Here Am I. Send Me.

I don't travel alone.

My wife and I have had the wonderful privilege of having support from a wonderful couple, Dave and Kathy Wampler, for almost 30 years.

She's been my soloist.

I worked for many years for Dr.

Billy Graham, and I'd speak on Monday nights.

I got Monday night, the youth and military night at the Big Crusades.

And I learned from Dr.

Graham, who we shared board members for 20 years.

His board and my board, some of the very same guys.

His vice chairman was my vice chairman.

I learned from them.

You know what I learned?

Take your music wherever you go and let that music set up what you feel for that moment's message.

And I go by feelings.

God gave us feelings.

Trust your feelings, Luke.

I'm your father.

So I trusted my feelings 30 years ago and it's still paying off.

She's one of the greatest singers, but yeah, wait till one day when you hear her preach, you'll get the rest of the story of Kathy Whopler.

Would you welcome a great woman singing the gospel this morning, Kathy Wampler.

In the calm of your presence, I am listening.

I am listening.

I am still I am quiet.

I am your speech that you speak I will touch that I in the car of your princess.

I am still I am I am your still for your wist.

Of your presence.

I am listening.

I am white.

I am you.

I am still I am quite I am you.

I am still I am beautiful, Kathy.

Thank you.

And again, it gets me every time I come to this church.

I'm not emotional, I'm allergic to the carpet.

It makes my eyes water up.

You'll see it hits me every now and then.

I love you guys.

Thank you for your support.

We reached over 6,000 broken, wounded heroes.

Giving hope to these kids that come back shattered.

Our biggest response today is among our marriages of our warriors, of those injured, 85% of those marriages fail.

And we're putting them back together again.

And the military is happy with our product, I promise you.

And you know what?

My injury, instead of being something that I would be embarrassed of, and there have been times I've been embarrassed.

Children sometimes, you know, I have a new nose now since y'all know me.

Uh I didn't have a nose, I only had a piece of one.

And now I have a nose.

They made it for me 24 months ago.

I'm so proud of it.

It's a boy.

Isn't it sweet?

Cute little guy.

I got two eyelids.

I got two lips again.

I'm so happy to be.

They're putting Humpty Dumpty together the best they can.

But here's the fact all the king's horses and all the king's men, they they'll never be getting Humpty back.

But along came the king, and Humpty's happy.

Humpty's back today.

Because Jesus put him back together.

And that's what we're doing with these marriages.

We're helping these young folks get their lives back together.

I have a little scripture I'd love to read for you.

It comes out of the Old Testament.

And if I can get it, if you have your iPhones, turn with me.

See, I thought that was funny too.

1 Samuel 3 and 3.

Ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep.

The Lord called Samuel and he answered, Here am I, send me.

It's really funny.

I was just sharing this back uh back in the green room with pastors a while ago.

I didn't have to serve.

I was drafted, but I had a letter of exemption.

And the morning I took my physical, that morning I woke up to an alarm clock, and this was the news report, verbatim.

Today in the northern part of South Vietnam, an area known as the DMZ, a young Marine was killed.

That's all I remember.

I was in that REM sleep whenever outside influence can you start dreaming it.

And I start dreaming, I was walking through a jungle.

I'd never been to Vietnam, but all the news reports look like a jungle.

I'm walking through a jungle, I come upon a dead Marine.

I roll him over and I jumped so hard I fell out of bed.

I looked down and the face of the dead man was my own.

I looked and I jumped so hard I fell out of man.

My little teenage wife, we met pretty, I ask her to remember me when I was 16.

She slapped me.

Yeah, she was 13.

She said, I'm only 13.

I said, but you have the body of a 14-year-old, she slapped me again.

And that little girl looking over that edge of that bed, laughing at me.

She said, Are you okay?

I said, No.

I'm going as a civilian.

I'll return as a military man.

She begged me with tears, don't go, Davy.

Don't take take that letter.

You don't have to serve, Davy.

Please, baby, please.

I knew I couldn't.

I knew I couldn't.

I had to go and replace a fallen warrior.

My total military time was two years and six months, which included one year and two months in the hospital.

So I already have a long history, history in the military, don't I?

I'm gonna tell you something.

I've given my life to my country in every way I know how, from that day to this day, and I have no regrets.

I'm not saying I go do it again.

I didn't have that much brain damage.

But I didn't know then what I don't know now.

I don't know tomorrow.

Yes, I'd serve my country and the consequences fall where they may.

I love this country and I would give my life for it, and I've got the scars to prove that.

We are a democracy.

We are a nation of people that govern themselves, not somebody else doing it for us.

And I'm gonna tell you something.

I am not prepared to surrender that freedom to any.

I don't care who they are, anybody wants to take that away from us today.

We're a democracy, and I thank God for it.

But I didn't know the price could be paid.

That would cost so dearly.

I thought I'd known pain, and I grew up around pain.

My mom, my precious mom, when I was born, she almost died.

She never did recover and did die.

Those of you who knew her, she never had an easy day in her life.

Curled up in a fetal position for a decade in a nursing home, incommunicado.

I grew up seeing pain.

My first language was Spanish because I had a Mexican nanny.

I couldn't speak English till I was six years old and had to learn English to go to school.

Then they told me I was not a Mexican.

That messed with my little Hispanic brain.

But change was going to be the theme of my life, and it started as a young boy.

And I'm telling you, by the time I hit the ages to serve my country, I'd gone through enough changes that change didn't scare me.

I was not afraid of the future.

Whatever it may be, I wasn't afraid of change.

And I knew what suffering was.

I just didn't know how intense it could be.

And on July the 26th, 1969, I would break a promise I made to a little girl that was my junior high school sweetheart.

When I kissed her goodbye, she said, Are you coming back?

I said, I'll be back without a scar.

And when I said it, I felt a cold chill go up my spine because I knew I just made a promise I couldn't keep.

We had already been told we were in the smallest of the special operations.

I was trained by SEAL Team One and served in Vietnam with SEAL Team One, but I was not a SEAL.

I was a smaller special operators group called the Special Boat Teams now, but it was then called the Brownwater Black Beret.

We can't prove we had the highest KIA because if they don't retrieve a body, you're not KIA killed in action, you're MIA missing in action.

And because our our guys would go down with the boats in the water, their bodies weren't retrieved.

And when I said I'll be back without a scar, I thought, why did I say?

I could have just said, I'll be back.

Then I could be governor of California.

No, I had to go make this promise I couldn't keep.

It didn't take long.

Eight months later, that promise was broken.

I picked up a white phosphorus hand grenade to throw it in an enemy bunker.

I held my destiny in my hand and didn't know it.

Pulled the pin and drew back to throw, and before I could deliver that grenade into the camp of the enemy, a sniper across the river shooting at my head missed, and the bullet hit my hand and it exploded the grenade right here.

And half my skin was gone in seconds.

60 pounds of flesh went up and smoked.

I looked down, my face was on my boots.

I looked closer, I could see my heart beating.

My back was on fire skin dripping off my arms.

My left thumb was gone.

That bothered me.

I can't hit Jack in England.

Well, actually, you can, but you don't get very far because you don't have a thumb.

If you try it in America, they take you back where you came from.

You're on the wrong side of the road.

That was a joke.

This hand was severed in half.

These fingers don't work.

The index finger works, but these others don't work.

They make a good mic stand and a preaching finger.

Repent.

And you know what?

It is kind of funny, but I'm gonna tell you something to me.

It's a promise that the devil could have anything he wanted, but he couldn't take anything God wouldn't let go of because God gave me what I needed to do, what he called me to do.

Amen.

So the grenade blew my face off, it blew my ear off.

It did.

I'm the only guy that can talk his own ear off.

I was preaching in Jamaica one night and it was really hot and I was sweating, and everybody goes, they're sucking air like a hoover pointing at me, and I'm thinking, you know, I checked my fly, something's wrong.

My fly was fine.

Look around, my ear was laying on my shoulder.

And you gotta do something fast because they're not breathing.

It's about to be Jonestown without the Kool-Aid.

I grabbed my ear, stuck it back on.

I thought, okay, that's over.

It got worse.

They thought it was a miracle and they all got saved.

And that's a true story.

I couldn't tell them it wasn't a miracle.

That it was a phony ear.

They would have thought I was a phony preacher and they would have stoned me.

Pastor Morse didn't want me to tell you I went to Jamaica and got stoned.

Everybody goes down there and gets stoned.

So why are you laughing about, Dave Reaver?

I'm gonna tell you why I'm laughing about it.

On July the 26th, 1969, yes, teenager, you think that's right after the War of 1812.

I know what you're thinking.

On that day, the devil took his best shot.

He lowered the boom and fired, and he hit me.

I'm gonna admit it, he hit me.

Knocked me halfway into eternity, but I'm still here because no weapon formed against me can prosper.

Greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world.

And I'm more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ.

And I'm gonna tell you something, folks.

It's not because of who I am, it's whose I am.

We are not able to be defeated by the enemy.

He cannot take us down as long as we remain in Christ.

Don't jump out of the hand of God, saints.

Stay in there and let him protect you and keep your life.

When the enemy comes in like a flood, he lifts up a bigger flood against him.

Don't let the enemy get you down.

That day would have been easy to quit.

I crawled up on the bank of the river.

After swimming through that nasty river, I should have died of every disease that river had in it.

I came up on the other side.

The fire that put me under almost killed me, would not be extinguished by water.

You can't put it out.

It has to burn itself out.

I'm on the bank of the river, I'm still burning.

I see the damage.

I'm pumping blood out of an open artery.

I fell over backwards.

They thought I was dead, and it went all the way to the Pentagon that I was KIA, killed in action.

It took 34 years to correct that.

34 years later, with the press and pinned on me by the most famous general of the United States Air Force, General Robinson Reisner, brought to me by the Navy SEALs out of California.

They put my purple heart and all the other medals that I didn't even know I had achieved.

I want to tell you something.

It doesn't matter to me the medals.

What mattered to me was 34 years late, that's okay.

Finally, my country said thank you.

And that meant we're gonna have to do something about this carpet.

It's killing me.

That meant the world to me.

And somebody said thank you.

That's all it takes so often.

You can change somebody's life with gratitude.

That's why we have Memorial Day.

It's to remember to give gratitude to those who gave it all and those who gave some.

And for me, I didn't give much.

I never felt like it was worthy to be compared to anything.

But I can tell you this, I know what pain is, but I didn't know it until we were about 1,500 feet up in the air after that helicopter picked me up.

It's really funny what happened.

They rolled me on the stretcher and ran to the helicopter.

I was still burning.

Phosphorus as I told you, you can't extinguish it, it has to burn itself out.

I set the stretcher on fire and I felt through on my head.

You ever have one of those days?

They rolled me up in wet blankets on another stretcher, and away we go, and the medics fill out my death report.

And I'm thinking, man, I gotta get his attention.

This is starting to hurt.

And I said, Medic! And he almost jumped out of the helicopter.

The pilot, really, I think this he I think he lost control.

We're dropping like a rock, and I thought, good Lord, we're gonna crash, and I'll be the only survivor.

They got me to Saigon and then to Japan, and I really stupidly asked for a mirror, and they really stupidly brought it.

And with my good eye looked up.

In that glass, I saw what was left, and I knew my promise was broken, and no teenage girl in the world could ever love me.

And I knew that day my first love, the only girl I'd ever loved, I knew our marriage was over.

I knew she couldn't love me.

I knew it.

And in my despair, in my pain, and in the confusion brought on by drugs, and drugs were brand new.

I'd never done a drug in my life.

I can hallucinate to this day, I think, on a half dosage of a St.

Joseph's aspirin for children.

I've never smoked a joint in my life.

Tried a cigarette once till I inhaled, at least I did more than Bill Clinton did.

You had to be my age to appreciate that.

And that day I decided that I would not face tomorrow.

I took it out of God's hands, I took it out of my physician's hands, and I did something I'm ashamed of.

And I want everybody to hear me.

If you're a child, you listen close and understand, and mama cover me with that child.

Suicide is not the solution.

And it's rampant across America today.

Twenty veterans today are gonna commit suicide.

Tomorrow, 22 veterans are gonna commit suicide.

Tuesday, 22 more.

Every day, 22 veterans commit suicide.

In the active duty, one a day commit suicide every day.

And just about two months ago, the count was up to 46 suicides in the Air Force alone.

We've got to do something to stop this pain.

And Jesus is still the answer.

He's still the answer.

You say that's too simple a solution.

Oh no, it's not.

It's the only solution.

I tried to take my life that day and I got hungry.

I pulled the wrong tube, I pulled lunch.

You can die that way, but it's gonna take a while.

Then to America, to Brook Army Medical Center.

I was in the hospital there for one year and two months, and today I'm a patient there again, and I have surgery coming up on June the 10th.

And if you think about it, you can pray for me.

Operation number 58 coming up.

I've had enough of them.

I'm tired of it.

I don't like this pain.

But let's make something clear.

I'd rather have this pain and be free than be in bondage because somebody wasn't willing to hurt enough for the price of freedom.

Whatever it takes.

Be free because if you lose it, you'll never live long enough to get it back again.

Memorial day.

So they put me at Brook Army Medical Center.

They put me in the intensive care unit.

My wife was there and all these other folks, and whenever the woman walked up to the guy in the bed next to mine, he was 100% 30 green.

She took off her wedding ring, threw it on the bed, and she said, You're embarrassing.

I couldn't walk down the street.

And then she walked out the door.

Next woman up was ripe old age of 19.

Her name is Brenda.

And I knew it was over.

And she bit down and kissed what was left in my face.

And she looked at me and she said, I just want you to know I really love you.

Welcome home, Davy.

And when she says, Davy, I said, Baby, I'm sorry.

I broke that promise.

You know what I'm saying, folks?

I said, I'm sorry, I can't ever look good for you again.

She said, Baby, you never were good looking.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall take thee off.

But I want to close by telling you about Samuel, the one who said, Here am I, send me.

His name has changed throughout the decades, throughout the millenniums, and centuries.

He can be named Bob or George or Mary or Louise or Kathy or whoever.

It's that person that says, I'll go.

The last words uttered by the founder of the Salvation Army.

General Booth made his last statement to be in one word.

Others.

I want my life to be remembered as others.

When they took me into Brooke before I got to see Brenda.

When they took me in.

They put me in a tank full of water, and it's called debrement.

Some of you in the medical field know exactly what I'm about to tell you.

It's horrible.

They lower you in this tank of water and then they splash that water upon your burned flesh that is turned to charcoal.

It's as hard as this.

It's just it's charcoal.

They break it off of you.

And to debreed you, they fillet you and they skin you alive.

Don't get sick.

Let me just share a little bit of it.

It hurts worse than being burned.

They can't give you enough drugs to kill the pain.

It'd kill you to take the drugs.

I ended up with only my my heels and the back of my head touching in that tank.

And my hands were up and I was in convulsions and pain.

And I reached up and I grabbed one of those nurses.

There were six doctors and nurses standing around working on me.

I grabbed the one closest and I flipped her clear into that tank with me.

And I had her head down in that water.

I was trying to kill her because I thought she was trying to kill me.

My brain couldn't rationalize this pain.

Well, obviously, there was plenty of help there, and they got her out.

Now her white uniform is pink with my diluted blood, and my skin is in her hair.

And I'm in convulsions and so much pain I can't describe it.

And God didn't let me remember it.

I just know my reaction to it.

They said, I think he's had her.

Enough and I said, I think he has to.

They lifted me up on a little hoist and put me over and put me on a gurney, and they're pushing me down to that that ICU.

And I didn't know what that meant until they four months later, they let me stand up for my first time, put a robe on me.

It didn't come together in the back.

It's called the ICU.

On the way to what we called, this is what we called the patient, we called it death row.

Everybody in that room, 13 of us, everybody in that room, we're expected to die.

I'm the only one that made it out.

One guy out of 13 made it.

And that's because God wasn't finished making me what he wanted me to be.

And I still think he's having trouble getting me there, but I'm trying my best.

I gotta tell you what happened.

On the way, that cart, that Gurney had a wobbly wheel, like a shopping cart at Walmart.

And it was disgusting me when you're in pain.

Everything ticks you off.

And it was making me mad.

And in the middle of that, the medic looked at me and said, Now in the morning at 8:30, we're gonna do this again.

Well, he shouldn't have no one have said that.

It made me so mad.

I looked up at him.

I said, Not you or the entire United States Army is big enough to put me back in that tank again.

You will never hurt me like that again.

Well, I sounded bad, didn't it?

He said, Okay, all right, all right, calm down, you'll die.

I said, Well, wait a minute.

I said, Let's negotiate this.

That's the word I use.

I said, if you're gonna do that to me tomorrow, first of all, don't tell me you're gonna do that to me.

Don't tell me when you're gonna do that to me.

And keep it a surprise.

Just do it, but don't tell me because now I'm not gonna sleep all night.

Because I know hell's coming at 8:30 in the morning.

And I was right.

8.30 that next morning.

It comes that rattly cart down that long corridor, and I knew it was gonna hurt.

I'd been awake all night dreading what was coming.

They got there and two on the foot end and two on the head end, and they grabbed the blue sheets.

One, two, three.

You know how they do that, and they get you off of one bed onto the gurney?

Well, the guys on the feet end dropped me.

And I went down between the gurney and my bed, and my little wings were sticking out, and that's all I had holding up the rest of my body from collapsing.

And they hadn't locked that gurney, and it was slowly slipping away, and I'm about to crash, and there's nothing I can do.

Everybody's paralyzed.

Oh my, what's happening?

And a man stepped up, about six foot seven, 350 pounds of solid muscle.

When he moved, cannonballs popped up.

He was black, he was bald, and his name was Rosie.

Honest to God, I lie not, Rosie.

It was tattooed on his arm so he could remember.

He put one hand, one arm, under my neck, and I knew what he was doing.

I stiffened my neck and he reached the other down and picked up the rest of my total weight, like nothing, like a forklift.

And he pulled me against his giant chest.

I looked up in the face of a man I'd never seen in my life.

Took me all the way down the corridor, didn't put me on a gurney.

No, sir.

He lowered me in that water.

They didn't use that heist.

And they splashed the water and they started cutting and hacking, and I go into convulsions, but I look over, and Rosie had backed up, folded his arms, and was standing against the wall.

And the sunrise that morning through the window of that golden, beautiful morning reflected on his beautiful black ebony skin.

And those little streaks of tears now looked like rivers of fire dripping, and his lips were moving.

Rosie was praying for me.

I relaxed and I just slumped in the water.

They thought I died, and they quit hurting me from then on.

I played possum, play dead, they leave you alone.

When they got finished, they said, Rosie, and he came over and reached down in that filthy water and picked up my body, held me.

They dried his arms off.

They took that terry cloth and scrubbed on my body till it would bleed, trying to prepare my flesh to have skin on it.

Because if the blood doesn't surface, you're not going to grow the blood vessels necessary to support your new skin.

And it hurt.

He turned, and on the way back to the place we called death row, as he carried me, this is what he said.

You'll be fine, big man.

You'll see.

You'll be fine.

You'll be fine, big man.

You'll see.

You'll be fine.

The third, fourth, fifth time he said it.

He got me to my bed, lowered me down, pulled those forklifts out, turned and face me, and with his giant paw, he reached up, and somehow a little piece of hair had survived.

And with a mother's touch, he stroked that hair.

And he looked into my eyes, and I looked into his, and I think I saw Jupiter and Mars.

I looked into a universe.

And he said, one more time, you'll be fine, big man.

You'll see.

Then he did something I never let a man do.

He went down and kissed my forehead.

He walked away.

Now, closing this presentation, jump forward 20 years to Oregon Air National Guard.

I'm the speaker for the 4th of July event.

20,000 have gathered.

It's an awesome day.

Give me a crowd like that, and man, I'm in heaven.

I finished my presentation, and everybody's just about gone when a woman stepped up, very lovely lady, classy, dressed in a beautiful business suit, hair, a little salt and pepper, just perfectly groomed, makeup right.

She was just beautiful.

And she said, Are you Dave?

I said, Yes, I am.

I'm the speaker today.

I thought she was at the back.

No big screen TVs there.

She said, I know, but your name's not Dave, it's David.

I said, Yes, ma'am.

She said, but that's your middle name, not your first name.

I said, yes, ma'am.

She said, your first name's Milton.

You're Milton David Reaver.

I said, yes, I am.

Who are you?

She said, I'm the nurse you pulled into the tank.

I said, I'm sorry.

I said, I don't think I've ever apologized.

I'm sorry.

She said, it's all right.

I just didn't recognize you with your clothes on.

And then I remembered Rosie.

I said, madam, do you remember a guy named Rosie?

If I'd had a two-by-four and tapped her on the forehead, she bleeped and staggered back a second like she came out of a trance.

She said, Why, yes, I remember.

I said, Do you know where he is today?

She said, I have no idea.

I said, Do you know where he lives?

She said, I don't know.

I said, Do you remember his real name?

She said, All I remember is Rosie.

I said, When did he come to Brook Army Medical Center?

She said, When you did.

I said, when did he leave?

She said, When you left.

You know what my friends tell me?

Yeah, you guessed it.

He's an angel.

No, angels don't have tattoos.

I'm gonna tell you a little secret, my friend.

Angel or man, I hope he's a man because an angel's on an assignment, but a man is on a mission.

He's a Samuel that said, Here am I.

Send me.

You know what Dallas Fort Worth's looking for?

You know what South Flake's looking for?

They're not looking for a mighty man at war.

They're looking for a Samuel that says, There's hope for tomorrow.

Suicide's not the solution.

Jesus is your answer.

Don't give up.

Hang in there.

Be the word of hope to a dying community.

Church, you're doing it right.

Don't give up.

Don't quit.

Stay on fire.

And I say that loosely.

Because I believe you're not a church for a community.

You're a church for a nation with a pastor of a nation.

Continue to do what you do.

Build and grow and don't get tired and don't weary and well doing.

In sign language, that means I love you.

But my thumb got blown off, so I speak sign language with a lisp.

It means I love you.

I willy willy do.

I'm gonna go back and sign some books today.

I hope you'll stop by and say hi to my wife of 52 years.

Just saying.

Just saying.

I love you.

I'm Dave Reaver and I approved of this message.

Thank you.