Posted on 01/02/2015 6:18:35 AM PST by wagglebee
Four years ago, I was going through life like I had it all figured out — perfect family, perfect job, perfect home. Our proud military family was living the American dream — we had it all. On December 21, 2010 — the darkest day of the year, everything changed for us as a family. Little did we know our lives were forever transformed or what that ill-lighted date would come to represent.
Mother’s Day 2011 — the memory of that day is so surreal. It is the day I found out our 14 year old daughter Pyper had been raped by an 18 year old soldier and was pregnant as a result. There was no going back to our perfect life, and this would be the first of many painful days for our family.
Our family has experienced too many low points over the past four years to count. For me, the hardest is a reoccurring nightmare which happens around the same time every year in December. Invariably, over the past three years, instead of making holiday plans, we found ourselves reacting to or reeling from some event resultant from that day in December, 2010.
As 2012 progressed, the fight to right Pyper’s wrong intensified. In December, 2012, we were facing one of the most daunting tasks of our lives. No one could have prepared us for the horrors of what we were about to endure, which included a defense attorney suggesting to our daughter that she wasn’t really raped because she failed to abort. We spent the week preceding December 21st sitting in a military courtroom half-way across the country praying that our ordeal would end. It didn’t. What prosecutors told us should have been a slum-dunk case involving not only forcible rape, but strict liability statutory rape, inexplicably ended in a 3-3 hung jury. In the military, this means the rapist is acquitted. On the 21st — that same dark date, we found ourselves packed inside a minivan, in shock and disbelief, driving a thousand miles to get back home.
Our situation was about to get worse, as our grandson Noah was in danger. In response to our daughter pressing charges, the rapist’s attorney had filed for custody. We’d been warned that this was a common strategy, and with the failure to obtain justice in the criminal trial, the stage had been set for a bitter custody battle in civil court.
Over the next twelve months, we were hit with a deluge of court documents and besieged by harassment and threats. Each day brought a new fear — the distress was consuming, but as our days grew darker, our resolve grew stronger. There was no way we were going to give up! December, 2013 found us sitting in a different courtroom, in a different town, over the same dark days as the past three years. This time it wasn’t about right and wrong — we were fighting for our very lives; we were fighting for Noah. Expending every fiber of our being, down to our last breath, we battled for our precious little boy. This time, the outcome would be different.
On the day the court’s decision came in, we didn’t celebrate. Instead, we passed the day in reverent silence with just a few calls to the family and friends who remained. The freedom from our tormentors was final in March, 2014, and we slowly began to regain some of what we lost; to find our new normal.
As December, 2014 clicks by, we still find ourselves looking over our shoulders, watching and waiting; paying close attention to what is happening around us. Our enemy is silent, but we remain vigilant; ready to fight hell itself to protect our “hand-picked” angel. We have our little Noah — our gift, our daughter’s beauty from the ashes.
My husband has this to offer, “There is nothing that can sufficiently prepare you for the trials you face. Although there are many horrible things that could happen, the present conflict is always the worst. What happened yesterday is past, tomorrow is not here, focus on today and no matter what you are up against, keep pressing forward. As a parent or grandparent, you have to stay strong and fight with an unbridled tenacity because at the end of the day, next to God, your family is all that matters.”
It has been by God’s mercy and grace alone that we are where we are. He has taken an act of iniquity and turned it into an act of goodness to bring glory to His name. Our grandson is the ark that carried our family through our darkest days. He has been and is the light in the darkness; the anchor given to us by God to hold us firm in our faith.
Amen!
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Our legal system is so messed up, particularly with regards to children and minors. It is used by the guilty to persecute the innocent, with the full complicity of the judges.
Liberal logic at its finest.
Prayers to you and your family!
Comments:
She lived up to her principles.
As a former JAG officer, I can attest the military does not take rape seriously. if you are not beaten within an inch of your life you weren’t’ raped or you are gay for complaining about it. (Like being gay negates the rape.)
Yes, her enemy was always there, you just didn’t know it.
Be vigilant.
I am so impressed with the amount of strength displayed by this family. May God continue to give them strength.
“Our legal system is so messed up”.....
While I agree with that statement, the “Uniform Code of Military Justice” is almost worse.
Liberal logic at its finest.
Yes, lets compound the tragic and criminal conduct by killing the innocent result, who wouldn’t be able to voice an opinion. Ask the question after twenty years of life and see what the answer to the question might then be.
I totally agree with their decisions and in keeping the baby, abortion is always wrong. Let god decide if the baby lives or dies.
However, and I have three daughters and serve in the DoD so I think of this constantly, how did the 18 year old soldier get private access to the 14 year old girl?
I never leave my children, at any age, without adult supervision which I have vetted. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, basketball camp, church camp, Teen Extreme night at the bowling alley, etc. If I or my spouse cannot personally serve as a chaperone, or I really know the people who are serving as chaperones, then the whole thing is a No Go. I get grief from my kids, but stories like this reinforce my reasoning.
Story told of a woman complaining to Napoleon about being
raped by one of his officers
He called for his sword. Gave it to the woman and held the
sheath
Told her to try to sheath the sword. While she tried he would
move the sheath preventing her from sheathing the sword......
Here's some additional media coverage from out-of-town media elsewhere in Missouri: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/local/case-turns-on-statutory-gap/article_3e8eb96c-d779-11e2-92df-10604b9f6eda.html
Your logic is flawed. It works both ways. Why punish a rape victim with forced pregnancy, pregnancy she didn’t ask for and likely cannot financially support.
Support the male pill if you don’t like abortion. The male pill will reduce abortion almost completely. It will almost eliminate single motherhood, cash flow sex and financial extortion, and reduce welfare. Imagine the loss of power of progressive politicians without abortion as a rally cry. There is already a push to get the plant the pill is based on imported into the US before manginas, feiminists, politicians, and pharma lobbiests have it banned. Men’s rights groups are already having the seeds sent to members in western nations. This one pill will create a social revolution and put a knife in the heart of progressivism.
FYI, Mark Prugh is a member of the Pulaski County Democratic Central Committee and chairman of the Pulaski County Democratic Club. He's also a retired Army JAG officer and a West Point graduate who started his career in the infantry before deciding to go to law school.
I get the point that even the worst criminals deserve the right to an attorney. As conservatives we need to follow the Constitution and the right to an attorney is settled law. Mark knows his stuff, and as a retired JAG officer who has done serious hard-core stuff before transferring to JAG, he knows how to put on a good defense for his clients in a court-martial. Under the American system of justice, we need to respect the verdict of the military court to acquit this soldier via a 3-3 split jury decision.
That means the legal issue is settled. But cases like this can hurt lawyers later on when they run for office and have to explain why they defended certain types of clients. This is going into my files for possible future reference.
A woman who is about to be raped should first check that her rapist is on the male pill?
An airline pilot made the most astounding statement .. and it has never left me.
We were in the midst of a terrible storm .. clouds so dark .. up/down drafts .. it was very frightening.
I was calm and just prayed .. I was convinced God did not supply me with airline tickets just to have the plane crash.
As we were landing in Oklahoma City (and were finally out of the storm) the pilot made this dramatic statement - “My apologizes for the rough flight, he said, this storm came up out of nowhere. We didn’t even see it coming.”
If we always keep in mind; “... the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that you might have life and that abundantly.”
Sometimes the storms of life are not on our timetable .. they just seem to come out of nowhere .. but the true test is how we handle the storm.
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