"Fearless"

After listening to Lone Survivor, I decided to listen to Fearless, another book about a courageous Navy SEAL. This book was written by Eric Blehm, and it was extremely well-researched and well-written. It's pretty clear from the subtitle of the book that Adam is no longer living, so I'm not spoiling the book by saying so. Several years back Adam made it clear to his family that IF the unthinkable happened and he lost his life in the war he wanted his story told. Not just the good parts about him being Navy SEAL and a family man, but also the not so redeeming details of his past which he called his "dark side."

Adam lost his way after high school and he started drinking and doing drugs. He lied to everyone close to him, stole from them and did whatever he had to do to get that next fix. Not only did he deal drugs, but he developed a powerful addiction to them. Adam said that the first time he did crack cocaine he was immediately addicted to it. This addiction had such a hold over him that he always felt powerful urges to go back to it, even after getting clean. Adam relapsed several times over the years, but did ultimately manage to pull things around for himself.

Adam was an extremely dedicated and determined person and if he really wanted something he would work as hard as was necessary to achieve his goal no matter what. When Adam decided to join the Navy and become a SEAL he never looked back and said that becoming a Navy SEAL was what saved his life after getting off drugs. He also found God and was very devout in his faith. This made me so happy because it seems like so often in this day and age people are ridiculed or scoffed at when they are religious.

An interesting note is that Navy SEAL team 6 was responsible for capturing and killing Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011. There's a good chance that Adam would have been involved in bin Laden's capture if he'd still been alive.

This is a picture of Adam, his amazingly sweet and supportive wife, Kelley and their kids Nathan and Savannah:

This is a picture of Adam taken when he was deployed in Afghanistan:

Adam loved kids. When the weather in Afghanistan turned cold it broke his heart to see the Afghani children walking around barefoot and/or in flip-flops. When his wife was making a care package to send him for Christmas Adam said that he didn't need anything and to just send shoes and socks. His wife sent 20 pairs and when the people at their church heard about it they wanted to contribute shoes, too. They collected more than 500 pairs and sent them to Adam who went door-to-door around the Afghani villages writing down the names/shoe sizes of the kids. When he'd receive another shipment of shoes he would deliver them to the Afghani children. Adam hoped that when these kids grew up they would remember him and the kindness of the Americans and that it would maybe help to heal some of the wounds that the war made on the people.

This is a picture of Adam's headstone at the cemetery where he is buried, and the heart-warming story behind it:

Adam was always kind to everyone. When he was in elementary school he saw a group of boys picking on a boy with Down Syndrome. Adam went over to the boys and told them that if they wanted to pick on someone they could pick on him and to leave the poor boy alone. Adam befriended the boy (I can't remember his name) and would give him a high-five when he saw him in the hall at school. When the boy (now a man) found out about Adam's death he broke down into tears. The man's father makes headstones for a living, so he made this beautiful monument for Adam since it was something he could do for Adam and his family to express his gratitude for Adam who was always so kind to his son.

Like Lone Survivor, Fearless was an amazing book (and it thankfully didn't have bad language in it like Lone Survivor did). :) It wasn't quite as fast-paced as Lone Survivor, but it was so uplifting and reading it just made you just feel good, even though it had a sad ending. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the book and even decided to buy a copy of it even though I bought the audio book version from iTunes. (I like to lend books to people and/or re-read books that I've really enjoyed.) I really can't say enough good things about Fearless and it definitely gets my stamp of approval! I can't wait to meet Adam Brown one day in the next life because he is truly an amazing man!

[On a sad note, there was a terrible accident on August 6, 2011 where a chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan after being hit by a rocket propelled grenade. Everyone on board died, including 17 Navy SEALs. Fearless's author, Eric Blehm, had spent countless hours interviewing 15 of these SEALs that belonged to SEAL team 6 since they were all friends of Adam's. There's a good chance that Adam would've been with them and that helicopter had he not died in combat the previous year. Ironically, these SEALs told Eric that they wanted to be sure and finish telling him about their experiences with Adam since they knew they were going to be deployed soon.]