I should have died.
On September 14, 2003, Colonel Chris "Elroy" Stricklin ejected from an F-16 outside the survivable envelope of the seat. His wife Terri heard he was dead before she heard he was alive. He locked the day in a vault and kept flying for thirteen years.
He came home.
For thirteen years he locked the day in a vault and kept flying. Then he opened it.
The Tomorrows I Almost Lost is what came next.
This book is for the veteran who hasn't slept through the night in years. For the first responder who walks into the rooms most people will spend their lives walking past. For the silent half of every uniform: the spouse who has watched someone drift and doesn't know how to ask them to come back, the parent who never speaks of a deployment, the child who learned to read the room before they learned to read books. For anyone whose nervous system still remembers a day the rest of the world forgot.
What this book offers is the right questions in the right order. The questions that walked one veteran out of his own slow sinking. The questions that brought a marriage back into the same conversation after thirteen years of silence. The questions that have helped hundreds of warriors, first responders, and their families begin the work of post-traumatic growth.
Chris Stricklin is a retired Air Force colonel, former Thunderbird pilot, and officer of Alabama Veteran. He and Terri spend mornings on the front porch in Alabama watching the sunrise on the tomorrows he almost did not live to see.
Inside this book: - The full story of the ejection and the long, quieter work of rebuilding that followed
- A framework for post-traumatic growth grounded in lived experience and current research
- Honest language about the silence between a warrior and the family carrying him
- Practical guidance for the spouse, parent, or friend who has watched someone they love drift and doesn't know how to ask them to come back
This book is for you if: - You wore the uniform and the uniform did not leave you when you took it off for the last time
- You love someone who came home but did not arrive
- You are a clinician, chaplain, peer mentor, or first responder working with trauma
- You believe pain can become purpose, but you are tired of being told how
Chris "Elroy" Stricklin is a retired United States Air Force Colonel, former Thunderbird demonstration pilot, and survivor of a non-survivable ejection. He works with veterans, first responders, and their families to translate post-traumatic growth from research into something usable on the worst day of someone's life.
All author profits donated to Warrior Retreat, an initiative of the Alabama Veteran Initiative. Yesterday shaped you. Today defines you. Tomorrow is yours to build. If you came to this book carrying something heavy, the author is not standing on the other side of your story holding a finish line. He is standing in the middle of his. Same road. Same weather.
If you need a hand, his is here.
