Care Under Fire

**Never make any decision out of fear, comfort, or pride – Sky Barkley**

 

I pull the first tourniquet from my back pocket, then slide it up my leg, placing it high on my thigh. I pull it tight, then grabbing the stick to tighten it the rest of the way. As I begin to twist it, my body screams at me as the blood flow is cut off from my leg. But that just means it’s working. I sprint as fast as I can across the field. The field is the size of a football field. About halfway across the field, my partner lays unconscious and wounded. When I am halfway to my partner, the first explosion happens. I register that the mortar went past us into the second half of the field. I slide up to my wounded partner. I pull my second tourniquet out of my back pocket, grabbing my partner’s foot. I slide the tourniquet up his leg, placing it high on his thigh, tightening it down, and then twisting the stick to cut off blood flow to his leg. I yank his right arm to get him into a sitting position; he is completely limp, which makes it difficult to pick up his body. Grasping his hands and arms around his waist, lifting him up, I carry him back to cover as more mortars drop overhead. My right leg is so weak from the tourniquet cutting off blood that I have to push harder than I imagined to get him back to cover, but I get him there. I look back into the field to see the final explosion drop overhead as the rest of my team starts bringing their partners back. We check the tourniquets, and I hear Sky yell, “Make no decision out of fear, comfort, or pride!” The exercise is over. Welcome to TCCC (Tactical Casualty Combat Care) Care Under Fire training.

 

This is one example of the training exercises my NSS brothers and I got the privilege to participate in while serving the Free Burma Rangers. One of the men that trained us was a man by the name of Sky. Sky is a frontline medic with the Free Burma Rangers and formerly served in the US Marines. Sky has given consent for his name to be mentioned in this blog; many of the other names (the names of all the ethnic Burmese Rangers) will be excluded from this document.

 

**Never make any decision out of fear, comfort, or pride – Sky Barkley**

 

**Fear.**

Fear is a driving factor in most people’s decisions. I can remember as a kid being afraid of heights, and one day my family was doing some work on the roof of my grandfather’s camper. My dad asked if I wanted to help. I loved to help, but I was afraid, so I said to my dad that I didn’t want to help because I was scared to get on the roof. The next thing I knew, my dad was setting me on the roof. My father knew that there is nothing in this world worth fearing when you walk with the Lord our God; we serve is so much stronger than His creation. So, thanks to my father, I grew up facing every fear I had. By the time I was a teenager, the mentality that if I was afraid to do something, then I had no choice but to do it and conquer any fear I had was ingrained in me. So when I hear Sky yell out, “Make no decision out of fear, comfort, or pride!” I know I have conquered the fear of my life, and when any circumstance causes fear, my judgment is not clouded by it, and I can go in faith that God is with me (2 Timothy 1:7 ESV – “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control”). Whether it be the fear for my life or just the fear of embarrassment when proclaiming the gospel, it’s all cast aside.

 

**Comfort**

Comfort is just as broad as fear but less thought of when we approach life with God our Father. We think of not making decisions out of comfort in the physical sense. For example, when you’re running a marathon and you get tired, and your legs are burning, you do not simply stop because your legs are burning; you continue to push through across the finish line. Another example when a medic is dragging a wounded man to safety; he does not simply drop the man and fall to the ground because he is tired and uncomfortable, but he continues to push through the pain and get the man to safety so he can be treated. However, making decisions out of comfort is often what we end up doing within our walk with Christ. In Mark 12:41-44, Jesus Christ watches as people give an offering; He sees the rich give larger sums of money, and then He sees a widow come in and give two coins. He stops and praises the widow because she did not give out of her abundance. She gave everything she had even in her poverty. Give until it hurts, then give even more. And this isn’t just about giving our money; it is about giving everything and uncomfortability to God. We give our time so much of our time that it becomes uncomfortable. And we give our lives absolutely everything. God calls us into uncomfortable conversations; God calls us to uncomfortable times, and it is our duty not to make the decision to sit back in our comfort but to serve Him in our uncomfortability.

 

**Pride**

And at last, pride, the most difficult for me. My own pride is something that God has been pulling out of me for a long time. Pride is one of the most difficult because when we are prideful, we become blinded fools (Proverbs 16:18 ESV – “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”). I remember at the beginning of last summer; I started working at Waters Edge Encampment. As well, everything but one of my jobs was to disciple the kids that came through the camp. I was full of pride, selfish pride. It wasn’t until I broke down before God and truly let Him take control that He used me to help the kids. At the end of the summer, I thought myself humbled. I was even told by others at how much I had changed. But it was only the beginning of God ripping my pride away. When I started the World Race, I was put in a team, the NSS. On this team, I got to meet a man named Logan Clark, a man I can now call my brother. Logan was one of the first people I met that not only saw my pride but he began to call me out on it. I am no fool; I have no doubt that many others saw my pride, but what made Logan different was that he would call me out. I am forever in his debt for this. With brothers in Christ to help me grow, I began one of the hardest processes of my life. The process of truly distinguishing confidence and pride and ripping out all the pride I carried. This is a process that is not finished, but the fruit in which it has gleaned has been truly astonishing.

 

**Aftermath**

Now, these are only three of the important lessons I learned while working with FBR, and while there are many things I did not say anything and many things I cannot tell you about my time there like my time with the ethnic rangers, I hope and pray that these three that I have highlighted through prayer can give you into a glimpse of the path that God has me on. I do not claim to have mastered anyone of these but it is a continuous process that I work on daily through every decision that I make in my walk with God and with his creation.