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Ask a Vet: Dennis Boyer
Dennis served in the U.S. Air Force from 1967 to 1971 including a tour of duty in Vietnam. He is now working as an attorney for public employees in Wisconsin. While Dennis was opposed to U.S. policy in Vietnam during his time of service, his commitment to peace on the basis of faith grew on him gradually as he struggled with the effects of post traumatic stress disorder. "It came like a flash of light to me that there is a bigger picture here than just Dennis Boyer stuck in a rotten place that he doesn't want to be.... It was having immense human consequences of farmers dislocated, women forced into prostitution. A culture 1,000 years old was essentially being destroyed.... I developed for the first time in my life some empathy for what was happening to people there and it filled me with a sense of rage. "When I was in a situation of using deadly force, I realized almost immediately what a profound thing that was, and how it provided some inescapable... changes in my life, both in my intellect and my soul. "It just flabbergasts me that anyone would come to the conclusion that Christ would find himself in uniform doing the things that I and other people did.... I don't see how Christ could have lasted more than a few days in the military without ending up in the stockade. I guess I concluded that that is probably where I should have ended up. "I had to forgive myself first, because I think... I came to realize that finding God's forgiveness was easy. It is accessible... readily available.... Sometimes we can have a miserly interpretation of God, that He doles these things out in little doses when it can be there like a flood... in an instant.... It was more of a challenge for me to sort through all the baggage and personal pain. "It took me a long time to find someone who was able to help me, and ironically... it was someone who had long exposure to the criminal justice system, and had been counseling violent criminals a long time." |
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