Photo By Sgt. Kyle Fisch | Dave Roever, motivational speaker, Vietnam veteran and author, receives a coin as a...... read more read more
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CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – Vietnam veteran, motivational speaker, and author Dave Roever speaks to service members at the zone one chapel here, Sept. 13. Roever is on tour speaking to deployed troops about overcoming depression, suicidal ideation, and remaining resilient in the wake of adversity.
He served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam war as a river boat gunner for the Mobile Riverine Force, a joint Army and Navy force, also known as the elite Brown Water Black Beret – when tragedy struck.
Roever recalls, Vietnam, July 26, 1969, the day when a bullet from a 7.62mm automatic rifle went through his thumb and index finger, striking and setting off a white phosphorus grenade he was holding, a mere six inches from his right ear.
“From that day on, I no longer knew what ‘normal’ was. That grenade peeled me down pretty bad. I lost my hair, my ear, sight in my right eye, which eventually I got back,” explained Roever. “I looked down, and my face was on my boots, that’s not normal. Still looking down, I could see my heart beating, that’s not normal.”
White phosphorus munitions or ‘Willie Pete’, as it was called during Vietnam, burns fiercely and continuously until deprived of oxygen or completely consumed. The U.S. used these extensively for destroying Viet Cong tunnel complexes, as they burn all oxygen and suffocate enemy soldiers sheltering inside.
“I was clear in my thinking. In the back of my brain, I knew, this phosphorus is going to burn and water isn’t going to help,” Roever said. “It helped somewhat, because it washed some of it off, but it didn’t extinguish it.”
Like many who suffer terrible, deforming incidents, Roever says he became very depressed. The pain, coupled with what he now saw in the mirror, made him reach what he believed was his limit, mentally and physically. He would later discover that his limits were only what he allowed his mind to tell him they were.
“One of my limits came physically, when it just hurt so bad, I put my face in my pillow and just screamed hoping the pillow would muffle it and nobody would know that I was screaming. I didn’t want anybody to know that I couldn’t handle something,” he said.
Roever continues, “I discovered it didn’t make it better. I lifted my head to take a breath, looked down and I screamed again. I didn’t care who heard me then, because I was looking at my own face stuck to the pillowcase.”
Suicide entered his mind, as his thoughts wandered to what his wife would think of him and the challenge this would now be for her, he explained. He believed his wife would no longer love him.
“She had a deeper sense of value about our relationship than I did,” Roever said. “She stayed with me, and now it’s 47 years we’ve been together, not bad huh?”
A scarred Vietnam veteran, Roever now shares his gripping story. With engaging humor, and imparting hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, he inspires people to never give up. Over the years he has taken his message to national conventions and public schools, as well as the U.S. military in combat zones.
“When I first met Dave in Iraq in 2010, I was just exhausted. I had just lost a really close friend to an IED [Improvised Explosive Device] during a convoy, and felt like I just didn’t have much more to give,” said Maj. James Collins, theater gateway chaplain on Camp Arifjan. “When I heard Dave speak, it just made me put things in perspective. He inspired me to want to be a better husband, a better father, a better Soldier and a better person. His words were like water for my thirsty soul.”
| Date Taken: | 09.13.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 09.20.2014 05:31 |
| Story ID: | 142802 |
| Location: | CAMP ARIFJAN, KW |
| Web Views: | 488 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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