|
AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy (AFNS) -- As the proud owner of three
master's degrees and a doctorate, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) John Tillery
has dedicated his life to service in the U.S. Air Force. While it
may seem that those who have attained a doctorate are among the
ranks of the elite and the privileged, Tillery has proven an
exception to that rule.
|
Chaplain (Lt. Col.) John Tillery, reads the Bible in a pew May 15, 2013 Aviano Air Base, Italy. Once Tillery learned to read in the third grade, he was able to use reading as an escape from his violent home life. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Katherine Tereyama)
|
|
"People would think that with my educational background that I
had been groomed for that," he said. "In fact, nothing could be
further from the truth."
Growing up in a violent and chaotic
home, education was not something he was given the opportunity to
succeed in at a young age. Throughout Tillery's childhood, his young
mother struggled to raise him and his brothers, often with the help
of violent men.
"I've been tied up, I've been beaten, I've
been burned with cigarettes," Tillery said with pain and difficulty.
"One (of my mom's boyfriends) was particularly violent. He would use
a cattle prod just to watch us jerk around."
A cattle prod
is meant to usher animals with jolts of electricity, but the man
used the prod to shock the feet of Tillery and his brothers while
they slept.
"To this day, I can't sleep with my feet
uncovered," Tillery said.
The man would seek the boys out to
punish them, he continued.
"We would all scatter like mice,"
Tillery added.
The violence in the house was so overwhelming
that at times, Tillery would seek out even the darkest of places in
order to escape the brutality.
"There was this little place I would go, built into the wall
there was a little door, it was our dirty clothes hamper," Tillery
said. "You know that man never looked there? Not once. It was a
perfect little hiding place for me. When I hid there he never found
me -- ever. It was a place that was safe."
|
Because of the chaos in his home life, Tillery moved to
two or three different schools every year and didn't learn
how to read until the third grade. Even then, he was placed
into the lowest reading group in his class because he was
still working at a kindergarten level.
"I don't have
a single memory of my mom, or any adult, helping me with my
homework," he said. "When I went into the second grade, I
didn't even know my alphabet."
Despite the challenges he faced during his
childhood, Tillery was able to regain hope for his future
through the help of his teacher in third grade.
"I
had never heard, 'good job,' I had never heard, 'good boy,'"
Tillery said. "I had never heard 'you can do it, try harder,
I'm with you.' Those are words I had never heard. And so, in
addition to those words, the most important thing she gave
me was a smile."
With the support of his teacher, he
moved up to the best reading group and became one of the
strongest readers in his class during the four months he was
at that school, Tillery said.
The violence and
upheaval continued throughout his childhood and into his
teens, but thanks to his teacher, he now had a place to
retreat to during difficult times, when he couldn't escape
to his hiding place in the wall.
"What I found was
that when I was around (my mom's boyfriend) or any number of
men that would come in and out of my mom's life, that hiding
place was not always there for me," Tillery said. "What I
discovered when I began to learn how to read was that I
could go anywhere -- I could go to Greece, I could go to
Rome, I could go to outer space, I could go to the old West
-- it didn't matter.
"One of the fixed features of
our home was fear," Tillery said. "With reading, I could go
to a safe place in my own mind. For me, reading is not just
a pastime and it's not merely an escape either. It puts me
in a place where all is right with the world, no matter what
is going on around me."
Because of his upbringing,
Tillery said he was fearful he would also grow into a cruel
man like the ones he had known all his life.
"All
growing up, I knew I was going to end up in prison, I knew I
was going to become drug addled, and I knew I was going to
do some kind of violent thing," he said. "But I remember
very clearly deciding when I was 11 years old that I would
not be a violent man."
When Tillery was 15, his
philosophy was put to the ultimate test.
"My
stepfather got a branch -- not a switch, a branch -- and he
beat my younger brother and (me)," he said. "We were
literally bloodied on the floor. My older brother went to
get the gun and threatened to kill (my stepfather) if he was
there when he got back."
After that, Tillery and his
brothers left home. His older brother joined the Army and
Tillery went to live with his girlfriend's family and soon
after had a child and was married. Shortly after his
daughter was born, Tillery's wife left him, and he was left
homeless and impoverished at the age of 17.
"During
the draft, Jan. 11, 1972, I joined the Army," Tillery said.
"I wanted to go to Vietnam because, as far as I was
concerned, there was nothing worse than what I was already
going through."
Even though Tillery had never
attended high school or even earned his GED diploma, he was
selected to be a Russian linguist. However, during his first
several months in training, he drank heavily and was
considered to be unreliable. He was booted out of the
program and moved to the artillery career field.
While in the unit, Tillery began to turn his life around. He
stopped drinking, made friends and began attending church.
"I didn't believe in God, I had no reason to," Tillery
recalled about his childhood. "If there was a God, he
wouldn't allow to happen to people what I saw happen."
Though Tillery was a committed atheist at the time, his
friend Myron began bringing him to church on Sundays.
"He was a person of faith, but he didn't push it on me
ever. On Sundays, he would leave for church and he would say
in the morning 'I'm leavin' and I ain't coming back to pick
you up. If you wanna go, you go with me now,'" Tillery said,
laughing at the memory. "Sometimes I would resist, but the
fun was always worth the pain of going to church."
"I
came to believe in God," Tillery said. "I began to gain a
larger, greater sense of purpose and hope and meaning, and
most importantly, forgiveness. I was able to forgive others,
and ultimately, I was able to forgive myself."
As he
internalized the lessons he was learning, he began to feel
compelled to join the ministry. He had never understood the
value of chaplains until visited one for grief counseling
after a shooting death in his unit.
"It was then
that I realized you don't have to carry a weapon to be a
warrior," Tillery said. "That's something you carry in your
heart, not in your hands."
He once again found
solace in reading, this time in the Bible, a book that he
had always disdained in the past.
"I have read the
Bible numerous times, I have learned Hebrew and I have
learned Greek," Tillery said. "I love all of the wealth that
goes behind that, that's underneath that. The Bible gets
embedded in your heart in such a way that it controls your
life, so that you do the right thing as a way of existing,
as a way of being. It's my guide."
After his
enlistment in the Army was over, the boy who had never
stepped foot in a high school earned an associate's degree,
a bachelor's degree, three masters' degrees and a doctorate
-- and joined the Air Force's Chaplain Corps. He has since
risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel and has spent 17
years serving his country as a chaplain.
When his
time in the Air Force is over, Tillery said he plans to
become a teacher.
"I find that ironic," Tillery said
with a smile. "A boy who literally could not read wants to
teach others to read not just words, but life."
By USAF Staff Sgt. Katherine Tereyama
Air Force News Service
Copyright 2013
Comment on this article |
