How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

Is anyone sick? He should call for the elders of the church and they should pray over him and pour a little oil upon him, calling on the Lord to heal him.  And their prayer, if offered in faith, will heal him, for the Lord will make him well; and if his sickness was caused by some sin, the Lord will forgive him.  Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results. James 5:14-16

Having grown up in a household of 10 sisters, I was very much aware that being “the boy” meant being in the minority.  But, over a 20 year evolution as a United States Marine, I learned that being in the minority does not necessarily make me a minority.   I can choose to be equal—an asset and therefore, not a liability.

By Eric Stradford, U. S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS, December 29, 2018 - Let me be the first to congratulate the disappointed, downtrodden, distressed and depressed friends-n-kin who have ever anticipated economic benefits from an emotional appeal.  Confession, I’ve heard, is good for the soul. As a matter of faith or fact, healing results when good folks take action.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!   

Yes, it’s true.  Donald Trump is the President of the United States…STILL!  Yes, it’s true.  The federal government shutdown over a boarder wall, or, perhaps beautiful steel slats, a fence, “beaded curtain” or unprecedented shock and awe.   You are no doubt anxious to see what a divided 116^th United States Congress will do to protect and defend the Constitution “from all enemies foreign and domestic.”  

As the elected consider their roles in “forming a more perfect union,” each of us, even me can consider a shared cause for healing.  But, be careful, self-diagnosis could be as harmful as ignoring the problem.

Dissociation is a mental process that causes a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memory and sense of identity.  My particular ailment stems from emotional experiences over a lifetime where the need for healing was, as Langston Hughes put it, a dream deferred.  In my own experience, growing up as “the boy” with testosterone in a predominately estrogen household of emotionally endowed siblings may have shaped lifelong personality traits that were more transactional than transformative.

As you come to pray for my healing, know this.   

Transient and mild dissociative experiences are common. Almost 1/3rd of people say they occasionally feel as though they are watching themselves in a movie, and 4% say they feel that way as much as 1/3rd of the time. The incidence of these experiences is highest in youth and steadily declines after the age of 20.

Transactional leadership and management focuses on supervision, organization, and performance.  In pursuing a healing strategy, we’re cautioned that that folks leaning toward the transactional approach look to keep things the same instead of looking to change the future.

Transformational leaders, like my bride of a quarter of a century, serves to enhance motivation, morale, and job performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms; these include connecting the follower's sense of identity and self to a project and to the collective identity of the organization.  Stephanie believes in being a role model for followers, inspiring them and raising their interest in a particular project.

Over the Christmas holiday, Stephanie and I discovered common ground for our politically bipolar partnership. As a result, we’re redirecting our efforts with new shared goals for a post-Trump America. 

Some influential friends-n-kin have added value to vision on our journey from hurt to healed.  Among them, Bill and C. DeLores Tucker, Grainger and Jo Ann Browning, Spencer and Juliette Bartley, Ofield Dukes and, Arthur Allen Fletcher.

In the seventies, Al Green sampled the Bee Gee’s 1971 release, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.  His journey to healing witnessed a trail of hurt that included an emotionally charged encounter with his girlfriend, Mary Woodson White.

Although she was already married, White wanted Green.  An angry White doused Green with a pot of boiling grits while he was bathing. Police found a note inside White's purse declaring her reasons for causing severe burns on Green's back, stomach, and arms.  They also found the .38 handgun with which she had killed herself.

Stephanie A. Walker Stradford paved her own pathway from hurt to healed during the seventies.  After graduating from the University of Maryland, Stephanie put to test a new minority hiring policy and landed a studio engineering job with the likes of David Brinkley, Willard Scott and others at NBC Washington, DC. 

Republican Arthur A. Fletcher, a former board chair for the United Negro College Fund, celebrated “four quarters” in what he called, “Victorious Living.”  As U.S. Department of Labor Assistant Secretary for Wage and Labor Standards, Fletcher offered unique insights on being African American and unapologetically, Republican. 

When Stephanie and I met Dr. Fletcher, he had discovered the formula for healing a broken heart.  In the sixties, his family had been denied a rental house in Berkeley's white section.  Continuing racial problems, combined with continuing economic pressures, took their toll, and Fletcher's wife, Mary, committed suicide.

In 2005, Arthur Fletcher called on us to plan an event commemorating The 36^th Anniversary of what he called, The Affirmative Action Enforcement Movement.  The event marked his implementation of the Revised Philadelphia Plan, which required federal contractors to meet certain goals for hiring minority employees. 

Fletcher’s presentation on “the glasses’ endowed believers with an inclusive vision of America’s future.   The event was Fletcher’s last public event.  He died later that year at age 80.

After coordinating a star-studded homegoing and Arlington burial for Fletcher, Stephanie and Eric Stradford set out once again on their Learning Journey.

In the New Year, we are reaching out to seven-year-old Americans proposing an economically inclusive vision of their 21^st Century futures.  We’re learning that  six-in-ten Millennials (59%) affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with about half of Gen Xers and Boomers (48% each) and 43% of voters in the Silent Generation.

Many of them see a need for alternative outcomes in both Republican as well as Democratic primaries, but few are ready, willing and able to lean right to make a difference.

In a 2005 study, the Pew Research Center identified nine typological groups. Three groups were identified as part of each, "the left," "the middle," and "the right." In this categorization system, "the right" roughly represents the Republican base, those on "the left" the Democratic base and those in "the middle" independents.

Within the left are the largely secular and anti-war "Liberals", the socially conservative but economically left "Conservative Democrats", and the economically "Disadvantaged Democrats" who favor extended government assistance to the needy.

In "the middle" are the optimistic and upwardly mobile "Upbeats", the discouraged and mistrusting "Disaffected” citizens, and the disenfranchised "Bystanders."

The right comprises the highly pro-business "Enterprisers," the highly religious "Social Conservatives" (also known as the Christian right), and the "Pro-Government Conservatives" who are largely conservative on social issues but support government intervention to better their economic disposition.

 

“Thank You For Your Service”

WHO’S YO DADDY?   According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network,  children of military and veteran families experience unique challenges related to military life and culture.  Long-term effects include alienation from benefits earned during military service. 
One small step toward “Becoming” could be one giant leap for veteran families.

By Eric Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS, November 11, 2018, Virtual – Military Veterans today are at times greeted by the term, “Thank you for your service.”   Over the last twelve years, Youth Achievers USA Institute, a 501c3 public charity, invested time and talent in perpetuating the spirit behind the phrase though its support of annual commemorative events and inclusive community projects.

For more than twenty years, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Colonel Herbert N. Harmon, J.D. has hosted an annual Marine Corps Birthday celebration with a small gathering of friends in Washington, D.C.  This year, The National Museum of the Marine Corps once again invited America to say, “Thank you for your service” and mean it. 

If you were among the few and the proud who missed the commemorative Marine Corps Birthday event, perhaps you will SAVE THE DATE for November 10, 2019. 

This year, the world watched as the 45^th President of the United States missed a movement.  Ordinarily, it’s not a big thing for most civilians who say, “thank you for your service.”

According to legal scholars, the president, even as the commander in chief, is not in the military by law.  Although he has authority over the armed forces, he enjoys immunity from military justice.  That being said, a couple of Marine Generals standing on the shoulders of American heroes, might feel obligated to bend the arc of a moral universe toward some Marine Corps unique justice.

One of the most famous quotations in Marine Corps history came during the initial step-off for battle when First Sergeant Dan Daly, a recipient of two Medals of Honor who had served in the Philippines, Santo Domingo, Haiti, Peking and Vera Cruz, prompted his men of the 73rd Machine Gun Company forward with the words: "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

In their study of Marine Corps history, young Marines are motivated by Daly’s politically incorrectness during the battle of Belleau Wood. His command, and the resultant fierce fighting earned U.S. Marines the respect of their enemy.  The Germans nicknamed Marines who fought at Belleau Wood, “Teufel Hunde," a term by which generations of Marines have become known as “Devil Dogs.”

Depending on how the words are remembered, by whom and how the story is told, a United States Marine could be a community’s greatest asset or its worst nightmare. Dan Daly is reported to have turned down an officer’s commission, stating, “Any officer can get by on his sergeants, but to be a sergeant you have to know your stuff.”  Of course, any commissioned officer who might have heard Daly say that would hardly want it to be remembered.   

Missing a movement hardly measures up among allegations of porn-star payoffs, rigged elections and witness tampering.  But when citizens, particularly veterans, consider the offense in context, Belleau Wood is hardly the event you miss for a booty call.

The president's most important duty as commander in chief is to defend the United States, its territories and possessions and its armed forces, from attack.  This duty to National Security is carried out through projection of military strength, diplomacy and economic security.  When America’s misses the opportunity to say, “thank you for your service,” and mean it, America falls short on its responsibility for its National Security.
 
The U.S. Constitution (Article II, section 2) specifies that “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several states, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”  Language provides the president with constitutional powers over the armed forces.  As the president shares power with the Congress, countless unsettling, unanswered questions keep lawyers and politicians employed.  Meanwhile, young men and women sacrifice life, limbs, and livelihood  as those cassions keep rolling along.

Veterans are just part of a complex and interconnected web of people who vote for policymakers. Language drives policy.  National Security is possible only when and if a nation guarantees Economic Security for its veterans. In the absence of truth, words become alternative facts and veterans forget why they sacrificed. Consequently, active military service members never learn the importance of their service.   

As a United States Marine Corps veteran, engaging America’s Future is perhaps the best therapy society can offer.  Much has been said about the re-entry of military veterans into American society.  Most of it begins with trust.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that 40,056 veterans are homeless on any given night. Almost 2 million veterans are without health insurance, along with 3.8 million members of their households, according to news reports.  Among the 1.8 million uninsured veterans, 12.7 percent are under 65.

Becoming, a new book by Former First Lady Michelle Obama, offers some helpful insight on where we might go from here.   According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network,  children of military and veteran families experience unique challenges related to military life and culture. These challenges include deployment-related stresses such as parental separation, family reunification, and reintegration; disruption of relationships with friends and neighbors due to frequent moves; and adaptation to new schools and new community resources.

Earlier today, an opportunity for inclusion presented itself.  “I may not have stayed in for a long period of time…,” posted Chalondra Brie Stradford. “…but I did sign up to serve my country!!!! Happy Veteran's Day to all the men and women like me who put their name on the line for the USA!!!!”

What is a Veteran?  According to unofficial sources, a veteran is defined by federal law, moral code and military service as "Any, Any, Any"... A military veteran is Any person who served for Any length of time in Any military service branch (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. Certain Coast Guard personnel operating under the War Dept, Navy Dept or Dept of Defense are also military veterans.).

Officially, anyone who claims to be a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces might verify their status at www.va.gov.