BY GROVER WILCOX WITH ROLAND R. HEGSTAD

E IS ONE TOUGH, ROUGH CHARACter, a blue beret with a chestful of ribbons and medals--Legion of Merit, Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star, Air Medal, Purple Heart--and that's just a sampling. He has seen it all: Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Beirut, and more. As leader of a special operations team, he had 164 confirmed kills. His name is Bryan Gulley.

I met Bryan in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Loma Linda, California, where I was headed for treatment of Wegener's granulomatosis, an inflammation of the blood vessels. He was rolling along in a wheelchair, his face showing the strain of that effort.

How I came to call him Bryan the Blessed is quite a story. But then, he is the most extraordinary person I've ever met. Early on I discovered that our "canoes" were tied to the same tree on Jordan's shore.

Bryan's life was a backlash from a childhood so hauntingly familiar that it stunned me. He too was a nobody's boy,* regularly beaten by both his parents. He particularly remembers the day his mother beat him savagely with an electrical cord; he points to a scar on his forehead still visible years after the incident. One brother suffered from severe birth defects and would spend his life in an institution.

Bryan's parents differed from mine in two respects: they were not poor and they both held steady jobs in a Swiss Embassy. The guards, Bryan told me, would seek to sooth his anguish by giving him candy. But that only made him feel worse, because he knew why they did it.

Soon after the family moved to North Dakota, Bryan's parents were divorced. Though his mother was a nurse with a good income, she sent all but one child to live with relatives. Seven-year-old Bryan, however, she enrolled in a military school. When his mother drove away, Bryan cried so hard and so long that among his classmates he became known as "Cry'n Bryan."

Soon, however, he fought so often and so well that classmates called him "Bryan the Lion." An overachiever, Bryan excelled in sports, earning 12 high school letters. A brilliant student, he graduated from high school in three years. At 17 he joined the Air Force and continued his education at San Diego State, where he earned a degree in chemical engineering.

Didn't God Know?
So here I am, trying to fulfill the Lord's assignment to reach out in His name, with His kindness, to those in pain and perplexity.

But how do you reach a man who sprints away from even the mention of God? A man who is, moreover, a supreme killing machine? I didn't know. But my heavenly Father did. He told me, "Tell Bryan that I love him."

Didn't God know what this man had done? Of course He did! And if God loved him, who was I to keep that information from him? Not only had I seen my heavenly Father perform miracles, I had experienced them. But I'll admit it: I thought that a miracle that would embrace Bryan would have to be the granddaddy of them all.

When Bryan invited me to visit him in his home near Loma Linda, I didn't hesitate. He beckoned me to a seat near his wheelchair. In a few moments I was flying with him in a helicopter above the jungle canopies of Nicaragua.

Though Bryan kept an eye out for the enemy below, he never saw the missile that hit the chopper, blowing a hole in the bottom of the cabin and flipping the chopper over. Shrapnel killed all but two of those on board. The chopper crashed upside down, high in the jungle canopy. Bryan hung out of the helicopter, his nearly severed left leg useless. Pulling his belt tight as a tourniquet, he stopped the bleeding, struggled out of the wreckage, and dropped to the ground. Using his rifle as a brace for the leg, he and the only surviving crew member evaded guerrillas while awaiting rescue.

Bryan's companion bled to death in his arms. An hour later another chopper lifted Bryan out and to a hospital, where his leg was stitched back together and a plastic knee installed. Recovered, he returned to Central America. Subsequently, he and squad members were exposed to nuclear radiation in an incident that is still classified. He was the only survivor.

Bryan told me that he and his wife, Heidi, had two boys. His youngest son, Neal, suffered from a multitude of birth defects that doctors attributed to the radiation to which his father had been exposed. Soon after, Bryan noticed a lump, subsequently diagnosed as testicular cancer. Surgeons removed it and sent him to Loma Linda University Hospital, which at the time had the only proton-beam accelerator in the United States. In addition, he endured chemotherapy treatments three times a week for four months.

At this point Heidi left him and his two small boys. Shortly thereafter he developed lymphoma and had three lymph nodes removed, followed by more chemotherapy. He began vomiting so violently that his esophagus tore. The resulting surgical repairs left him with a condition that caused him to vomit whenever he was on his feet for more than three hours. The doctors then found a tumor on his neck so close to the carotid artery that an operation would be life-threatening. More chemo. His jaw had to be rebuilt after doctors removed another cancerous lump. They then cut out a lump behind his nose, which had to be rebuilt. He developed 13 skin cancers and a further complication that brought seizures. He takes an unbelievable list of medications daily.

Two Sorry Specimens
Can you imagine the camaraderie as Bryan and I, one of the few Wegener's survivors, exchange diagnoses, symptoms, and expectations? Could there be two sorrier specimens of Homo sapiens in all the world? Two less likely to be featured on the cover of a health magazine? Two more in need of paying up the balance on their cemetery plots and receiving a free ticket to that Forever Land across the Jordan? The Lord knew what He was doing when He put us together.

Whatever vision of God Bryan was fleeing, he saw in me, a fellow sufferer, a vision of God that captured his appreciation and, quickly, his love. Whatever vision of a case-hardened killing machine I saw in Bryan quickly evaporated. In its place I heard the silent cry for someone to care, someone to love, someone to value him--the same longings I carried from childhood.

Bryan and I have no doubt: God brought us together. The King told me, "Love My boy," and I do. Our visits are wonderful! Sometimes I sing hymns or read to him. Bryan, on the other hand, lifts my spirits as much as I lift his. One day he hobbled to a bureau, took something out, and handed it to me.

Questions for Reflection or for Use in Your Small Group 1. What has been the toughest physical, emotional, or spiritual challenge you've ever had to face? 2. What person or group of people reminded you of God's love and helped you endure that burden? 3. When have you been involved in an effort to demonstrate in tangible ways the love, mercy, and compassion of God? What were the results? 4. Does Christian concern help to answer the question of suffering? How?

"This is for you because I love you," he said. It was his Silver Wings medal. I often put it on and proudly wear it around in my motor home. Not outside, because I didn't earn it. But I shall treasure it until the Lord replaces it with His own version of wings. And I fully expect that Bryan will be there to receive his from the hands of his Father.

Leaving with him from a doctor's visit just before Christmas, I had an allergic reaction to a shot I'd been given. Bryan insisted on walking me to the car instead of waiting in his wheelchair. When we got to the hospital parking lot, I was so dizzy I couldn't find my car. I turned to tell him of my dilemma, only to see him vomiting in the bushes.

After we finished we looked at each other and doubled over with laughter. What a pair! When we found my car, we faced another dilemma. Who would drive? It may not be legal to drive 40 miles an hour on Interstate 10, the busiest freeway in America, but I did. When we got to his trailer, I lay on his bed and watched the room spin. Every few minutes Bryan staggered past on his bad knee to vomit in the bathroom. On his way back he stopped to see whether I was OK. What a friend!

One would think Bryan carries enough emotional and physical baggage without the haunting memory of his 164 confirmed kills (the total, he says, actually tops 200). In the night he finds them walking through his dreams. Forgiven, yes, but not forgotten. On Christmas Eve I asked God to show me a way to lighten Bryan's burden.

His answer was swift: Reassure him of his Daddy's love, His gift of salvation, His kindness and compassion.

The Mysteries of Grace
Christmas morning I handed Bryan a gift: a pillowcase in which I had put 164 tiny cutouts of his Silver Wings. On each I wrote, "I love you, My boy. [Signed] the King."

Then I wrote the same thing on the pillowcase with a magic marker and tied the tip with a ribbon. I asked him to carry this gift over his shoulder in place of the burden of guilt he had been toting around. He put the pillowcase on his pillow and sleeps on it. Once a day he takes out one wing and throws it away. Now this God's Boy sings hymns with me in the car and goes peacefully to sleep each night in his heavenly Father's arms.

But I've not spoken of the gift that God gave me in Bryan, who is a mirror image of myself. Through his experience I can see myself more clearly and thank God for the miracle of grace He has invested in me. Bryan's friendship has helped me perceive the magnitude of my Father's love. It reminds me that when one finds God, one becomes stronger, more courageous, and more childlike. Christians like Bryan are tough as a crocodile, yet possess the gifts of simplicity, self-forgetfulness, and confiding love. What kind of love is this!

It's not likely that we'll be sharing it for long. That is, not down here. But across the Jordan is Forever Land. No cancer there, no Wegener's, no chemo. Someday all our "whys" will be answered. Ellen White wrote: "Christ will lead His redeemed ones beside the river of life, and will explain . . . all that perplexed them in this world. The mysteries of grace will unfold before them. Where their finite minds discerned only confusion and broken purposes, they will see the most perfect and beautiful harmony" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 194).

_________________________
* See "Nobody's Boy," Adventist Review, January 2003.

_________________________
Grover Wilcox lives in southern California. Roland R. Hegstad lives in Maryland and edits Perspective Digest. This article is adapted from the book, Nobody's Boy, available from the Review and Herald Publishing Association.