Chapter One
Wake-Up Call
HOW MANY TIMES can a man hear a wake-up call without
waking up? Some men, I suppose, never do. This
man almost didn't.
I've had two major wake-up calls at two crossroads
in my life. Neither was much like the gentle ring of an
alarm clock. Both were more akin to the crack of a two-by-four
across the back of my skull.
The first call came in the heat and terror of
Vietnam. I was the Group Intelligence Officer, serving
the Fifth Special Forces Group. My responsibilities
included briefing "the old man," Colonel "Iron Mike"
Healy, on the enemy situation around our A-Team
camps from the Delta in the south to the DMZ in the
north. Very few young captains had access to the entire
country as I did. Very few could grab aircraft when
needed. It was heady stuff for a twenty-five-year-old
from Yakima, Washington.
My wake-up call came one spring, on a hillside. We
were at Dak Pek, at the northern end of the Dak Poko
Valley in the central highlands. My face was pushed into
the muddy banks of a small trench at the perimeter of a
Special Forces A-Camp.
Something was out there. Something big. And we
knew it. All the indicators were there. We'd been picking
them up for days-consistent "hostile" contact with our
patrols, increased radio traffic (only "big boys" had such
radios in the North Vietnamese Army), and a real
upsurge in other tactical intelligence in the area. Even the
informant "agent nets" began to pick up abnormal numbers
of clues.
They were out there all right. And we were their target.
Overrunning a Special Forces A-Camp was a prime
trophy for any NVA big shot.
In some ways the waiting was almost as bad as being
under attack. Just knowing that several companies of
crack North Vietnamese regulars were out there on the
perimeter-waiting for the right moment to come
screaming out of the forest-turned life into a waking
nightmare. There in that muddy ditch-reeling from the
fears and threats of imminent combat-it finally caught
up to me. I finally heard the wake-up call. In that
moment, I faced up to the very real possibility that I
would never go home. That I might not beat the odds.
My life might indeed end in that faraway place. It might
not be "someone else" leaving that valley in a body bag,
flying home in a silver flag-draped coffin.
I could actually die. Within hours. Possibly even
minutes. As I grappled with those thoughts, a question
burned its way to the surface of my mind. After smoldering
in my soul for months, the question now burst
into hot flame.
What matters? What really matters?
If a young captain by the name of Stuart K. Weber
died in the Dak Poko Valley, what would he have accomplished
during his quarter century on earth? What was
life all about, anyway?
Called back to Nha Trang, I caught a helicopter out
of Dak Pek, missing the worst of the battle. Our little
camp was virtually blasted from the face of the planet.
Eventually the siege lifted, and the NVA crawled away to
lick their wounds. Our guys loaded up the wounded, collected
the dead, and began to build the camp all over
again. Somehow, for some reason, I'd been handed yet
one more chance to wake up and open my eyes.
And this time I did. I began rethinking my life.
Again I went back to duty. But I was never the same. The
spiritual roots of my childhood, long abandoned during
the social and intellectual turmoil of the sixties, began to
take hold in my heart. The faith of my father and grandfather
sent pilings deep into my soul. I realized that Jesus
Christ was exactly who He said He was. He became very
real to me, and life changed from that day.
A SECOND WAKE-UP CALL
If you're a married man, you'll understand my second
life-changing wake-up call. If you're still single, take my
word for it: This was a moment every bit as intense as
that first wake-up call in the muddy trench at Dak Pek.
This one didn't come out of the sky like a mortar shell,
but it did come "out of the blue." Actually, it flashed out
of Linda's eyes. For the first time in our fifteen years of
marriage, I saw anger there. Deep, hot anger. It wasn't like
Linda, and that made it unmistakable.
It was absolutely clear-there would be changes in
our relationship, or our relationship would change.
Things were never going to be the same.
I began to realize some things. It seems I had been
taking our relationship for granted. Looking back, I
realized I'd been treating her more like a trophy (conquered
and on the shelf) than a companion. More like a contractual
partner than a friend with whom to share my
insides. The signals had been there, but . I hadn't seen
them. Typical guy.
How had we come to such a morass? Why did marriage
in those early days shape up more like combat than
companionship? Over time I came to find out it had to
do with manliness-or the lack of it. Finally understanding
how the living God put me together as a man has
helped us grow as a couple.
And-whether you are married or not-manliness is
what this little book is all about. Real, God-made,
down-in-the-bedrock masculinity is something men in our culture
struggle to understand. Tough? Tender? Strong?
Sensitive? Fierce? Friendly? Which is it? We're frustrated.
Often confused. Sometimes irritable. But determined.
Determined to discover our manhood and live it to the
hilt.
Maybe you've already experienced a couple of wake-up
calls in the course of your life. Listening to the whistle
of incoming mortar shells or looking into the furious
eyes of the only woman you've ever loved can certainly
open a fellow's eyes.
Chances are, you won't need the kind of alarm bells
it took to pry me out of slumber. As a matter of fact, our
gracious God might even choose to use a little book like
this to accomplish something very big in your life, without
all that trauma.
So let's just consider this your first wake-up call
Take It to Heart:
Along the way, every one of us will find ourselves
in situations that shake us to the core-and
cause us to think about the critical issues of
life. But why wait until circumstances crush us? Now is the time to wake up and seek God's help, wisdom, and direction.
