Kimberly Dozier Shares Her Faith Under Fire

Kimberly Dozier: "The more horrors I saw, the more my own Christian faith came to the fore"

BROOKLYN, NY (The Deacons Bench) - It's rare to find someone in the media talking candidly about their faith and spirituality. I was heartened, then, to discover this post about one of my CBS News colleagues, Kimberly Dozier:

"On Memorial Day 2006, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier and her crew were on patrol with the military in Iraq. A car bomb explosion killed cameraman Paul Douglas, soundman James Brolan, Army Captain Alex Funkhouser, and their Iraqi translator known only as Sam. Kimberly was critically injured herself.

She lost more than half her blood because the explosion smashed both her femurs, scorched her muscle and skin from hips to ankles, and lodged some shrapnel near her brain. Though she technically died five times after reaching the hospital, the medical teams were able to save her.

Kimberly endured a painful and grueling recovery, and now shares her story in the book "Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Report- and Survive - the War in Iraq." Here's an excerpt from my recent "Christopher Closeup" interview with Kimberly during which she discusses the spiritual side of her recovery.

TR: You write in the book about your own background as a Christian. You even considered being a member of the Episcopal clergy for a while. So I'm wondering - when you were recovering in the hospital, did you have any mental conversations with God about what happened or why?

Kimberly Dozier: Absolutely. It came down to, "What am I going to do with this? I've had this horrible tragedy happen. I'm still alive. Why'd you leave me here? Obviously I've got something else to do. What is it?" And yeah, you have the selfish response (that) you don't want the responsibility of this when you have lived and the people with you have not. Trying to turn that into something positive, trying to find the right words to say to the family members of those who've been lost - that's a burden I didn't want. It's a privilege I didn't want.

You're thankful and you are saddled with something you never thought you'd have to deal with. Someone explained to me once that grief is a gift, that going through something like this gives you lessons that you then have to pass on.

And that's been one of the hardest parts of this because, what I write about in the book, especially the first few months when I came back to work, so many people came up to me and wanted to talk about horrible things that they'd been through...For a while there, it just got (to be) too much. I couldn't handle it and I started skulking around back hallways at CBS because I didn't know how to help these people. That's part of the reason why I decided, "Okay, I'll write this darn book. I'll put it all out there."

TR: At one point in your book "Breathing the Fire," you write, "The more horrors I saw overseas, the more my own Christian faith came to the fore." Some people see suffering and violence, and it moves them away from God. Why did it move you more toward God?

Kimberly Dozier: "I guess I've never held God responsible for some of the horrors that I see. The things that we are able to do to each other either in the name of government, ideology or God - it is soul shaking.

But I guess you take refuge in your faith. You also see the positive things out there, the people who risk their lives to save someone else or risk their lives to protect a community. That restores your faith as much as the horrors you're seeing shake it..."

Visit the blog The Intersection for more. And a grateful h/t to the blogmeister, Tony Rossi, for sending this my way.

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The ever insightful, enjoyable and inspiring place for news about deacons, the Catholic Church, and various thoughts on the art of preaching by Deacon Greg Kandra. Used with permission.