This is the personal story of a combat veteran who did 8 tours of duty in Afghanistan. He returned from war suffering PTSD and came close to taking his life. Thanks to his wife and friends he came to a accept God in his life and was able to overcome his failings. He has since come to a deeper relationship with God, his family, and friends and is an inspiration to many others who have experienced the trauma that he has.
Besides being a Recon Marine (second generation Marine), Chad is also a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Champion who owned a successful martial arts school in Houston, TX.
I heard about Chad at a church my wife and I began attending in the Houston area since we moved here in 2021. Chad is also a member and I've heard him speak on several occasions often recounting several of the stories in this book.
I was especially pleasantly surprised when in the book he quoted a line from a Robert E Howard Conan story of whom I am a huge fan. The line, "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."
This was in relation to a MMA fight that he was about to participate in (which he won). He gives a step by step narration of what he experienced prior to a fight up to and including the actual fight experience itself.
In case you haven't gotten the picture yet, this guy can "chew nails". He is addicted to danger and loves fighting. He talks incessantly about his love of jumping out of planes and the rush he gets when facing danger.
In one chapter, He recounts a story when he was an undercover policeman in Louisiana and he and his partner were forced to kill his first person by shooting point blank in his chest several times. The man refused to surrender and would have killed him with a hunting rifle which he had pointed at him. He explains what goes through the mind of a policeman who has had this experience and what they feel and think. Not necessarily what you think.
The first chapter is titled "The Killing Pool". This was a huge Olympic sized swimming pool with extremely high diving boards located in Kabul. The Soviets built it during their occupation of Afghanistan. It was used by the Soviets to practice Olympic diving.
The Taliban used it to slaughter innocent people. They would throw them from the highest diving boards to the concrete far below (the pool has no water in it). They also lined up men, women, and children against the inside wall of the pool and mowed then down with AK-47s. The bullet holes are still clearly visible pock marks in the walls, many of them low enough to slaughter children.
Chad stated that he went to Afghanistan with the idea of revenge for 9/11 but that soon changed into a desire to help the innocent people who were being oppressed by an indescribable evil.
Each chapter describes an experience he had and relates it to those people he knew or Biblical heroes who he describes as having an "Unfair Advantage" because of their Faith. Heroes such as Gideon, David, Peter, and Jesus himself among others.
Today Chad is the founder of Mighty Oaks Foundation which was created to assist other warriors with PTSD to help them get their lives back together and find meaning in their lives.
Chad has another book coming out (I just pre-ordered today it on Amazon to be shipped Jan 17th) called "Saving Aziz, How the Mission to Help One became a Calling to Help Thousands". Aziz was an interpreter from Afghanistan who worked with the U.S. Military. He personally saved Chad's life on several occasions when Chad was working underground in extremely dangerous situations, often alone surrounded by enemies. Last Sunday I heard Chad and Aziz speak about their experiences in Afghanistan and also how our country failed them and the many American citizens and supporters who helped and worked with the United States to fight the Taliban, leaving them behind to face almost certain torture and death. Chad was determined to save Aziz and his wife and 6 children from almost certain death even at the risk of his own life. In the end he was able to form a team of his old comrades, get state department help and miraculously received huge donations allowing him to go into Kabul and rescue not just his friend and family but 300 orphans who would have been enslaved. While there they found even more opportunities fell into place for his team to help even more. By the end of the operation they ended up getting approximately 17,000 people out of Afghanistan under the noses of the Taliban.
I remember him being honored in our church back in Aug-Sep 2021 right after this miraculous feat. BTW in about 2 months, Aziz will be awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor by the United States Congress for his performance in the war with the Taliban. The only Afghan to ever receive this award.
This new book I understand is in the planning stages to possibly be made into a movie.
More recently, Chad has worked to get innocent people out of the Ukraine. Stay tuned, this guy is not done yet!