The following is one of the stories contained in Street Saints: Voices of Hope from the Hopeless, a book I wrote in 2010 and just recently revised. As a veteran, I offer it to you on Veteran’s Day, 2024.
It was my first day on the job in Alice, Texas—August 2010. A short Black man with a warm smile and very few teeth came through the front door.
“Are you the new pastor here?” he asked.
I nodded. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m wondering if you could help me get a room for the night. I’m a bit down on my luck. Lost my job, been sleeping in my car. I’m looking for work, but nothing yet.”
I sighed inside but kept my poker face. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that line? The need to reconnect with grace as the foundation of our world view is essential on a daily basis. Without it, we are sorely diminished.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“William.”
“Well, William. First of all, I rarely give out cash. Second, I haven’t been around here long enough to check out your story with other folks. You know what I mean? To see if you are conning me about looking for work. I’m always willing to help, but I hate being lied to. How long have you been on the street?”
To William’s credit, he didn’t get defensive. His warm smile remained, natural, not ingratiating.
“About a month.”
I stared at him; he held my gaze without flinching. My defensiveness wilted.
“OK. I’ll write a check for you from my discretionary fund for one night’s lodging. And I’m going to try an experiment. I’ll give you some cash. When you get your job, I expect you to pay me back.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, his posture straightening. It was then that I saw it – the instinctive military bearing in his shoulders. I heard it in the respect of his voice tone.
“Are you a veteran?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. I served in Desert Storm with the first mechanized infantry unit that entered Iraq for mop-up operations.”
“I was an Army chaplain during that time,” I said, “supporting you guys stateside from Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Thank you for serving, William.”
“You, too, sir.”
We had an instant bond, but first impressions are often deceiving. I wrote him a check for a local flophouse hotel, handed him some cash, and we said goodbye. I doubted I would ever see him again, but I knew that if I did, I was going to ask him for his story. I don’t much believe in coincidences anymore. God’s timing is perfect, with more divine appointments for us than we usually recognize through the veil of daily life.
A month later, William returned. He’d found work at a local nursing home and had my cash for me. I arranged the following interview. I include it in this book because in so many ways it defies the stereotypes we have of those who end up homeless. William is not shiftless, nor lazy, nor deceitful, and his homelessness lasted a very short time. Further, as you will see in the following paragraphs, he is a living piece of American history—one that just happened to walk through my front door at the very moment I was writing this book.
William Howard Milburn, III, was born in Salem, New Jersey, where he grew up in a family that he claims was constant and supportive.
“I was always proud,” he said, “that I had both a mother and father who stuck together. Most of my friends grew up in single-parent families.”
From the time he was a child he wanted to enter the military, inspired by one of his cousins who flew fighter jets in Vietnam.
“As kids we always looked up to him. He had his uniform and his medals. He had been around the world and served his country. That meant something to me and my family. Besides (he grins), I watched all those John Wayne movies! I knew I wanted to be a tank driver.”
As part of the Army National Guard, William finished basic training between his junior and senior year of high school, then after graduation in 1984, went on to advanced training at Fort Knox for the summer.
On the civilian side of his life, William moved to Cleveland, where he worked first as a diesel mechanic, then as a laborer in a glass factory. But when he got laid off, he decided to check with a recruiter about transferring to active duty in the Army. They gladly processed the paperwork and sent him to his first duty station in Germany.
“I loved Germany,” he says. “The countryside was beautiful and the people I met were really nice. I got to see where the Berlin Wall had come down and I suddenly got this idea. I was always fond of my history teacher, a bright guy who cared about his students. So, I thought, I’ll bring him a piece of the Berlin Wall. I thought that would be cool. I bought a piece as a souvenir, and when I went home to New Jersey on 30 days leave I went back to my old high school. I had my uniform on. He loved it. He stopped class and had me talk to the kids. Then I handed him the piece of the wall and told him what it was. I said Germany is going to be one country again. He loved it!”
I could see it clearly; William found pleasure in serving the needs of others. It was part of his make-up. I imagined the warmth that probably filled that teacher’s heart every time he laid his eyes on that unique curio of the Cold War.
After his leave, William was transferred to Fort Bliss outside San Antonio, Texas, part of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment. Now a buck sergeant, he had a chance to go to the NCO academy and continue his training. He was at Bliss when Allied Forces amassed for the repulsion of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, the world conflict we would come to know as the Gulf War. William didn’t blink. He felt it was his duty to be there. He volunteered to go to Saudi Arabia as part of an advance wave unloading tanks off C-130s and preparing them for combat.
“We would drive them off, park them, check the radios, load them with live ammunition, do the necessary maintenance. These were brand new M1A1 heavies with the solid, silent tracks. These vehicles were awesome. Flat out, they could catch you on the highway for sure. When you started them up, the gas turbines sounded like jet engines. They had 11,000 rounds for the tank itself, and of course many more for the 50-caliber machine gun on top.
“By now we could hear the cluster bombs exploding across the border in Iraq, a constant background in the distance. You have to imagine this—explosions coming at the speed of a machine gun, but each one as loud as a crack of thunder. It made you tremble, especially because we knew they were miles and miles away. We would look up and see our fighter jets soaring overhead. It boosted our morale. Sometimes we’d be out getting chow and a pilot would come down low, then hit his afterburners, fire coming out the rear as the jet headed straight up. We would cheer, thinking, Man, that’s some awesome stuff. Them boys are bad!”
Anticipation grew among the ranks and in William’s heart. Like countless veterans before him, they knew that this was what they had trained for, but the reality was stark, almost surreal. As the bombing campaign continued, they trained and trained, the alert level rising, waiting, waiting, adrenaline and tension palpable. Suddenly, the orders came to move out from Saudi Arabia into Iraq.
“We drove through the desert all night, 300 miles until we came early in the morning to our position points. We gassed up, checked our ammo. And still the B-52s and F-16s passed overhead. As a last-minute preparation for our final march, they brought in some MLRS rocket launchers and pounded the distance ahead of us.”
Then they got word: make the final push. Apache helicopters screamed overhead. At first, nothing much happened, a strange anticlimax, but then they began to see Iraqis in their jeeps with AK-47s. When they were within range, William’s tank commander told him to man the 50-caliber machine gun and fire. These were his first killings, and as they advanced, these little skirmishes continued until they encountered the first tanks of the Republican Guard. William could see them on scopes from far away. He would lock them in his crosshairs as the computer in the tank loaded the round. When the order to fire came, he’d pull the trigger and see the explosion in the distance, knowing he’d accomplished his deadly task.
“With one explosion I saw the entire turret come of the enemy tank before it went up in a ball of fire. At this point, I was proud of the tools we had. I was proud of being a soldier carrying out my orders, doing what both the president and my officers told me to do. It was exciting, but I was anxious. Firing from a tank on some jeeps is one thing, but now we were within range of artillery that could do us real damage.”
He pauses. His easy smile becomes more circumspect.
“Pastor I’m not going to lie about it. I wasn’t just anxious. I was scared. Really scared. And that’s when I called upon the Lord. I went to Sunday School, and I believe. I asked God to forgive me for my sins in case I died, so that I could sleep in Jesus and wait on him. It’s funny how your early home training in the faith remains with you. I said, Lord please give me the strength that you gave David when he slew Goliath. Just a little bit of courage to see me through. I would really appreciate it.”
That prayer, like a calming breastplate, centered him and helped him focus. From then on, his training came naturally and carried him through the ensuing battle with all his comrades at his side. They devastated the Republican Guard in their path.
Then, only 30 miles from Baghdad, they got the orders to halt.
“Remember,” he says, “this was Desert Storm. If they would have let us complete what we were doing then, we wouldn’t have had to go back. I knew it! Most of us did. We just knew we would have to go back. And now we’ve lost another 4,000 brothers.”
The fighting stopped with an eerie calm. They turned and drove back through the battlefield, collecting data on the content and numbers of what they’d destroyed.
“We saw trucks and tanks, of course, but then the mangled bodies, blackened, petrified on the ground, in their trucks, in their jeeps. The smell of death is terrible, pastor. It’s like burnt BBQ. That’s the best way I can describe it. I tried to distance myself, but these were human figures. I know I’m a soldier, but as a Christian, any loss of life is a terrible thing. I remember looking at one blackened body draped from a jeep and thinking man, that guy had a family. It was war. I did my duty. But it was still sad.”
“William,” I said. “I’m glad you felt that sadness. As a chaplain, I had a message that sometimes was not real popular with my commanders. I told them that in the middle of the hell that is war, I was a non-combatant. Sure, I was there to comfort and support our troops, but also to remind them that God loves the enemy as much as God loves us. These are not gooks or rag heads; these are human beings. And until that day that we stop believing in the myth of redemptive violence, until that day we realize that war never ultimately solves anything, I will boldly proclaim this message.”
“Amen, pastor.”
William received two bronze stars for his valor and calmness under fire during the battle. When he returned stateside to Fort Bliss, he received an offer to go to the NCO academy. Simultaneously things were heating up in Bosnia, America wading into a civil war marked by horrendous genocide and ethnic cleansing.
“I talked to my Mom,” says William. “I said, Mom, I’ve fought in one war. I’ve done my duty and served my country. I really don’t want to be sent to another.”
William left the Army in April ’92, moved to Waco, Texas and got trained as a Certified Nursing Assistant. He lived there for 15 years, working in various convalescent centers. He once owned a home but lost it. Though he was engaged a couple times, he never got married, never had children. He described himself as very careful, reticent to make any commitments. He wanted to make absolutely sure that if he took on the responsibility of a wife and family, he would be able to fulfill his duty.
After 28 years of marriage, his parents divorced, and his father moved to south Texas. In 2007, his mother died—a deep blow to his spirit. When his dad also got sick, he felt moved as the oldest child to go south and take care of him. It was his duty, and there was more to it.
“Losing my mother caught me up in the brevity of life. It made me realize I wanted to get closer to my dad. I had only seen him about once a year, so I moved south. I lived with him for a while here in Alice, working in a nursing home. But I lost that job and living with my dad just didn’t work out due to his need for privacy. That’s how I ended up on the streets, sleeping in my car. Yeah, I was down for a little bit. But I still counted my blessings, because it could have been worse. Besides, I was always taught that if you fall down, pick yourself up again and try harder.”
After two months of homelessness, William found a new job at a nursing home in San Diego, Texas. Most of us have been to places like these. Even in the best of them, the pall of old age and death is palpable, almost suffocating. For many of us, it could lead to depression. Listen to how William describes it.
“I love my residents. It’s an honor to care for them. They tell me they miss me until I come back to work. When I get there, they say, where you been. I say, well, they do give me a couple days off. (He grins). It means a lot to me that they care about me that much. I give my best all day. I make them feel special. I show them dignity, always remembering that these are my elders and I was raised to show them respect. Yes, Ma’am, Yes Sir. I make sure my men are shaved, and I put a little cologne on them, you know, so they feel like men. I try to do any little thing I can do to enrich their lives. I’m determined to make them smile if it takes all day. And I’m the one who gets the most blessings in return—smiles and hugs.”
I ask him if those memories from long ago in Iraq still plague him.
“I don’t have as many nightmares as I used to. Sure, there are certain triggers. If I smell burnt meat, my mind flashes back instantly to that time in the desert. But I have asked God to soften these memories, even take them away. Being able to help other people has been part of my rehabilitation. It keeps me calm and level-headed. I’m responsible for my residents. It’s my duty to make sure they eat right and that they are safe.”
Very few of us have motives that are completely pure. Only God has final, intimate knowledge of the inner workings of our hearts and minds. But I can tell you this: as my interview with William concluded, I felt a moment of pure clarity. I thought about the concept of duty—for country, family, church, my neighbor, the homeless man or woman who might walk through my office door the very next day. My calling crystallized inside me and gave me a sense of purpose and dignity. William had blessed me mightily and I told him so. He rose from the chair on the other side of my desk and straightened his bearing. Though he was not in uniform, I could see it.
“My privilege, sir,” he said. “I hope to see you again soon.
Then he did an about-face and left.
Krin Van Tatenhove - Words & Images 