Dave Roever

I'm a resiliency coach in the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program.

And my job is to be sent to hell holes throughout this planet, wherever our military is, in places I can't even discuss.

And they're finding our troops trying to stop the hemorrhaging of one a day taking their life.

One a day, every day.

One a day.

Among veterans, it's 22 every day commit suicide.

And that's only in 26 reporting states that does not include Texas or California.

It's stunning.

My job is endless, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

I was made for this.

I was made for it.

And pardon me if I get a little emotional.

It's your carpet, I'm allergic to it.

Makes my eyes water.

I just want to tell you, we can make a difference, you and me.

We can change this world.

And believe me, it is a religious war.

Make no mistake.

And Jesus is the overcomer.

Let's give the Lord a clap offering in his house today.

Oh my goodness.

What a morning.

May I be seated while I speak occasionally, if you don't mind.

The rule is when I sit down, you stand up.

When I stand up, you No, I'm kidding.

But I I've had surgery last year and uh I still have some back cramps, but I broke my back and I broke six vertebrae and they put in 12 screws and two rods, and I but I lost the use of my left leg.

Now it's got a steel bar and a foot panel place that holds my foot up and an artificial knee, and then as I said, the back, and then I've got this steel rope that holds my chest cage together, my rib cage, and then it goes up to a steel bar that holds my ear on and a hair piece.

When I die, they're gonna open Ace Hardware at the cemetery.

It was all bought with your tax money, thank you.

But I really, I gotta tell you, I've been through a lot of physical things in my life.

Uh, the hand grenade explosion in Vietnam that took half of my skin and blew my hair off, my face off, my ear off, my fingers, my thumb rather, and these fingers and all came off, but then got them back on, they don't work, but God left my preaching finger, repent! See, isn't that great?

And a mic stand.

Kids walk up and they say, What happened to your face?

I said, Well, I was burned bobbing for French fries.

You ought to see their face.

One of them said, Whoa.

Did you get one?

Little snot.

But men are the funniest.

They'll come up.

Men, you don't get your fair due.

People think men are rude.

They're not.

They never just ask what happened to your face.

They start a conversation.

Looks like you got hurt there, fella.

What happened to your face?

And I'm looking at a guy ugly than me and saying, What happened to your mother?

You know you're ugly when you're born and the doctor slaps her.

I just thought I'd share that way in.

Why not laugh about it?

Because I'm going to tell you something.

On July the 26th, and I hate to say the year with young people in the house, 1969, yes, right after the war of 1812, the devil lowered the boom and took his best shot on me.

He lit the fuse and fired and he hit me.

I'm not going to deny he was a pretty good shot.

Knocked me halfway into eternity.

But I'm still here because no weapon formed against me can prosper.

And greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world.

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

Let's give it up for Jesus.

I told you.

It's not about me, it's about him.

Thank you, Jesus.

And when we understand that we can do nothing in and of ourselves, Jesus Himself said, I can do nothing of myself but by my Father which is in heaven.

It is through Christ we're more than conquerors.

And if I took Jesus out, I would rob not only you, but I would rob him.

And of him, I would rob his glory.

To God be the glory.

I grew up in church, so I've always had this tendency to understand the role of faith in my life.

My mother was invalid.

I was born to a woman that couldn't even take care of me.

I had a Mexican nanny.

I didn't speak English until I was six years old.

Had learned English to go to school.

That's when they told me I wasn't a Mexican.

I cried for weeks because every friend I had was Mexican.

I grew up partly in Mexico.

My dad did missions work there.

So my life had a pretty good start, but I was a little confused.

Then I went to Vietnam, had to learn Vietnamese, and they got mixed up with Spanish, and they thought I was Pentecostal.

But God had a plan for my life, and there wasn't a devil in or out of hell big enough to pluck me out of the hand of God.

And that's us.

That's not me, that's us.

We are in the hand of God.

And stay there, don't jump.

Don't bail out on Jesus.

Hang in there because some of you are going through the trial of your life, and I'm here today to tell you look at me.

I'm not ashamed to be an example for Christ.

Look at me.

If I can make it, you can make it.

My face was blown.

I got my hair back.

I bought it.

There's a guy in China that's bald.

I got his ear.

I don't mind it.

I just don't like chasing it across church parking lots on windy Sundays.

I've done that before.

Dog brought it back.

Sneaking mutt brought it to me.

How do you know I needed it?

Anyway, my ears are artificial.

I don't mind it either.

It fell off when I was preaching one night.

That was embarrassing.

I was in Jamaica and everybody, and they're pointing at me, and I'm checking my fly because something's wrong.

I didn't know what was wrong.

I look around, my ears laying on my shoulder.

I picked it up by the sweat and stuck it back on.

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

But I couldn't tell them, no, no, it's not a miracle.

It's a phony ear.

They would have said, Well, you're a phony preacher, and they would have stoned me.

And Pastor Robert didn't want me telling you I went to Jamaica and got stoned.

Everybody goes down there and gets stoned.

Isn't it fun to laugh a little?

It's fun to laugh.

You know, the Bible tells us that a merry heart does good like a medicine, and some of you need to laugh more and gripe less.

No offense to anyone, please.

I don't know you.

But let's just learn to laugh more and be a representative of the joy of the Lord.

Give it up for Jesus again today.

It's about Jesus.

The joy of the Lord.

It's my strength.

That's what keeps me going.

And so on July the 26th, 1969, something happened that I promised would not happen when I kissed my little junior high school sweetheart goodbye.

I met her when I was 16.

I asked her to marry me and she slapped me.

She said, I'm only 13 years old.

I said, But you have the body of a 14-year-old.

She slapped me again.

I used the word body and that was TMI.

Too much information.

She said, but if you love me, you'll wait for me.

So I waited for her.

She graduated and we got married.

I went to Bible college preparing for the ministry.

You learn to say it like that in Bible college.

Ministry.

But I was working over here at General Dynamics, had a great job, and I made a lot of money.

I really did.

I paid my school bill off in 30 days.

And the next thing I know, I've got a little draft notice in the mailbox because my grades had dropped when my check went up, my grades went down.

And they told me to go take a fiscal.

And I wrote back, thank them for their inquiry into my health.

But I felt fine.

They insisted I took my fiscal, and I did, which was the only exam I passed that semester.

And they told me I was gonna be inducted in the Army.

But no, I'm smarter than the I'm smarter than the program I joined the Navy so I wouldn't get hurt serving.

You ever get up one morning and have a bad year?

That morning I went down and took my physical.

They told me I was gonna serve, and so I joined the Navy, and having already taken my physical, I went right in.

And they told me, they said, You're the only one in the whole group went to college.

I said, Well, that's great.

I hate to tell you that my grades were below sea level.

You know, him being in the Navy and all, you'd think you'd catch that.

Oh, it was over his head.

He was kind of short though.

And I graduated boot camp and they sent me to a place called NAB, Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, California, and I was trained by Navy SEALs, actually SEAL team one, meanest people ever met in my life.

They eat rocks.

They eat their young, they eat other people's young, they don't care.

Oh, I'd never been around.

All we did was run, and fat bit fat boys shouldn't run.

It's like I was still jiggling 15 minutes after we were through running, and but I lost all the weight, and they told me I was gonna go to Vietnam.

And I kissed that little girl goodbye, and I said, I'll be back without a scar.

Why'd I say that?

Why didn't I just say, I'll be back, or I'll be Bach, and then I could be governor of California.

If you don't get that, don't worry, it wasn't spiritual anyway.

But I told her I'd be back, and in my heart of hearts I knew better because I was serving with one that had at that time the highest KIA killed in action per capita during the entire war.

I didn't know if I'd ever see her again.

And saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing I ever did to myself emotionally, and I still remember the salt taste of her tears on my lips when I kissed her by.

And I ended up in a war I didn't start and one I couldn't end.

But it was almost the end of me.

And on July 26th, as I said, I picked up a white phosphorus hand grenade and I pulled the pen and I drew back to throw, and I was one second from delivery of an instrument of death, and it almost got me.

I thought I was hit by a B-40 anti-tank rocket for all the vets out there that they understand rocket propel grenades.

They're accurate and they're deadly.

And that's what I thought got me.

I didn't know till months later in the hospital of forensic determination was I was hit by a sniper.

The bullet went through the back of my hand, hit the grenade right beside my face, and in one second, my life changed.

When you look down and find your face on your boots and you can see your heart beating, your life will change.

I was pumping blood out of an open artery with fingers dangling.

Helicopter landed to pick me up, and they rolled me on the stretcher, and I caught the stretcher on fire.

When they picked it up, started running, I fell through.

It was one of those days and nothing went right.

Rolled up blankets in another stretcher in the helicopter.

Away we went.

We made several stops, but one was on the way to America.

They stopped in Japan, not in the helicopter.

I was by then put on a big C-141 hospital ship or aircraft.

And in Japan, I did something very bad.

I asked for a mirror, and they did something very bad.

They brought it and they held it over my face, and I looked up, and with my good eye, I could still see I knew.

I knew she wasn't gonna love me anymore.

How do you love a freak?

How do you love a monster?

How do you love something with one eye looking at you and half a head of skull?

Actually, I can cover everything that was second-degree burn that grew back with my left hand.

Everything else was blown off.

And from my waist up, it's mutilated.

I could show you, but then I had to kill you.

Yeah, that grenade blew, it did its damage.

No one's supposed to live through that.

But God had a plan for my life.

When I said I was made for this, I looked at this man when I said it, he got it.

He understood.

And I think all of you did.

God didn't do this to me.

God didn't shoot me that day, he didn't set me on fire, he didn't take half my skin away from me.

God doesn't do evil.

But I didn't know why he didn't stop that little 7.62 bullet.

If he can put a moon in space, why couldn't he stop just a little bullet?

Couldn't he?

Well, of course he could, but he had no obligation to.

He didn't start the war.

God didn't do evil.

We do to each other what God never thought of, and we teach the devil most of what he knows.

It's the heart of man that's deceitfully wicked above all things who can know it.

And that day in Japan was the worst day that I'd ever had.

Not today in Vietnam.

I don't know how to say it, but whenever you lose hope, that's 10,000 times worse than losing your face or your fingers or your skin or your hair or your ears.

It doesn't matter.

When you lose hope, it's all over.

And I did something very bad.

And I'm wondering if there's a child here, mom, please, dad, please explain to that little darling girl sitting there, please make sure she understands.

It was wrong.

But I did have a terrible influence of drugs.

I've never done a drug in my life.

I could hallucinate on a half dosage of a St.

Joseph's aspirin for children.

And they're giving me the hardest known drug in the world to try to knock the pain back.

And I did something bad.

I tried to kill myself.

And I had no gun.

I had no knife.

How do you kill yourself?

I pulled the tube out and I laid my head back.

I even folded my hands and I waited to die.

I got hungry.

It was the wrong tube.

I pulled out lunch.

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

And if you smell a pizza, you're singing, plug it in, plug it in.

You don't want to die.

And listen to me, in a crowd like this, or even much smaller crowds I've always known.

It doesn't take divine revelation, it's a percentage.

There are many of you in this house who on a daily basis have thoughts of suicide.

Look at me.

I had a grandbaby on my lap not long ago singing, Papa, you are so beautiful.

She never knew me any other way.

But she thinks I'm beautiful.

I'm glad I lived.

I'm glad I'm here.

I'm glad I'm able to tell you.

Don't take your life.

God gave it to you.

Let Him bless it.

Give tomorrow a chance.

Do you agree?

Give tomorrow a chance.

Give God a chance.

And so I lived through it.

They sent me to America.

I was at Brook Army Medical Center for a year and two months.

30% was considered fatal, 30% third degree.

I was way over that.

So they put me in a room with everybody else, way over percentages of life.

And we called it death row.

There were 13 of us in the ICU, and I didn't know what an ICU was until I got there, and they put this little robe on you.

It doesn't come together in the back.

It's the ICU.

That's pretty bad, isn't it?

I saw me too.

It's embarrassing.

But out of 13, I'm the one that made it.

No one else made it.

And it was such a challenge every moment, every breath was a challenge.

It's like my heartbeat because I told it to.

But I didn't want to die.

I wasn't fearful of death.

I just didn't know how I'd live without Brenda.

And the moment of truth would come when they took me to Brooke and they let visitors come in, and a woman came to see the guy in the bed next to mine, and he was 100% third degree.

No hope, no chance, no survivors in history.

No one's ever survived 100% third degree.

She walked in, took off her wedding ring and threw it on the bed and said, You're embarrassing, I couldn't walk down the street with you, and walked out.

And I said, Oh God, there it is.

That's what's gonna happen.

I'm finished.

I'm finished.

The next woman was 19 years old, my wife.

And she stepped up to my bed.

She said, Is the doc outside him?

And he said, Yes, it is.

And when she saw my name on my wrist, she said, Well, I guess it is him.

And the moment of truth was at hand.

She loves me.

She loves me not.

She loves me.

She loves me not.

She took a long look into my good eyes.

And somewhere in there she saw me.

She said, I just want you to know I love you.

Welcome home, Davey.

And when she says, Davey, I said, Doc, I'm getting better.

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

She said, Dave, you never were good looking.

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall tick thee off.

I was there until the day they released me a year and two months later, and I walked out with suitcase in one hand, sweetheart in the other, and they allowed me to travel around the world sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That out of a tragedy comes a triumph.

I did really well, right up to 9-11.

And that day, up from the grave arose an attitude that I thought was long since dead and gone.

On 9-11 to 2001, I was ready to kill anybody that would even think of trying to take our country down.

3,000 were murdered in a matter of minutes.

And I wanted to fight.

I wanted to defend.

I wanted my country to have never had that day.

But you can't unring the bell.

And this day it was the death toll.

I tried to join and they rejected me.

But two weeks later I got a call from the Department of Defense, and they said, We want you to go.

But we're going to send you as a resiliency coach, and I've described that.

My job is to stop this hemorrhaging of suicide.

It's to encourage our troops wherever I go.

And I want to tell this church something you may not know, and especially if you would not know, but this church supports this man.

And they send me, you send me.

You are a financial help to send me all over the world to take those who've been hurt and serving our country for freedom's sake, have given so much of their life.

You, ladies and gentlemen, are my partner.

You have sent me around the world to our troops.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I just want to encourage you to keep those cards and letters coming in because we're going to make a difference together.

I want to hasten to my conclusion.

It was in one of my tours to this country, not overseas, that I went to the National Mortuary in the United States, it's over on the East Coast.

Dover, Delaware is not only the location of NSA, which I speak for, or for Fort Eustace and Fort Me, the national intelligence community of all the military branches.

But it's also the headquarters for the Mortuary Affairs, where all of our magnificent heroes who lay their life down for us, their remains are sent there.

And the colonel said to me, Would you like to go through and see it?

All I agreed.

And he took me to the autopsy room, but I wouldn't go in that room.

I said, That's like the Holy of Holies, I don't belong there.

I said, but is this not the worst duty you've ever been assigned?

Then he told me of the most difficult duty.

And we went there to the flight line where the big C5A or the 130 comes, C-130 comes in, and the most precious cargo is strapped to the floor.

We would call it a coffin, they call it a transfer case.

In what's known as the angel flight, bringing home those that have given their life.

I said, What happens?

He says, Sometimes, Mr.

Reaver, when that casket comes off of that aircraft, mama can't take it anymore.

She jumps the rope.

And the truck that takes that casket to that autopsy room goes down the street.

She takes off running after it, chasing the truck.

I said, You're kidding, sir.

Please tell me.

He said, No.

I said, What do you do?

He said, I have to catch her.

I said, What do you do when you catch her?

He said, I hold her.

I said, But Colonel, what do you say to her?

And he said to me, That's the most difficult assignment I've been given in 30 years of service to my country.

Because there's nothing I can say to bring her baby back.

Have you ever chased a truck?

I have.

I'm in hot pursuit today.

Abraham Lincoln said to his miss to a Mrs.

Bixby who lost five of her sons in the Civil War.

The solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Freedom is not free.

Remember that on our Independence Day.

My name is Dave Reaver, and I approved to this message.

Just a quick word of prayer, heads bowed, Jesus.

You're in this house.

We know that.

For those who need one more chance at life, who have considered taking theirs, give them hope.

Not tomorrow only, but let it start today.

And those who don't know you, may this day be the beginning of their new walk with you.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.