Faith to Faith: A Warrior Story of Resilience, Faith, and Redemption

Many people believe that resilience is something a person is born with. One either has it or they don’t. While that may ring true for some, I believe that resilience can be created. When we choose to take control of our traumas, we develop the ability to harness them and use them as fuel to propel our lives toward greatness. Before you turn the page and journey deeper into my life and how I became the person I am today, I want to take you to a pivotal moment in my life. You see, if it were not for this moment, you may not be reading this book today. This moment was the morning of April 7, 2018… the end of my career.

After 35 years of service, I was finally retiring. This may not seem like much to some, but for me, I had done the impossible. You need to understand something very important about why this moment was so crucial for me. At the time of my retirement, I had attained the highest possible rank as a noncommissioned officer within the organization. I retired as the State Command Sergeant Major for the Georgia Army National Guard. I was also the Senior Enlisted leader of the Georgia Department of Defense. What’s most shocking about this? All the labels’ scholars and medical psychologists have said are certain failures that one cannot overcome are not facts, just opinions that I’m sharing that you can overcome.

Writing this book in the year 2025, many people would not be impressed by this at all. However, the further you delve into this book, the more clarity you will have. Several obstacles stood in the way of my reaching this moment, and my blackness was one of them. Growing up in the rural South, I experienced the family structure and culture of the time.

Understand, you will get all the details of these factors in my life and their impact as I share my journey. For now, let’s focus on the turning point. I would love to paint a beautiful picture for you about this moment, as if it were some Denzel Washington “tears-of-triumph” moment like in the film, Antoine Fisher.

When the day finally arrived for me to take off the uniform and start a new chapter, I felt a mixture of contentment and relief wash over me. As I sat in the front row of my retirement ceremony, I listened as my colleagues, superiors, friends, and family filled the room with praises of my accomplishments and memories that shaped my career. There I was at the end of what many would consider to be a successful career, and my mind couldn’t help but wander to the beginning.