Welcome to my world, certainly one that no one could ever have imagined. I was born during the 3rd year of the 2nd World War, and raised in a small philadelphia suburb of mostly Italian, Jewish, and polish ethnic origin. My father, a disabled WWI Veteran, grew up in a quaint little fishing village off the southeast coast of Maine during the post Spanish American War era. My mother was Lelah Blanche Dean, a Junior High School art teacher from Fairmount Indiana, and the boyhood home of the late actor James Dean, who by the way, was a distant cousin. I'm a graduate of Upper Darby High School, Class of 1962, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and English literature from Tarkio College Missouri in 1967. The next three years included a split tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Fort Wainwright Alaska, and a year and a half on the battlefields of South Vietnam, where I experienced the gruesome horror of war, the indiscriminate desecration of human life, and the unconscionable indifferent to those most oppressed! But there was a powerful upside to this otherwise dangerous tour of duty, as I had the once-in-a-lifetime moment in time to witness the emotional pain and agony of orphans at the Saigon Tan Viet Orphanage, and a blessed opportunity to give loving care, clothing, and hope to 75 small children between ages 4-10! As I returned stateside upon my release from Military service, my profession career officially began. For nearly 30 years, it was a wonderful life. It included a 30 year career with the VA, a lifelong marriage made in heaven to the cancer survivor of the ages for 44 years, the proud benefactors from the gift of adoption, and a quarter of a century of strong fellowship with a loving, vibrant Bible Church in Fort Worth Texas. It was an awesome life, that is - until life came crashing down about a decade and a half ago, beginning with medical and financial crises of horrific circumstances, and ending up at the bottom of life inside a Federal prison Camp for 2 years. Yet all of the crises, tragedies, failures, and well-deserved punishment that were endured, as well as the causes, all the good and bad choices, and all that was learned from these experiences, actually became my destiny, an awesome experience of spiritual restoration and healing inside the furnace of God's tough love. It was all an awesome, ironic twist of God's amazing grace that will be shared throughout this journal. It's a journal about change, hope, redemption, and spiritual healing, while illustrating clearly that although we may be are under a vicious and relentless attack on the battlefield of fear, we are never abandoned by a loving God. It is my fervent hope and prayer that this journal will give me the opportunity to give back, and fulfill my dream... "Comfort those in any trouble, with the very comfort we ourselves have received from God" (II Corinthians 1:4)
