Beautifully Broken Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Paige Wetzel and Joshua Wetzel

  Jacket design by Jody Waldrup. Photography by Dean Dixon Photography.

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941672

  ISBNs: 978-1-5460-3452-0 (hardcover), 978-1-5460-3450-6 (e-book)

  E3-20200922-JV-NF-ORI

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Foreword

  Part One: The Beginning and the End 1. The Voice Mail or the Doorbell

  2. Throwing Out the Rulebook

  3. Seeing Hope

  4. Deployment Point of View

  5. Incoming

  Part Two: Where No One Wants to Be 6. Vantage Point

  7. Paths Not Taken

  8. The Prayer and the Nightmares

  9. Under the Surface

  10. Hurry Up and Wait

  Part Three: Redemption 11. The Second First Time

  12. Outpatient

  13. A Thought

  14. When the Shoe Is on the Other Foot

  15. Stepping into the Future

  Part Four: Happily Out of Control 16. A Test

  17. Relieving Pressure

  18. Welcome Home

  19. Renewal

  20. Eternal Mission

  Photos

  Authors’ Note: No Endings

  Acknowledgments

  Endnotes

  About the Authors

  Praise for Beautifully Broken

  To Harper and Payton—so that no question about your father’s sacrifice or service would go unanswered.

  Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

  —Philippians 1:14

  FOREWORD

  Joshua 1:9 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” To be strong is to push through even when you feel like you have no strength. To be courageous is to face danger even in doubt. To not have fear is to remember everything you’ve already survived. To not be discouraged is a daily choice made with no excuses because God goes with you wherever you go. I chose this verse to start off my own story when I wrote Tough As They Come, and I am proud to have a friendship with two people who have become champions of the same.

  As a fellow wounded veteran, my motto has always been “never give up, never quit.” Before that motto ever became a slogan, I did my best to surround myself with people that would not quit, even on their worst day. Josh and Paige Wetzel are those people. Sgt. Josh Wetzel and I are proud members of the “Walter Reed Class of 2012.” You might be wondering what that means. Well, you would have to know that we were both deployed with different Army units to Afghanistan in 2012 and that Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is a hospital for veterans that become amputees. Josh and I were injured within fifty days of each other in the spring of 2012 and, unbeknownst to us, a lifelong friendship would begin in the halls, clinics, therapy sessions, and surgery bays of Walter Reed.

  Within the first few hours of a life-threatening injury, a soldier can pretty much only think about his family, his guys, and his future. You wonder if you’ll ever walk again, how you’re going to live with this amount of pain, and whether you’ll be able to provide for your family. What no one realizes is that good friends are just as critical to the mission as good healthcare. Walter Reed would surprisingly become the birthplace of some of the best friendships I’ve ever had. My wife, Kelsey, and I met the Wetzels in the midst of our two-year recovery process, and eight years later, they are still part of our crew. Josh and Paige immediately meshed with Kelsey and me, though at the time we weren’t really sure why. Our first conversations were back-and-forth rants over Big 10 versus SEC football, or me explaining to Josh the million reasons why the 82nd Airborne Division is better than 2nd Infantry Division. Talking trash and running our mouths became the norm, and before long we were checking on each other and pushing each other in recovery. Finding friends in an environment like this is unusual and unexpected. Your own problems seem to be all you can handle, yet we ended up watching out for each other. No two veterans suffer the exact same injuries, yet it seemed like we could all relate to each other in different ways. In getting to know each other, we unintentionally begin a brotherhood with people who share a desire to keep living. Beautifully Broken is not only a great story about two of my toughest friends, but it’s also an amazing depiction of the village it takes to make a person successful.

  Like the Wetzels, my family and I would be nothing without the ones that guided our healing, cheered us on, and helped us up when we fell (literally). Josh and Paige do a great job of emphasizing the importance of the community that would not let us quit. There is truly nothing like the feeling of being around people that understand what you’re going through. We grew as people, husbands, and fathers by watching each other try new things. As Josh and Paige share their growth in this book, you’ll see their community grow as well, and this community far exceeds the military and amputees. This is another point of agreement in our friendship: Human struggles sh
ould not be compared; they should be used to encourage others. This is not a story about a guy who thinks he fought harder than anyone else or a wife who knew exactly what to do. Instead, you’ll find a story of great humility and willingness to follow God, no matter how difficult the path seems.

  If you get nothing else from this story, I hope you learn that every testimony starts with a test. We live in a world that tells us if something is hard, confusing, or just not what we thought it would be, we should just give up. The men and women that fight for this country live in a different culture. We expect leadership and victory to be hard; therefore, we embrace anything that can prepare us for it. That’s what you’ll find here—two people embracing the preparation that only a difficult time can provide. Because Josh and Paige adopted this mindset, their story will continue. This book isn’t just a recount of war stories; it is a guide to how we can turn our struggles into good. When we choose to turn struggle into good, our hardships can still serve the world, even years later. Josh and Paige don’t tell their story to glorify how tough they are but to help readers realize their own toughness. Their faith is practical, and so is their love for other people. Because of that, their story continues to teach, encourage, and inspire.

  Josh and Paige are more than people that were with me during a hard time. They love my children, they pray for my family, and they have cheered me on every step of the way. I am proud to call them my friends, and I am excited for you, as the reader, to have your faith lifted by the story of two people who believed that there was purpose behind the worst day of their lives.

  —SSG Travis Mills, US Army (Ret.)

  82nd Airborne Division

  Purple Heart

  Bronze Star

  PART ONE

  THE BEGINNING AND THE END

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE VOICE MAIL OR THE DOORBELL

  The LORD knows all human plans; he knows that they are futile.

  —Psalm 94:11

  PAIGE

  On May 31, 2012, I was in my Tacoma, Washington, apartment getting ready for work around 6:30 a.m. Suddenly, I got a phone call from a number I did not recognize. Immediately my heart sank. Since we had moved to a new place, I got calls from random numbers all the time, but not at 6:30 a.m. If it’s something important, they will leave a voice mail. [Voice mail chimes.] Sh*t.

  Mrs. Wetzel this is Sgt. 1st Class with the Department of the Army. Please return my call. It’s regarding your husband.

  I was sitting on the floor before the message was done playing. Sliding down the wall, I thought only two things:

  Well, this is it.

  At least there isn’t an officer ringing the doorbell.

  I called the number back and identified myself. My voice was slow and uncertain. I was hoping that stating my name would make them say, “Oh, Mrs. Wetzel, we are so sorry, we have made a mistake.” It did not. I think the officer sensed my wishful thinking because his voice sharpened and he said, “Mrs. Wetzel, I need you to listen very carefully. This concerns your husband.” But I couldn’t listen carefully enough, I could only picture his body as his injuries were being listed: “… resulting in the loss of both the left and right legs… both right and left arms are broken… a traumatic brain injury… a break in his C-4 vertebrae…” He began reading the logistics of what would happen next. I didn’t cry, but I felt the mouthwatering, neck-tingling sensation of vomiting. I stared at the wall of my bathroom and told myself to inhale before I passed out. Just as his voice resurfaced in my cognition, he asked, “Do you have any questions?”

  “Are you going to tell his parents, or do I have to?”

  My mind was reeling, but somehow, I found myself thinking about our wedding, when I thought my life was full of cruel irony. Two weeks before our wedding, my fiancé was proudly showing off his battle scars on his face. All I could think about were the pictures. What good was an expensive tuxedo and hiring a photographer when the groom had a two-inch gash on the bridge of his nose next to an accompanying black eye?

  We were breaking the bank for the wedding. I nearly lost my mind trying to get it all planned, and there was my fiancé, Josh, not only showing me his battle scar, but showing it off. He couldn’t help but grin when he shared how he made it to the final rounds of hand-to-hand combat and got his nose busted by a guy twenty pounds above his weight class. Why would an Army guy need to know hand-to-hand combat techniques anyway? Seems a little outdated for twenty-first-century warfare, in my civilian opinion. And I knew Josh wouldn’t have stood a chance anyway. He still hadn’t gained all of his weight back from passing the Army Special Forces Selection a few weeks earlier. Prior to joining an infantry unit, Josh was an 18X-ray, which is a prospective Green Beret. However, he would have to pass the eighteen-month Special Forces Qualification Course to actually get the green beret. In order to begin the qualification course, Josh had to survive Special Forces Selection, also known as “nineteen days in hell,” meant to weed people out. There was another reason I questioned the whole nice tuxedo schtick for our wedding: the nineteen days made him almost unrecognizable. His eyes and cheekbones protruded; his skin was pale from nineteen days of MREs, which stands for “meals ready to eat”—prepackaged meals that only needed water added to be ready for consumption—and getting little to no sleep. But the same stupid grin slid across his face whenever he talked about going through Special Forces Selection. As if the coolness of passing and then getting beat up trumped any and all consequences I could give him. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and pray about it, because God knows a soon-to-be spouse of a lowly Army specialist has zero control over her future.

  I found a little comfort in controlling what I could with our wedding ceremony, even though the Army dictated most of that, too. The date was set for December 29, 2010—a Wednesday. Yes, the Army chose a Wednesday for our ceremony. We were having a Christmas leave wedding, and it was taking place in my hometown of Fort Payne, Alabama. This seemed par for the course in the military world. Anything an active-duty service member wanted to do outside of job requirements must be done during a planned military holiday while the soldier is stateside. If a soldier needs to travel outside of a 250-mile radius of the base, he must obtain permission for “leave.” Hence, the all-too-common “Christmas leave wedding” used to safeguard the preparation, ceremony, and honeymoon of thousands of military couples each year. If a military holiday is not readily available, such personal events will have to fit into a weekend, after work, or even during a lunch break. In fact, even before our own wedding, I had served as witness and photographer for three different lunch break marriages at the county courthouse while visiting Josh in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was stationed. Josh would call me from the base and ask if I could meet one of his buddies and his girlfriend at the courthouse around noon. I signed my name on the witness line, threw rose petals, and took pictures after meeting the couple in the lobby only five minutes before the ceremony. That’s military life for you—you do what you can with the amount of time allowed. God, country, then family.

  My Wednesday night wedding at least took place in a church with a bridal party and reception to follow. The event was beautiful, and we had over two hundred people show up to a ceremony between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. So much of it was not ideal: I chose my dress because it was the only one I could afford that semi-fit without any alterations, we didn’t have hair or makeup done for the bridal party, and I was blessed to get two reception cakes and a venue for free. We left our reception at 8:00 p.m. to start our four-hour drive to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where we would honeymoon for two whole days. We stayed in a one-bedroom chalet with wood paneling, deer heads on every wall, and a hot tub in the middle of the living room. However, I remembered the alternative and was so thankful to not be getting married at the Cumberland County Courthouse.

  Not exactly what I had dreamed of when he popped the question six months prior to saying “I do.” Nonetheless, my legal union with Josh would finally complete the tri
o: the United States Army, Army Specialist Josh Wetzel, and hayseed civilian Paige (Beasley) Wetzel.

  Eighteen months later, I was sitting against a wall in a buzzing silence 2,500 miles away from home. I needed to call my mother-in-law. We had to make a plan of how we were going to get to Josh. We were the only people in the whole family that lived on the West Coast, and some part of my subconscious told me to connect with her first, then travel east together. The lump in my throat grew larger. How I wished I was calling to tell her that her son, once again, had placed a bet too big and the Christmas photos would include a broken nose. What I wouldn’t give for an injury from a petty fight.

  Thank God my mother-in-law is a nurse. As the officer began to read the same lines to her, she had interrupted and said, “I’m going to need you to slow down so I can get something to write with.”

  Her own son had been disfigured by a bomb in a foreign country, but Cathi needed answers on amputations, levels of intubation and responsiveness, and what the next evaluations would be. Her questions revealed that the people giving us this information were not anywhere near Josh or even in Afghanistan. With that knowledge, Cathi gave them very clear questions to ask the doctors working on her son.

  Cathi called me. There was no time for sobbing or sulking. She simply asked, “Well, am I coming to you or are you coming to me?”

  I simply replied, “I will come to you.”

  A deep fog had fallen in my mind, and I functioned only as told, my only mission was moving forward toward Josh. I called several people, including my parents and sister, our dearest friends Matt and Brittney, and my boss, and I had to repeat the same story to them all. I was eerily monotone as I repeated the script: Josh has been injured, he has no legs, two broken arms, a broken neck, and a brain injury. But the responses on the other end were conversely charged with emotion, which I did not have time for. These precious people had every right to be upset and feel all their emotions, but I couldn’t process their emotions with them. Did they not realize that Josh’s survival was still not guaranteed? Maybe I hadn’t conveyed that in the rehearsed script.