The Heart and the Fist

Eric Greitens is the Founder and CEO of the Mission Continues - and friend of the Manion family, colleague of Travis, and essential partner in Honoring the Fallen by Challenging the Living through the Fellowship Program. 

His book, The Heart and the Fist, details his journey from the American heartland to Oxford, to refugee camps and orphanages across the globe, to his Navy SEAL training and battle for freedom in Iraq, and the inspiration he received from Travis, Tom, Janet, and Ryan Manion to challenge and inspire returning veterans.

We are honored to share a short passage from the beginning of his book:

The Heart and the Fist by Eric Greitens

We [Eric and Major Joel Poudrier] drove together to the Manion home in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where we met Colonel Tom Manion, Travis's father; Janet Manion, his mom; Ryan, Travis's sister; and Dave, Travis's brother-in-law.

Tom Manion told us how Travis had been welcomed home.  The roads were lined with people saluting or holding their hands over their hearts.  The American flag flew from the extended ladders of fire trucks, while police, neighbors, and friends formed a three-hundred-car procession to escort Travis's body from the church to the gravesite.  Tom told us that he had talked regularly with his son on the phone while Travis was deployed, and that they had made plans to run the Marine Corps Marathon together that fall.  Now he couldn't run with Travis.  "I was glad, though," he said, "that all of those people had come out to say, 'Welcome home, warrior, welcome home.'"

Later we pulled out a map of Fallujah and spread it flat on Colonel Manion's desk.  Joel was able to explain the details of Travis's death in Fallujah and the patrol Travis had been on that day.

"This is the industrial sector, here..."

We tried to give his dad as much information as we could about the work Travis had done in Iraq and the life he had lived there.  Travis's teammates had sent pictures of a ceremony they had performed to honor him in Iraq.  In the photographs, U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops gathered around a rifle pointed into the ground with boots on either side; Travis's helmut hung on the butt of the rifle.  Joel went through the pictures on at a time.  He explained who all the men were - Iraqis and Americans - who had been there to honor Travis.

"Sometimes their snipers set up here..."

As we sat for dinner on the porch with the entire family, Joel and I were both thinking, This is Travis's seat; he should be here.  Janet Manion brought food out and we passed it around the table.

"Travis had a group of Marines..."

Yet for all their suffering, Travis's family was not consumed by bitterness, or rage, or despair.  The Manions had lost their only son, yet they impressed me with their desire to honor Travis's life.

***

As Joel and I drove home, I thought about the connection between hot, brutal warfare in distant lands and the kind of community spirit we had seen both at the Manions' home and among many Iraqis in Fallujah.  I had seen it before in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and other places where courageous people found ways to live with compassion in the midst of tremendous hardship.  Across the globe, even in the world's "worst places," people found ways to turn pain into wisdom and suffering into strength.  They made their own actions, their very lives, into a memorial that honored the people they had lost.

On the frontlines - in humanitarian crises, in wars overseas, and around some kitchen tables here at home - I'd seen that peace is more than the absence of war, and that a good life entails more than the absence of suffering.  A good peace, a solid peace, a peace in which communities can flourish, can only be built when we ask ourselves and each other to be more than just good, and better than just strong.  And a good life, a meaningful life, a life in which we can enjoy the world and live with purpose, can only be built if we do more than live for ourselves.

On the drive, Joel and I decided we'd do something for the Manion family.  We would find a way to ensure that Travis's legacy - and the legacy of all those who served and sacrificed - would live on.

Learn more about the book here.