Veterans
POST
TRAUMATIC
GROWTH
How Freedom Dogs
Put Me back in the
Driver’s Seat
BY: T OBIN’S COMBAT VETER A N M A R I N E
I
guess that my love affair with the military started
when I was young. I was a die-hard fan of GI Joe
growing up and actually still am! Fast-forward
18 years and there I am sitting inside the cab of
a 7-ton truck, M16 locked and loaded with my
Kevlar and flak jacket on. About an hour earlier I had
left my last will and testament on my mom’s answering
machine. I was more nervous than I had ever been before
because we were going to be the first ones “outside of the
wire” in Kandahar in three years. The other guys in my unit
really didn’t “get” me and so no one really had my back.
In that moment, I needed someone to have my back more
than ever.
So here I am, almost shaking from uncertainty and I
thought, “well, I might as well say a prayer.” My wife, at
the time, had bought me a small bulletproof bible with a
metal plate in it. She had told me to keep it close to my
heart. I unzipped this little bible and it fell open into my
hands and there it was… the only verse I have ever since
committed to memory.
Jeremiah 46: 28 “Fear not oh Jacob my servant”,
declares the LORD. “I am with you. I will completely
destroy all the nations where I scatter you, but I will
not completely destroy you. I will correct you with
justice. I won’t let you go entirely unpunished.”
After reading the verse, a calm came over me and I took
a breath and said, “Okay” The verse turned out to be
completely on point during that deployment.
Tobin
74 GBSAN.COM | JANUARY 2019
During my second deployment in Iraq, things were
different. It was there that I learned that when the Rules
of Engagement were being set by those that weren’t
in the fight, it typically ends up with you becoming the
target! While I escaped what I considered major injuries
from IEDs, I had witnessed first-hand the carnage
they could unleash. It angered me when I saw a fellow
Marine injured due to something that could have been
prevented. My greatest regret was that on one mission
I had forgotten about the open areas before some
buildings just outside the gate where we had taken fire
more than four years before. We took casualties and I
have never let go of the four Marines whose deaths I
felt like I could have prevented.