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The Torment PTSD Caused Him, And The Healing That Came After
“I was always suspicious. My head was always on a swivel. Someone could slam a door and I would jump. I was just always on edge.”
At twenty-eight years old, Marine veteran Eric Swithin had his whole life ahead of him. He was a newlywed, had a steady job, and felt he had the memories of combat that haunted him under control…until one night in 2010 when a noise woke him up.
“I look over and see a lump, and I'm certain that it's my wife sleeping next to me. And I reach for my gun. And then she walks out of the bathroom, and here I am pointing a loaded gun at my wife in the middle of the night.”
Eric was never one to talk about his problems. He’d grown up on the streets, abusing drugs and alcohol until he enlisted in the Marines and surrendered his life to Christ at seventeen.
“I was kind of reaching for some kind of lifeline, but then I met God, and I was radically transformed. I over romanticized everything. So, thinking of becoming a United States Marine, my mind drifted to this idea of serving my country, protecting what's good and protecting what's right and being a hero, running out onto a battlefield. All the things that Hollywood sensationalizes, that was me.”
After basic training, Eric was selected for a highly specialized weapons team called Fox Recon. Then on September 11th, the unthinkable happened. Eric was deployed to Iraq to fight the war on terror.
“We're the tip of the spear. So, I remember in that moment knowing we're going to war, and I'm thinking, did I make a mistake signing up for this-- basically a forward operating unit who's certainly gonna be on the very front lines or ahead of the front lines?”
In the first two months, Eric’s unit took seventeen cities. The physical demands were brutal.
“Hypervigilant, days without sleep, constantly engaging in combat. You're constantly stressed out, constantly trying to keep yourself alive and others around you alive. I had prepared myself to see dead people. I prepared myself to take lives. I had prepared myself to be shot at. What I wasn't anticipating though, was the images that will never leave my mind. In particular, seeing a five-year-old boy with missing arms and legs, who had just watched his mom and dad get killed. Seeing five young ladies and their mother hovering over their dad, weeping, because he had been killed as a casualty of war, as collateral damage.But the thing that was really troubling me the whole time was I've been sharing Jesus with people. I'm a Christian. My job is to love people. How is this loving people? I couldn't reconcile it. How is this right? Are we really the good guys? All these tough questions. I was not asking God. I was just pushing them down.
After seven months on the front lines, Eric was sent stateside where he finished out his career. He got a job as a consultant, married, and immersed himself in work. While his service in Iraq was behind him, the trauma remained.
“I was drinking almost every single day. I was struggling to get good sleep. I'd hear a helicopter, and I'd start freaking out, started having night terrors and things went downhill really quickly. I began to spiral. I started thinking about what it would look like just to find peace by ending my life. Maybe that's the easiest way out. Maybe it's best for her. You start to justify all those scenarios.”
Eric says pride kept him from seeking help.
“I'm supposed to be okay. I went to war. I fought; I'm home. I'm a man. I'm tough. I'm strong.
I'm gonna bootstrap it and I'm gonna push my way through this pain.”
Until the night he pulled a gun on his wife and realized he was a danger to himself and those around him.
“I went from zero to ninety in two seconds. I could have very easily shot my own wife. I have not admitted that to many people because it's just so embarrassing to me that I made that mistake. But that's where I was.”
Pushing his pride aside, eric went to the VA where he began receiving counseling for PTSD. Even then, the nightmares and drinking continued. Then while working one day in 2013, he heard a voice telling him to get on his knees and worship.
‘“I thought, in case this is God, I'm gonna do this. I remember playing a song, I Surrender. And I began to say the words of this song: ‘I surrender to you, Lord, I give you everything.’ And in that moment, God himself came into my office. I knew that God is holy and that I am not. And I cannot stand before him with all of this junk. And he let me see what it's like to be before a holy living God when you are not right with him. I was absolutely terrified. One of the scariest moments of my entire life by far. I couldn't open my eyes because I was weeping so hard. But I also was afraid of what I would see. For the first time I fully admitted all of the things I had done, I just laid it all down. “God, I am sorry. for going to all these things rather than going to you.” I was begging him for mercy. I knew in that moment I needed Jesus. And I felt so much deep regret and remorse. And then immediately the atmosphere in the room shifts. And in that moment, I felt more love than I've ever felt in my life. I felt so amazing. I didn't want it to end. When I left that room, I knew something was different.’”
Nearly a decade after coming home, Eric finally felt peace. He stopped drinking and though he still has occasional night terrors, he says God always pulls him through.
“I'll probably always have a level of vigilance. But I'm no longer a danger to others and myself. It doesn't control my life anymore. I feel whole and healthy in so many ways, and I know that it is only God that can do that. We face an enemy that is not flesh and blood. He's real and he wants us to keep everything inside. He wants us to try to go it alone. It doesn't matter what kind of trauma it is, if it's war or abuse or any kind of tragedy that we might face in this life. But when we start to open up and let it out and ask for help before God himself, immediately healing starts to take place. Only God can heal the soul.”
God Told Him, "You're Not Going to Die Tonight."
“He came in through the back sliding glass door, had a butcher knife in his hand,” says Russ Smethers, “and he came at me and started hacking with the knife. I slipped, I fell on my back and he's hovering over me hacking away.”
On March 8th, 2021 in Las Vegas Nevada, Pastor Russ Smethers and his wife, Rena, were cooking dinner when Russ was attacked by his stepson.
“He was living with us for a couple of years and he came across money and all of a sudden had meth. When he first came in and he was advancing, it was like, ‘Oh, hey, what's going on?’ You know, and then you look and you see the knife and you see his eyes glazed over and it goes from, ‘Oh, hey, what are you doing?’ to confusion. But then it became fight or flight. Once the hacking started, you know, then, then the fear kind of went away and survival took over,” says Smethers.
The man mercilessly stabbed away at Russ.
“Most of the wounds were in the chest, in the head, and the neck because he was over on top of me,” says Smethers. “The blood would start running over my eyes and I couldn't see very well. That was my first indication, like, ‘Oh, this is serious.’ And then I started with the slipping and I fell. Fractured my skull in two places on that one. And then you know, the part with my thumb almost being cut off is because he had the knife over my eye and it was either I had to grab the knife by the blade to pull it away or...so I chose to grab the knife. I remember that his dog came in the kitchen and nudged him away from me. He dropped the knife and he went back out the back door across the street where everybody was out there already called 911.”
Russ’s attacker was captured, arrested, and jailed, though he had stabbed Russ 21 times. Minutes later, paramedics arrived on the scene, applied a tourniquet, and transported him to University Medical Center. Russ said something interesting happened to him earlier in the day.
“God audibly told me, not something I felt in my heart, but God said, ‘You're going through some stuff right now, but you're not going to die tonight,’” says Smethers.
When he arrived at the hospital his nurse began praying.
Smethers says, ‘I look over and there is this male nurse sitting there holding my hand and elbow and his arm and his eyes are closed and he's praying very vocally in a very busy trauma room. And I went, ‘Wow.'”
Nurse Mark Cabigon says, “I thought he was not going to survive. You could see his jaw open from here, from knife wounds in the neck as well. Like, missed the major artery. So, I don't know. For some reason the good Lord just told me, ‘Just go there.’ So, I went there, then I don't know, for some reason. I just offered a prayer.”
Though he was in good spirits, Russ’s condition was critical. Among his injuries were a collapsed lung, two skull fractures, a fractured spine, two broken ribs; he almost bled out on the scene and still had a piece of the knife blade embedded in his skull. After two days and three surgeries, the surgeon spoke to Russ.
“He goes, ‘Here's my, my dilemma. I went in to do X-rays and found out your lung had reattached itself.’ He said, ‘Now, you have a fractured spine.’ He goes, 'We see an x- ray, so we're about ready to do some surgery on your back. And again, something tells me to recheck. So we go back and recheck your spine’s not fractured anymore.’ So, what's the problem? That sounds great to me! He goes, ‘Well, the issue is we didn't do anything,’” recalls Russ.
Remarkably the fractures that were once there, were miraculously healed. Nurse Mark says Pastor Russ’s full recovery is a miracle. “He's a miracle. Seeing him smiling right now and still doing the work of the Lord just inspires me,” says Cabigon. “God is real. Like there's, there's a God watching people, watching us. There's no doubt about it.”
He also chose to forgive his attacker.
Smethers says, “If I, as a pastor, and as a father, and as a husband, and a man of God wants to lead by example, who am I to not forgive this person?”
Russ says the attack gave him a new perspective and a new purpose.
“I wake up every morning. ‘What do you got for me today God?’ Even if I'm having a really bad day, I'm like, ‘You know what? Somebody else has got a lot worse than me, ‘So use me.’ I'm living proof. You're living proof that God is a miracle worker and He's doing miracles every day of your life. Look at a gorgeous sunset. It takes your breath away. That's a miracle. I just am so grateful for every breath that He's allowing me to take. I can't say it enough or deep enough to where it didn't sound cheesy or corny, but God is just an awesome God.”
Supporting Our Soldiers: A Single Mom Finds Financial Peace
When E-4 soldier, Alisha, joined the army, she knew she’d made the right choice. She is a single mom and has to budget very carefully. Alisha said, “You are trying to manage how to decide things like groceries, buying clothes for your baby. Because at this point it's not about me anymore. It’s all about her.”
When Alisha needed furniture, she had to take out a loan and make payments each month. Then her car was impounded over back property taxes. Alisha explained, “I was shocked, I was upset, I was angry. I was confused at the same time. I was like, why haven't I gotten anything in the mail?”
Alisha paid the back taxes. However, she didn’t have the $1,200 to get her vehicle out of impoundment. She had no choice but to rent a car. Alisha said, “My faith is very strong. Without the Lord, I don't know where I’d be.”
Manna Church, outside Fort Liberty, heard about Alisha and contacted CBN’S Helping the Home Front. Pastor, Tommy Cartwright, told her CBN was paying for her furniture and the rental car. Plus, he had one more surprise. Pastor Tommy explained, “When this interview is over, we are going to get your car out of impoundment, so you can drive it off the lot and take it home.”
Alisha exclaimed, “Thank you!”
That day, CBN paid the $1,200 impoundment fee. She picked up her vehicle and dropped off the rental car. Alisha can now focus on her duties and her daughter, without financial worry thanks to your support.
She concluded, “I’m grateful to CBN partners. My prayers have been answered thanks to CBN.”
God Transforms Cancer Patient's View on Strength
After a successful high risk surgery removed a ping pong ball sized tumor from the center of his brain, Jay believed he was safe. One year later he faced a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer and discovered a new strength in God.
CBN’s impact around the world
Bible Reading for the Day
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