Veteran Says Joining Church Was Meant to Be
The last thing he remembers was eating chicken teriyaki.
It was also the last thing Feldbusch saw.
Two rounds of enemy artillery landed within 10 meters of his squad, sending shrapnel into Feldbusch’s face and head, resulting in blindness in both eyes and traumatic brain injury. Medical professionals expected the soldier, then 23, to die. The best case scenario was, if he lived, he would never speak or understand again.
Yet Feldbusch defied the odds and continues to amaze and inspire people.
“The fact that he is walking and talking and is as articulate and intelligent as he is, is truly a miracle,” said Elaine Scherer, pastoral associate at SS. Simon and Jude Parish in Blairsville. “Feldbusch is a walking miracle.”
Now, 30, Feldbusch is a candidate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at the parish, in the Greensburg Diocese, was set to enter the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, seven years to the day after his accident.
In the diocese, 163 people have gone through the catechumenate process and were to join the church at Easter, like thousands of others across the country.
Feldbusch chose the confirmation name of Philip, after the patron saint of special forces, St. Philip Neri.
He received a bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2001 before enlisting in the Army. He served one tour in Iraq. He now lives with his parents, Brace and Charlene Feldbusch, and his dog, Maggie, in Blairsville.
Within 10 days of his injury, Feldbusch was transported to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. He was in an induced coma for six weeks, kept alive with a ventilator. He dropped from 225 pounds to 150.
“I went and prayed all the time in the hospital chapel,” his mother said, noting the tremendous support she received from family, friends and hospital priests.
Hospital staff unsuccessfully tried to remove Feldbusch’s ventilator five times; each time he had to be resuscitated. On the sixth attempt, Feldbusch awoke, but the prognosis was grim.
“Why did God take my eyesight?” Feldbusch asked his father from the intensive care unit, Charlene Feldbusch said.
His father encouraged him to ask a different question: “Why did God let you live?”
Feldbusch said what eventually evolved was a shift in his purpose—and a belief that things happened for a reason.
“The pen is mightier than the sword,” Feldbusch told The Catholic Accent, Greensburg diocesan newspaper. “I put down that sword, and I was supposed to go do things another way, with the graces God gives me.”
He resolved to find a way to spend his life helping other wounded service members.
He returned home in June 2003 and spent nine months in daily rehabilitation and several months in a wheelchair. He continues to learn Braille and how to walk with a cane.
Feldbusch and his parents are three of the 26 co-founders of the Wounded Warriors project, which raises awareness and enlists public aid for the needs of severely injured service men and women. Feldbusch does speaking engagements, makes hospital visits and provides emotional support for veterans and their families. He became the project’s national spokesman in 2004.
Although Feldbusch was baptized as a Methodist in 1980, he said that, over the years, he frequently attended Mass at SS. Simon and Jude Church with relatives. He had been thinking about coming into the church for 20 years and began the RCIA process at the parish in September 2009.
Nick Dorsch, a member of Mother of Sorrows Parish in Murrysville, is Feldbusch’s sponsor.
“Feldbusch helped teach me a lot of different things without even knowing it,” he said, noting that Feldbusch never takes life, friendships or what he has for granted, the way people sometimes do.
He said Feldbusch inspires him by the fullness with which he observes and takes everything in. His journey to becoming Catholic is no exception, Dorsch added.
Feldbusch said he looked forward to being confirmed as a Catholic, continuing to learn about the faith and “being able to participate with every Mass in the holy meal—that just being the essence of what was given to us by Christ.”
“My vision has gotten so much more perfect than it ever was when I could see,” Feldbusch said. “It’s not about what you see on the outside. It’s what’s on the inside.”
He sees his journey into the Catholic Church as part of God’s providence.
“It was already written a long time ago,” Feldbusch said. “It was supposed to happen this way.”
