A military couple draws closer to God and to each other in Alaska.
Army Specialist Jason Tyson was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when he met Jodina, a school teacher. The first time Jodina came to visit him on base she brought homemade cookies and “it was love at first bite,” Jason said. “I knew we were meant for each other.”
They recommitted themselves and their marriage to Jesus Christ.
Jodina also knew after that first date that she’d found someone special: “I had finally met somebody who could talk more than I did.”
They had only been dating a few months when Jason received orders to deploy to Afghanistan. Then, during a short leave, the couple wed in a small courthouse ceremony. Only a few days later, Jason bid farewell to his new bride and returned to war.
Over the next few years of their young marriage, Jason deployed to Iraq and then again to Afghanistan. He never expected that his time in combat would rock their life and threaten their marriage so profoundly.
Adding to the Toolbox
Jason heard the loud boom and knew it wasn’t good. The vehicle he was in had rolled over an IED. Two of the soldiers in the truck died that day in Afghanistan.
During excursions, chaplain-led classes, and time to connect away from everyday life, a brighter future together began to seem possible for the couple.
Not only did Jason lose close friends, the explosion left him with a number of injuries that are still plaguing him years later. He endures daily back pain from degenerating discs, a condition, he said, that has reduced his height by more than an inch. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t also have pain in his knees.
Yet those injuries don’t compare to the invisible suffering he experiences, of grief and regret that he’s alive and those other two soldiers aren’t.
“People see me walking around and talking and they think I’m fine and that nothing is wrong,” Jason said.
Survivors guilt haunts him, along with the traumatic brain injury that can make it difficult to verbalize thoughts and control emotions. The brain injury also intensifies his post-traumatic stress symptoms, triggering flashes of anger. He has frightened Jodina and their children with these outbursts.
“I feel like I’m permanently broken. It’s like there’s a switch that’s broken and there’s no fixing it,” he said. “I have to circumvent and learn to deal with it instead of hoping it goes away.”
The Tysons applied to participate in Operation Heal Our Patriots because they refused to give up on their marriage.
They experienced joy and a sense of freedom as they learned more about how to live their life in alignment with God’s Word.
“He’s been out of the military for a long time. But it’s still really tough,” Jodina said. “We came here to find the tools to cope. We wanted to get better tools.”
In Alaska, the couple began to learn and put into practice the communication tools and strategies for resolving conflict in their home. In light of all that God had begun to do in their hearts in Alaska, our chaplains also encouraged them to commit to a new start together.
“I can’t live in the past, because if I keep living back there, I’m not going to move forward,” Jason said. “I can’t change what’s in the past. But going forward I can change.”
Committing to a New Beginning
On Friday they rededicated their lives to Jesus Christ, and they also recommitted their marriage to God. When they return home, they said, they planned to get baptized together in the presence of their children and church.
God began releasing Jason from the burdens of survivors guilt weighing him down.
“It was a step in the right direction. A step toward repairing what we feel like has been damaged for so long,” Jodina said. “This was something special. This week strengthened us.”
In another meaningful step forward, Jason honored the soldiers who died that day years ago in Afghanistan. In a special ceremony conducted by our chaplains and fellow veterans, Jason affixed the metal bracelet he’d been carrying around with him for many years.
This was the second time in the week he’d had to confront the emotions of remembering fallen brothers. Days earlier he’d discovered another familiar name among the bracelets. Memories flooded back in. It was a soldier he had trained, a young man who had died in that same deadly IED blast.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” he said, describing how he bawled even while saluting. Every experience of the week brought them steps closer to healing and to making peace with the past.
“We want to keep moving toward a better us,” Jodina said.
Franklin Graham penned a special note to the Tysons, inscribing the encouraging words in the inside cover of his autobiography Rebel with a Cause.
