion, but the water propelled him in other