My 2 year old son's anxiety was getting worse and worse and would cry if my wife wouldn't sit in the same room with him for every game, every meal... everything. He wouldn't go in another room without my wife or in the backyard alone, even if she was just grabbing something from the kitchen real fast. The strain was hard on my wife and it was affecting the ability for us to communicate. It was hard for me as well because I was torn...I wanted to help but knew I could only do so much.

I was talking to a chaplain back in 2015, Steve Griffin, about his issue of getting "butts in seats" in terms of getting voluntary participation for events he and other partners hosted for the sake of military personnel particularly to support their spiritual and morale needs. Truth be told, he wasn't the only person struggling with this, its a well known pain point for almost all of the Christian faith based non-profits and chaplains I have served together with in the military community.

I was a young midshipman at the US Naval Academy in the summer of 2006 conducting my "interview" to be a Marine Officer at a program called "Leatherneck" in Quantico, VA along with other fellow midshipmen. We were preparing for various field exercises and my Staff Platoon Commander was salty Captain Shane Groah, a prior enlisted officer with a drill instructor and military police officer background. He said words I'll never forget: "officers never fall out of a hike...ever..."