I am at your service

I am at your service

I keep hearing a calling from different directions. Today during church the guest pastor got on a rant about taking care of our bodies, God’s Temple. I am at a point where I am in shape to the point where I am healthy. My blood test came back from the VA with everything okay. No pre-diabetes, my cholesterol and everything else is fine. My weight isn’t exactly where I want it to be but it’s getting there. It wasn’t that long ago that I had Dunlap Disease, my belly done lapped over my belt. I had gotten to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I started going to the Planet Fitness in Carrolton Texas, every day after work. This young guy would torture me every day working on different muscle groups. I could do one pull up. He would put me on a weight machine to assist me doing pull-ups. It was almost sadistic. Then I got to the point where I could do ten in a row. Every Friday I would do my Navy SEAL PT, pushups, crunches, flutter kicks and other assorted self-torture techniques ending up with eight count body builders. Then I left the Dallas area and came down to the Rio Grande Valley where I ran into Ray Huerta a boxing trainer who had three world champions managed by Angelo Dundee. I told him my background and he edified me to a couple of young boxers who he wasn’t working with. He told me that if they started showing commitment he would start working with them. I was excited just to have a chance. It was hot and after just three rounds of jumping rope, shadow boxing and hitting the heavy bag I thought I was going to pass out. But I kept it up every day and then I moved to Edinburg and I started working out at the Fight House Boxing gym and helping out with some of the kids. I now can go four rounds jumping rope, five rounds shadow boxing and four or five rounds on the heavy bag and I have even sparred a couple of times. With a guy 18 years younger than me. My jab is harder now than it has ever been. In fact it is my best punch.

I know that I am no longer a Navy SEAL or training for the Olympics or a world title and there are a lot of guys who are in better shape than me but I can still smoke a lot of guys who are a lot younger than me. I want to encourage other guys to get started doing a little something every day, stay consistent and keep it up. You have to eat the elephant one bite at a time and what ends up happening is your body stops resisting you and eventually begins to respond to your efforts.

I want to work with the young men, help them realize their potential. Get them in shape and increase their confidence and then help them understand math and algebra and introduce them to technologies that stimulate their interest, enticing them learn the mathematics and algebra. Teach them the importance of maintaining their bodies. I was going to hold a workout session for the young guys on Saturdays after the Men’s bible study but I might just make it an open event. I am at your service.

Regret, Rejection and Memories

This is my English assignment:

Reuben Lowing, Regret, Rejection and Memories

1.       Regret

Isaac Rodriguez was a support technician for (SEAL) swimmer delivery vehicle Team Two and he was well liked and even though he was skinny he was wiry and a very fast runner. Isaac went through BUD/s (SEAL) training. Isaac upon graduation from BUD/s training was assigned to SEAL Team Four and deployed to Panama as an augmentation in 1989. I was already deployed to Panama with SEAL Team Four Delta Platoon and Isaac and I were roommates. I was a good runner averaging six minutes per mile and Isaac would leave me in the dust. He was very encouraging. I was boxing and training for the All Navy Boxing team training camp once I got back to Virginia Beach in January and even though Isaac wasn’t a boxer he loved boxing and the thought it was great that I was going to go to the training camp. one night I was doing an abdominal workout just outside of our room and Isaac was talking to and encouraging one of the other guys in his platoon who wanted to try out for a pro-football team and Isaac was being the usual encourager to him and this guy mentioned to Isaac “They don’t pay us shit, they send us all over the world risking our lives” and Isaac said “I would be honored to give my give my life for my country.” I took notice of Isaac’s comment and continued my workout. Then December 17^th my platoon redeployed back to Virginia Beach and I got to work out with the Navy boxing Team for two days and then we were recalled back to Panama after the Panamanian killed a US Serviceman. We had practiced taking over Punta Paitilla Airfield in down town Panama City Panama right on the coast. Three SEAL Platoons in Zodiac rubber raiding craft transited across the bay of Panama just off of the airfield and we received orders to not only attach the airfield an hour earlier but thy wanted us to change our whole battel plan which meant that we would have to patrol up the runway and shoot the tires and struts of General Noriega’s jet with 7.62 machinegun fire. Isaac’s platoon and Gulf platoon would file up the runway with one squad of Bravo abreast in front of Gulf Platoon and the other squad of Bravo abreast behind Gulf platoon and Gulf Platoon would he in single file so they would be in a skirmish line in front for the hanger and General Noriega’s jet. My Platoon Delta would be on the other side of the runway securing east said with the entrance into the airfield the tower. Things happened very fast, one I got off of the boat we were having to sprint up the runway. I weighed 140 lbs and as the radioman for my squad I was carrying 110 lbs of bullets, water and radio Gulf platoon had engaged Noriega’s security team. The Uesat and Israeli trained anti-terrorist team who served as his body guards. I could hear the shooting start as I sprinted up the runway. I could see bullets ricocheting across the tarmac in front of me and remember making a conscious effort to pick my feet up higher and faster. Then I could hear Lt Conner the OIC of Bravo platoon screaming in my headset “I am hit, I’m hit!” My heart was pounding in my throat. I got to my designated position guarding the entrance to the runway and the control tower. The rate of fire across the runway was so intense the ground was shaking. Several of my platoon mates ran across to assist and as soon as they got online they launched 40 mm grenades into the hanger. BOOM! BOOM! Then my OIC came over and pulled myself and Jim Schombs the 60 gunner in to join the battle. I hadn’t taken three steps and there on the ground was Isaac, lying on the asphalt with his camouflage shirt torn open and a bloody bullet wound in the lower half of his left chest and we made direct eye contact. I felt the air come out of my lungs in shock and my body lock up like I had been zapped with 120 volts of electricity. I could tell he was in shock by the way his eyes looked, bloodshot and dilated. Moe Petitt the chief Corpsman was already working on him and I decided to keep moving and join the fire fight. As soon as Jim and I got online they called a cease fire. There were bodies lying everywhere, it was like a bus accident. I help Kim Torgerson who had been shot in the shin and took him to triage. Then I went to help Kieth Morris carry someone, I didn’t know if they were dead or alive but they were heavy. Kieth and I turned them over to take off their H-gear and it was Don McFall my former chief of Delta platoon. He was already dead. We took him over and laid his body next to Lt Conner’s. Then were went back to grab Henry Tilman and he was a big guy and fully loaded with M-60 gear and ammunition. He was even heavier and Kieth and I both let go of him at the same time and his head hit the ground like a bowling ball. I felt sick to my stomach but Kieth said “Oh shit! Well he is already dead”. Then we got into a perimeter and waited. Being a radioman I had to keep track of the time and it took two hours for the medivac helicopter arrive. The next day we were augmented by guys from SEAL Team Six and they told us that Isaac died on the way to the hospital. Only after years of therapy was I able to rationalize way the guilt for not stopping to help Isaac. I can still see his eyes looking at me with desperation. I breakout in shingles now every time I hear about one of my SEAL buddies getting killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. 

2.       Judgement

After the invasion of Panama was over I went back to Virginia Beach and I took two weeks leave and went home for Christmas and then I accepted my orders to the All Navy Boxing training camp. Myself and one other Navy SEAL from SEAL Team Two attended the camp and after the first week of sparring I was the only white guy at the camp. This was not unusual, I had been the only white boxer in every gym I had trained in since I left Michigan in 1981 to join the Navy. However this was different. Before when I was in Pensacola Florida training with Roy Jones Sr. and Roy Jones Jr. I was well liked because I was a white boy who could fight. Then in 1987 when I was a walk on to the Navy Boxing Team I received the same kind of respect and acceptance. This was different, most of the guys at the camp were from more northern areas of the United States, New York, DC, Maryland, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Detroit. They had a perception that I had only seen back in Michigan where I was told “You don’t want to fight a black guy, they have an extra muscle in their but that makes them hit harder” I believed this until the first time I sparred with a black guy and I realized that I could hit them as hard as I could hit anyone else. I was familiar with Coach John Hunter, I fought for him in 1987 but this year Dick Pettigrew was the head coach. Dick’s claim to fame was that he was the guy who broke his thumb in 1968 so Joe Frazer went to the Olympics in his place and won a God Medal. Dick wasn’t much on technique but big on conditioning. He would have us run a mile to the beach on Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek and then run four miles in the sand. I was in really good shape just coming back from six months in Panama and I was a Navy SEAL, there was no way I was going to let anyone beat me running in the sand and I would always be the first one finished with my run. Coach Pettigrew would park the MWR van at the entrance to the beach and count our laps every morning. He would always smile at me and tell me “Good Job SEAL”. Every time we went to a boxing show I got to fight. That wasn’t the case with everyone else. Also Tyrone Smith was at the camp and he used to train with Roy Jones too before I join the SEAL Teams and he joined the Navy. Tyrone, myself and a couple of other guys had report but the rest just couldn’t deal with a white guy beating them running and in the ring.

3.       Delta Platoon

Attached is a photo of myself and member of Delta Platoon from SEAL Team Four in front of a Russian Puma Helicopter that we used as a free fall platform. Raul Valdez, Mike Haven, DB Hayes, Woodie Mister, Jose Henao, Regan Stratman, Matt Kelm and Pudge Evans. This was June of 1989 prior to Operation Just Cause in Panama. We were part of a joint special operations mission with the US Army Special Forces, Air Force Combat Controllers and our Chilean counterparts. We made four free fall parachute jumps that day south of Santiago Chile on the coast. I had the best duty on this exercise, I got to be part of the OP-4 which were the opposition element. It was like being Hogan’s Heroes.  I was with 40 Chilean Special Operations operatives for two weeks. None of them spoke English and all I knew how to do is say “Como Si Dice” and point at things. By the end of the two weeks we were having conversations and joking around with each other.  

 

My Purpose

My purpose

Today at Center Church in Pharr, TX during the men’s bible study and watching the video by John Bevere on the subject of “Following your Calling”. As I was watching the video and listening to John Phillips I know the direction God is pushing me. Just yesterday Major Claudia Noyola US Army Ret asked me to lead a BUD/s (Navy SEAL) PT with the one group of JROTC students that didn’t get a chance to work out with me the first two weeks of January. I had learned my own lesson in leadership since the last time and I had the students line up four abreast and I told them “If you can’t keep on an exercise, just stand up”. We got right to it and had plenty of time to talk with them a little bit and get the whole workout in. I have other experiences where I taught boxing or at least PT with junior high and high school students since 1985 and even before if you consider working with younger boxers while training with Roy Jones Sr. I feel compelled to do this for a couple of reasons. What makes the working out with these younger people so rewarding is at that point when they pass me up. Roy Jones Jr., my son Devin and Shane Reilly who used to hang out at the base pool in Pensacola and he went on to become a Navy SEAL. Then other purpose is to instill courage in their faith. If I can gain their respect and they hear me talking about faith, it is a foundation for them to talk about their faith too.

One of the things I witnessed as a Navy SEAL was that the majority of Navy SEALs come from broken families. They are forced to develop their own self-reliance and it causes them to gravitate towards strong male role models, hence the SEAL Teams. While I was at SEAL Team One there was a tech in the Communications department who was raised by his father. He was a little skinny guy but he didn’t take any guff off of anyone, no matter how big and bad they were. He could keep up in PT, swimming and he was faster than most of the SEALs on the runs. He didn’t need a Trident to be significant, he had the influence of his father who raised him which is the foundation he stood upon. I remember when I first came to understanding that Jesus Christ is real, I wanted to tell everyone. Then my mother in-law told me “New Christians should be locked up”. Here she was the choir director for the Catholic Church. Then my wife who group up in the Catholic Church her whole life told me “We are supposed to witness through our actions”. I was confused. I wanted to tell the world and I really didn’t care who liked it or not. Well I learned, when I went to the Indian Ocean as an anti-piracy security agent with my bible and other Christian books to read I was confronted by the other former Navy SEALs who proudly proclaimed that they were atheists and agnostic I just told them “That is because you are young, you will figure it out”. They didn’t like that! They really didn’t like me after that. It wasn’t until another former Navy SEAL buddy of mine had a similar experience told me what happened to him that I put two and two together.

Today at the men’s bible study, I remember when I was training Ryan McDonald and his friend Jonathan how to box at the base gym in Pensacola, FL. The PT failures had to do their mandatory PT. I told Jonathan and Ryan “Look at them and tell me what you see?” They said “They have to have someone else make them do what they are supposed to do anyway”. That was amazing to me, these kids see the problem as plain as day. I went on to tell them never to let that happen to them. Now that I am older that lesson means more to me than it did them. I now understand how sugar and salt have a direct effect on joint pain. I have witnessed my SEAL buddies let themselves go and even die because of it. I am hoping that as an example of how a man can stay fit and not be afraid to speak about my faith that the young people I come in contact with would be able to model both examples and have enough confidence to speak about their faith in the Lord and not doubt. Now I have to get back to my algebra until I have enough understanding and confidence to also transfer it to these young people.

  

Meeting the call

Pull-ups

 

I received a call from Major Claudia Noyola US Army (Ret) asking if I would put her come and workout with the one class of JROTC candidates who had not gotten a chance to workout with me last month. It was a small group and the followed directions well and because they did I was able to get the full workout in with time to spare.

Undue Inflences

Undue Influences

I am currently studying at South Texas College under the Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation program. My hope is to work with those young people who were like me, hardworking, and tough but lacking confidence in math and science. Well I have to take government and English courses. Both the English and the Texas Government text books are slanted, the Texas Politics course book is slanted towards the left and the English course book is very anti-faith. They are not so subtle either. I am going attached the story "Salvation" from my English course and you can read how they are undermining faith. Now I know the solution. We have to stop pushing agendas and encouraging that personal connection with the Lord. First off, God chooses us. I love how Abraham fought with the angel and would not let go in order to obtain God’s blessing. I believe that is what we must do. We must show God that we are willing to fight for his grace. It is not the other way around. I am trying to qualify to be of influence with these kids who have so much potential yet they ether made mistakes or they just haven’t been communicated to properly. I am thinking about a preacher and his son who train at the Fight House Gym in Edinburg. The son wanted to be a Navy SEAL but he dropped out of school and went to prison and he just got out. He is a tough fighter but he is already 28 years old. He is humble but he has power in his punches and he works hard. I am going to get both him and his father “Da Beast Within, Still Champ” by Anthony Suggs Sr. There is something that needs to be fostered, a spark that needs to be fanned until it becomes a flame. Tony’s story is one of hope and conquering setbacks.

Salvation

Developing a winning stratigy

Developing  winning strategy

I just finished a solid workout at the Fight House Boxing Gym in Edinburg Texas.

 

I snapped a photo with my phone of all the activity which was going on while I was getting ready to go home.

I have had to completely teach myself algebra all over again. I am starting at the beginning of the book and watching videos from Khan Academy and it is all coming back to me. I have been here before, memorizing the formulas and sequence to simplify the problems, substitution, FOIL and the quadratic formula. The synapses are beginning to fire.

Then for my Texas Government course I have to write an outline for a proposed bill to the Texas legislator HB 106 trying to define the legal use of imagery captured by an unmanned device (Drone of UAV/UAS). The author of the proposed bill tried to identify every application they could think of to legally use an unmanned system and then they amended the draft by lining through the words “Real property or a person on real property within 25 miles of the US border”. So in the event this bill does get adopted they would have to amend the bill every time an application not listed in the bill is thought up and why would they restrict the use of unmanned systems and the images of real property and people within 25 miles of the border. I am not going to speculate but I do not think there is a similar restriction on images captured from manned aircraft and what I would do is require written permission from the owner of any real property or person who likeness is captured by anyone, with any aerial device, manned or unmanned. Then the whole process is self-regulated. That way if your real property or your likeness is captured and used for any commercial use the owner of the real property or the subject of any likeness captured would be paid a royalty at whatever rate is negotiated and they would have recourse in the event such a royalty were not paid.

Then for my English class I have to write a thesis and I am choosing to write about the topic of being a teen parent. I have never been a teen parent but this is an interest for my wife and I need to get more educated about the subject. My sister Jill Raymer gave me a glimpse about the topic when she told me “I love my young others in my nursing classes, they have a mission. They have mouths to feed and they don’t mess around.” That made sense to me, they have a built in reason to produce.

All of the things which are happening right now are leading me to where I want to end up. My wife was telling me today about a leadership game utilized by the John Maxwell Team and right as soon as she mentioned it an idea popped into my mind when I do begin teaching that I will have my students assigned study partners and they will have to write each other’s math quizzes. They will have to turn in the test with the answer sheet which means that they will have to work the problems and they will not just be graded on the answers they get right but also on the level of difficulty of the quiz they develop. My intent is to tap into the same competitive environment there is in a boxing gym. There will be someone who will jump ahead of everyone else but there are going to be those who are going to want to knock the top guy off either by acing their quizzes or creating a quiz which will stump them. Then I can award points for tutoring their fellow students and they will benefit from the success of fellow student which they are tutoring.

They will learn math and leadership.   

Beginnng with the end in mind

Beginning with the end in mind

Today during the service at Center Church I was thinking about how my childhood influences shaped me. I remember being four or five years old and watching my father try and smother my mother to death with his bare hands while my sister just 13 months younger than me stood and watched. As soon as he took his hand off of her mouth for a minute my sister Jill moved to protect out mother and I was right with her. We protected my father from hurting her any more that day. After that I became much more aggressive, when my father and I would play fight I wouldn’t be playing. I would try and take my old man out. Looking back on it, I was mirroring my father in how aggressive he was with my mother.  I too that level of play to school on the playground and wrestling with my cousin Rodney. It made me hustle on the baseball field and basketball court. It is what allowed me to fight way beyond my experience in the boxing ring and it came in handy going through BUD/s and in the SEAL Teams.

When I got into sales I learned that I had to ratchet it back. I still could push towards the close but I had to change my words. It wasn’t easy. I remember reading the scripts and there would be a trial close “Is that fair enough?” I didn’t talk like that but eventually I learn that saying it that way was more receptive than “Here is what we are going to do” which is what I usually said when I was making someone do what I wanted them to do.

So I handed off the Trail Life enrollment package to Pastor Steven at Center Church and he got up and preached about “Love”. I was already thinking about how I became who I was and realized I didn’t have any example of love in my life growing up. I got glimpses of love or genuine concern from Roy Jones Sr. my boxing coach and some of my mentors in the SEAL Teams. They would express approval when I did the right thing so I wanted to do more. Van Hall my first Assistance Officer in Charge was a former Chief at SEAL Team Six and he would get on my about my shooting. I am not going to say what he would say but my whole first deployment I was determined to get him to quit saying it. Then we were in the same platoon heading to Panama and I went up against him for a magazine change drill and I bet him. He got all excited for me beating him. He knew what he was doing.

As I am doing my course work for my associates in mathematics I am not only thinking of how I can teach the had case young men I want to reach a more effective way to understand math and science, to keep themselves in shape and how to stand up like a man but also how to look at others differently and discern their true value, desires, talents and help them identify those little barriers that keep them from seeing their successes and fulfillment of not just their destiny but how to uplift others and understand that by discovering those things in others and paying forward that understanding they will become leaders and create legacies rather than causing emotional barricades which consume energy for decades and generations. By worrying less about how someone treats us during our first encounter but more about how they feel when we show them how to break barriers, then we will not only experience the recognition and acknowledgement for being the one who helped them but the satisfaction of knowing we is wasn’t just because they are being nice to us.

Navy SEAL Apologist

 

I had an interesting surprise this morning. At the “Men’s Bible Study” at Center Church they played a video of John Bevere talking about a Navy SEAL whom he had meet that went through seminary and later became a Navy SEAL. Then the Pastor Steven Sheller commented “Being a Christian among a bunch of Navy SEALs must have been a challenge, SEALs are stone cold killers”. Being a former Navy SEAL who has experienced combat, I had something to say. I mentioned that “I went to church and was confirmed and baptized but I hadn’t had that personal connection with the Lord but we all called on The Man while we were getting shot at on that run way. Then when I actually had my realization that God and Jesus Christ were real I was going to take it upon myself to inform all of my heathen buddies about the glory of God and Jesus Christ and they all told me ‘We know, we were wondering when you were going to figure that out”.

Now my mind has been on that run way quite a bit over the last couple of days. I was thinking about Isaac Rodriguez and how I had so much guilt over not stopping to give him first-aid but kept running into the fire fight. I had to resolve how I didn’t shoot him or how I didn’t cause the medivac HELO to take two hours to arrive because the pilots were scared and that he already had the chief Corpsman working on him. But I remember how I reacted when we were flanked by about 15 Panamanian troops and three of us engaged them and after shooting about 50 rounds in their direction I had snot and saliva all over my face. I was angry and I wanted to kill and deliver pain to those who had attacked us, killing and wounding my friends. A couple of years later it was confirmed that they found four bloody drag marks in the direction I was shooting and a couple of years later I found out that I was the only one shooting in that direction. I feel no remorse for killing them if it were my bullets that shot them. I am a little concerned about the blood lust I was feeling while I was pulling the trigger.

At 3:00 AM the next morning when they called a cease fire I started thinking “The imprint of Reuben Lowing could have been wiped away like a wave washing away writing in the sand” I made two major decisions, 1. I was going to sniper school because the next time I got into a fire fight I wanted to be far away and I didn’t want anyone to see me and 2. I was going to tell my wife to go off of the pill because we were going to work on having a boy. I wanted to leave a legacy.

My buddy Raul Valdez and I both really hurt our backs carrying the dead guys, I never could have imagined how much more gravity affects you when you are dead. An Air Force Para Rescue (PJ) who was with the guys from SEAL Team Six gave us some muscle relaxers which made us feel like brand new again but Raul and I did all kinds of back and leg exercises after that just in case we were ever in that situation again.

When I went to the Indian Ocean as an anti-piracy security agent I brought my Bible with me and other faith based books and one night all four of the former Navy SEALs who made up the team and it came out that they were all either agnostic of atheists which didn’t really bother me. I just told them “That’s okay, you are young. You will eventually figure it out”.  To me it was no big deal but they hated me after that. They challenged me by asking “How can you kill someone if you’re a Christian?” I may have to answer to God for it but I would have no remorse killing anyone who is trying to kill me or harm my loved ones. The greatest concern for me is developing that constant focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t believe that we need to be passive if we are Christians. The meek might inherit the earth but that is not where I want to end up.

Don Thompson my Executive Officer at SEAL Team One had a plaque behind his desk which read “The majority are passive, predators have the edge, I like that”.  You might not think that is very Christian but you need to listen to "Lioness Arising" by Lisa Bevere.