TO LIVE...

First there must be life... and you have that.
Then security... Peace Keepers and family furnish that.
Next, challenge...
To meet challenge there must be some kind of strength... mental, emotional, spiritual...
    all are necessary...
Adversity also comes to play...
When adversity comes to play, that necessitates a choice...
With choices come some victories... some defeats... some stalemates...
    Any of these may be large or small...
To those who develop persistence there also comes reward.

July 1946... I awakened vomiting and very ill... my body was stiff...
no motion was possible except at the hips... my head was tilted back as
far as it would go and was fixed there... no motion either forward or
back... no motion right or left... A doctor lived just across the road
and had his office there also. He was summoned and came
immediately... He was stumped.

After examination he went to his office and his reference books. Later
in the morning he returned... he was very perplexed and sad... His
verdict was Polio. I must be sent by ambulance to the hospital sixty
miles away immediately...

There I underwent the most painful experience of my life. While I lay
on the bed in my isolation room I was being held down and immobilized
by a crowd of people in white surrounding my bed... I experienced a
spinal tap... a needle was inserted into my spine from the tail bone
upward and spinal fluid was drawn off for testing and also to relieve
pressure. After that horrible experience I could move my body parts
again but I was too weak to be allowed out of bed. Nurses would move
my bed to the window and open the window so that I could look out. The
room was in the rear of the hospital on the second floor and my
entertainment was to shout to the men below as they worked at the
shipping and receiving dock... they happily shouted back.

I spent two weeks in that room seeing no one but my mother and hospital
staff... all of them in masks and gowns. I was discharged after two
weeks and a relative had to carry me to the car... and after the long
trip home also carry me into the house. It took a while for me to be
able to walk again but I was fortunate... I recovered in time to start
school for a half day in September.

During this experience my father was someplace in the Pacific where he
was being shipped in a task force for battle to finish the war with
Japan. There was no way to contact him until one day in late summer we
saw a khaki clad figure walking the railroad tracks from the station
toward our house. My mother realized that it was my dad and ran to
meet him. After he was home for a short while he asked my mother what
had happened to me... I was not the same child he had left when he went
to be examined and was drafted. That's when he learned about the Polio.

For much of the rest of the childhood years of my life I was taken to a
local clinic in the County Seat where a doctor would come periodically
to treat Polio victims and prescribe treatment. I had been much more
fortunate than many other victims of this dread disease. My only
affectation was one leg shorter than the other. Many had withered
legs, one or both... most of the victims needed one or two braces on
their legs and special shoes... some even had to be kept in Iron Lungs
because they could not breathe on their own. Through the years into my
early teens I had to have built up shoes... first on one side... then
on the other. Eventually the fabulous doctor was able to get my hips
balanced and each leg about the same length as the other. I had a very
close friend in those years who had one leg withered by the disease and
he never regained any normalcy in that leg... his leg was always small
and did not grow well and it was very hard to use unless he wore a
brace on it with a built up shoe.

I watched "WARM SPRINGS" early this morning. That is the story of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and how he worked against the adversity of
crippling Polio to again be able to stand and walk. He discovered warm
water therapy helped him... he built a therapy center for other Polio
victims and through much dreaming and much labor he learned to walk
again on braces with a cane. His legacy to this nation was not only a
long and fruitful political career but warm water therapy for Polio
victims and treatment centers to meet the needs of those who needed to
be ministered to and trained in how to become mobile again. Watching
those discoveries in the movie brought to me one of those moments where
the reality of how fortunate and blessed you are to have arrived at the
present moment in time in the condition you now enjoy strikes with
great impact.

I survived the Polio and totally recovered with no residual ill
effects. I survived near drowning. I survived car wrecks. I survived
a motorcycle crash that killed the pedestrian that ran out in front of
me. I survived several attacks by crazy people who did all they could
to kill me. I survived disturbances and confrontations with VooDoo
priests and believers in Haiti as I served on the mission field there.

I have survived over forty-four years of law enforcement and public
service. I have been injured severely conducting ministry to people as
a representative of the church... but amazingly received only two minor
scratches in all of my years of duty as a Peace Keeper.

I sit here today a well educated man who has had life long adventure as
I sought the way and means to live. My journey began in poverty in a
rural setting. I can remember ideas coming to me that would cause me
to think differently than all those I grew up with. I would respond to
those ideas and things in my life would change for the better... or I
would learn a lesson that would improve me as I put it to use. I can
say that all of the most useful knowledge that is at my disposal came
through challenge and adversity... both conditions often brought on by
other people or by my own actions.

All of the obstacles of my beginning were overcome by learning all I
could about the challenge I faced... learning what was available to me
that would assist me to meet it... and educating myself beyond what
others had made available to me... plus trying new things that I had
never done before... such as learning to roller skate. Skating built
up my legs and lower body to be much more heavy and powerful than my
upper body until I learned as a adult how to improve my upper body also.

Life is ours to live. Security is provided to those of us who have
learned how to live by the ones who kept the peace so that we could
live and thrive. That security we owe to parents or Guardians and
Peace Keepers. They brought us to the point where we could learn and
make choices. We were nurtured until we could nurture ourselves.

When we began to learn how to nurture ourselves challenge came to
bear... things and situations wherein we could apply ourselves and
overcome the challenge. We learned to make choices and judgments. We
learned to test and stretch. We learned that we were not exactly like
anyone else... even as others tried to mold us to be much like others.

Differences sometimes bring adversity. By this point we probably had
begun to establish a dream that we wanted to accomplish... we learned
to look past the challenges and adversities to see the dream that we
had formulated or received. We made choices... sometimes the choices
helped... sometimes the choices brought more adversity... sometimes we
won victories... sometimes we suffered defeat... BUT IF YOU ARE READING
THIS FAR YOU SAW BEYOND THE DEFEATS AND ADVERSITIES AND HELD ON TO THE
DREAM. Persistence became your tool and it also became it's own reward.

While surviving all of the tragedies of my childhood and youth I
learned that if you can dream it you can achieve it. In my childhood I
was allowed to learn and grow but not pushed. Choices and consequences
were the tools used to give me direction. Make good choices and carry
them out... you gain something worthwhile. Make poor choices and try
to carry them out and it will cost far more than it was worth.

Learning the difference between good choices and poor or bad choices is
what I call education.
Learn from the not so good experiences and do not repeat them. Learn
from the experiences that come from good choices and build on them. I
call that prosperity... even if I never get rich in the gold of this
world... and always work on all things in such a way that the results
will impel you toward the dream in your heart. Our history is filled
with people who did that... applying persistence and experience to gain
education to gain prosperity to deliver a service that others needed or
wanted.

The United States of America is built upon such dreams.

Here we stand at the threshold of a new day and a new opportunity.
Peace Keepers are committed to making the society in which we live as
safe as possible. This gives all people the opportunity to live, work
and dream. We all build on what has gone before us that was achieved
by others.

I HAVE SEEN MIRACLES AND BEEN HIGHLY BLESSED...
    ENJOYED PLENTY... SUFFERED LACK...
    KNOWN THE HEIGHTS OF ECSTASY...
    ENDURED THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR...
    LOOKED DEATH IN THE FACE NUMEROUS TIMES...
    EXPERIENCED DEATH COMING FOR ME MANY TIMES...

I HAVE SURVIVED... BECAUSE OF GRACE AND MERCY...
    AND MY WILLINGNESS TO LEARN!!!...
    BEEN THAT WHICH OTHERS DID NOT WANT TO BE...
    GONE WHERE OTHERS FEARED TO GO...
    DONE WHAT OTHERS FEARED TO DO.
    SEEN THE FACE OF TERROR...
    FELT THE STINGING COLD OF FEAR...
    EXPERIENCED MANY PASSIONS...
    ENJOYED THE SWEET TASTE OF MOMENTS OF LOVE...
    OBSERVED UP CLOSE THE END OF LIVES..
    BEEN AWED BY THE SAVING OF LIFE...
    WEPT... PAINED... HOPED... AND LIVED TIMES OTHERS
        WOULD SAY WERE BEST FORGOTTEN...
    AND ONCE... BEEN DEATH'S INSTRUMENT!..

All of this has been my experience as I have sought TO LIVE...
    to overcome... to pursue the fullness of life... to experience the
liberty to dream and     choose... to enjoy happiness that is the
result of fulfilling the life we began with and     built upon...
This is the legacy we received from those who came before us...
This is the legacy that we can leave for those who come after us.

The American Dream is achieved by each one taking hold of that part
of the Dream that falls to us and doing the best we can with it. In
Peace Keeping we are all members one of another. No one of us can
achieve the American Dream alone. The Dream is achieved as we work
together toward the common goals of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of
Happiness. Even the stealthy Ranger or Commando has built upon what
has been learned by and from others. We may do a mission alone but we
achieve the victory by building upon what others have passed down to
us. No one of us is an island unto ourselves.

The good and the glory of this nation is paid for and built upon the
sacrifice of those who took a stand for it's good... it's survival...
and it's prosperity. The concept of a mighty nation is built only upon
the achievements of the many individuals and groups who also took hold
of the Dream and worked for it's fulfillment.

Challenge and adversity are meant to be growth tools. Defeat can be
used as a growth tool also. Wherever you begin your day of duty...
whether from a trench, foxhole or a home... begin it with a prayer for
guidance and direction (like in your oath of office, "... SO HELP ME
GOD!") AND GO INTO IT WITH THE ASSURANCE THAT IF YOU PUT IN YOUR BEST,
YOU WILL GET THE BEST RESULTS THAT CAN BE GOTTEN.

For all that is available to us I thank our ancestors, our predecessors
and our comtemporaries and my Commander-in-Chief. They gave it to
us... Now we may take advantage of it.

My Commander-in-Chief and I do so very deeply appreciate your service.
In this moment and eternally I thank you.

"BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!" Be alert, watchful, suspicious and wary. Take
the very best possible care of you as you do the duty of caring for
others. See to the well being of your spiritual person as well as all
other facets.

Call or write if I may be of any service.

As it has always been... so it still is...

"VICTORIOUS WARRIORS WIN FIRST...
AND THEN GO TO WAR,
WHILE DEFEATED WARRIORS GO TO WAR FIRST...
AND THEN SEEK TO WIN." Sun tzu

ONLY LIVE PEACE KEEPERS SEE THE VICTORY!!!
THEY SEE IT ONLY BECAUSE OTHERS HAVE MADE THEIR ETERNAL
PAYMENTS OF SWEAT, BLOOD, TEARS AND LIFE FOR THAT VICTORY!

WITH THE DEEPEST OF APPRECIATION AND RESPECT...
BE BLESSED (A CONDITION TO BE ENVIED)...
BE SUCCESSFUL... BE SAFE...
[My injunction to be safe means doing all you know to do as you do your job... it means
doing the best you can with what you have where you are using all your faculties to get
the job done well and with good results conquering evil and keeping or restoring peace...
it does not mean to avoid duty and honor... it does not mean to cower or allow anything
to hinder you in the process of duty according to rules, law and ethics... it means that if
the demand takes your earthly life you destroy as much evil as possible in the process.
That is my definition of being safe... doing the best you can and leaving the rest to God
or whomever else is responsible... being best employed for the sake and protection of all
the things and people that we hold dear.]

I represent, write for... and give the credit to:
God the Father (my Commander-in-Chief),
Jesus Christ the Son (the Eternal Captain of my life) and
the Holy Spirit of God (my Eternal Teacher, Keeper and Guide).
In Christ I live... with Him and for you I serve...
D. R. (Don) Staton, Chaplain to Peace Keepers,
VIRGINIA STATE POLICE ALUMNI,
RETIRED Police Officer, Certified Police Instructor,
757-431-2190, chpln1@verizon.net
3709 Beacon Lane, Virginia Beach, VA 23452
=================================================
Copyright: CHAPLAIN CORNER (DRS) 2006. All rights reserved.
May not be duplicated without permission, except to be forwarded
with copyright and all source information for any quotation intact.

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