'Journal for Jordan' passes on NCO's legacy to son

By J.D. LeipoldFebruary 23, 2009

The Angel
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Canedy, King, Jordan
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King & Jordan
3 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Home from Iraq during mid-tour, 1st Sgt. Charles Munroe King was able to spend just two weeks with his newborn son Jordan. King was killed by an IED in Iraq Oct. 14, 2006, a month before he was due home. During his deployment King wrote a journal to ... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Feb. 24, 2009) Aca,!" Dana Canedy was determined when she went off to the University of Kentucky to put the life of an Army brat behind her.

Dana had plans that didnAca,!a,,ct include the Army as part of her future life. She just wanted out and away from the lifestyle her tough drill sergeant father had imposed on her and her siblings. She only knew the future would not include a military man -- that was a promise to self.

Driven, tough and fiercely independent, like her father, Dana finished a degree in journalism and launched herself into a newspaper career that first took her to Cleveland and eventually to New York where she wrote for The Wall Street Journal. In 1996 she joined the New York Times staff as an editor.

Dana never intended to write a best-selling book about a Soldier that she fell in love with, let alone share with the public messages to their son.

Romance begins

On FatherAca,!a,,cs Day 1998 while on a rare visit to her parents in Radcliff, Ky., just outside Fort Knox, Dana was introduced to a tall, muscular, soft-spoken, polite man who happened to be a career Soldier and former drill sergeant as her father had been.

It turned out 1st Sgt. Charles Munroe King was also a gifted and trained artist who had paintings of Soldiers heAca,!a,,cd drawn on display at a post exhibit. He had dropped by to present a gift of several portraits heAca,!a,,cd done of DanaAca,!a,,cs father beside a tank and with one of the units he had trained.

The editor and the sergeant started to talk. She was struck by the shy man who she quickly summed up as the kind of man who wouldnAca,!a,,ct open up to a stranger without prodding, so she took her reporter skills to task and gradually coaxed him into telling her about himself. She was curious and interested in whom this shy Soldier really was deep down. Still, she couldnAca,!a,,ct help but remember the promise that sheAca,!a,,cd never get involved with a military man.

Their relationship moved forward but not without problems along the way, differences in lifestyles, differences in the people each associated with Aca,!" she the big city, big time Pulitzer Prize-winning, Manhattan-dwelling editor; he the consummate professional Soldier, moving wherever the Army dictated he go, placing duty and his charges first and foremost.

Eight years passed and in that time the Twin Towers fell to terrorists, Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, the second Iraq war began and the inevitable happened Aca,!" Charles received orders to Iraq where he would be the senior non-commissioned officer responsible for the welfare of more than 100 mostly just-out-of-high school Soldiers.

Then the 39-year-old editor and the 47-year-old NCO really started to talk Aca,!" marriage and children. As she recalled she felt her biological clock ticking and wanted to be pregnant before Charles deployed. Recalling the news at being pregnant, she said she got her wish in a weekend of passion. She was going to have a boy. The wedding would wait until June 9, 2007, the day between both their birthdays

Shortly before Charles left for Iraq a pregnant Dana went shopping for a friend and found a journal that she bought for Charles. She thought while he was deployed he might write a few messages to the baby and then if something happened to him his unborn son Jordan would see his fatherAca,!a,,cs handwriting and perhaps a message that said Aca,!A"I love you.Aca,!A?

First sergeantAca,!a,,cs journal to son

Aca,!A"Charles became consumed with his journal, absolutely consumed and after his missions he would write well into the night,Aca,!A? she told an audience at a Pentagon observance of African-American History Month Feb. 18. Aca,!A"He told Jordan everything he could think of to tell him that he would need to know to be a man if he didnAca,!a,,ct make it back.

Aca,!A"He told him that it was okay for boys to cry. He told him his favorite Bible verses and about the power of prayer. He told him how to choose a wife and what qualities to look for in a woman,Aca,!A? Dana said. Aca,!A"He wrote more than 200 pages. The interesting thing about his journal is there are themes that emerge that I donAca,!a,,ct think were intentional because I donAca,!a,,ct think Charles realized he was writing about certain things repeatedly.Aca,!A?

Dana said he wrote about the power of prayer and how he turned to it in good times and in bad. He wrote about the tremendous respect he had for women and what he expects of Jordan in terms of how to treat women and the third theme that came through was an utter pride and devotion to military service.

Aca,!A"For him this war was not about Aca,!Eoeweapons of mass destructionAca,!a,,c or an Aca,!Eoeaxis of evilAca,!a,,c. I never heard him speak those words,Aca,!A? she said. Aca,!A"It was about the Soldiers he trained and trained with, about taking them, leading them to a foreign land, a dangerous land and bringing them back home safely. He dedicated his life to that.Aca,!A?

Just how dedicated Charles was to his Soldiers became clear when he told Dana in a phone call that he couldnAca,!a,,ct take leave to come home for the birth of their child.

Dedication to his Soldiers

Aca,!A"Dana, I donAca,!a,,ct think you understand the first sergeantAca,!a,,cs job,Aca,!A? he had told her. Aca,!A"IAca,!a,,cm responsible for a whole company of men, most of them real young. TheyAca,!a,,cre just adjusting to being in combat. I couldnAca,!a,,ct forgive myself if one of them got injured or killed while I was gone.Aca,!A?

Aca,!A"We had a pretty big fight,Aca,!A? Dana recalled. Once she accepted that Charles wasnAca,!a,,ct going to be part of the birth she warmed to the idea of celebrating the babyAca,!a,,cs birth in the company of three women she knew closely who would always love and protect their son.

In his journal Charles reflects in his block letter style why he wasnAca,!a,,ct present for his sonAca,!a,,cs birth and hits on one of his themes, that of the profound respect he has for the women who are in his sonAca,!a,,cs life and what kind of woman should be in JordanAca,!a,,cs future she said.

Aca,!A"I could not be at your birth because of the war but you were surrounded by strong women when you were born,Aca,!A? Charles wrote. Aca,!A"All of these women embody the reasons you should never ever disrespect or lay your hand against a woman. Remember who taught you to speak, to walk and to be a gentleman. These are your first teachers my little prince. Protect them, embrace them and always treat them like a queen. Women with outward beauty are a dime a dozen, but being with a woman with these qualities of loyalty, trust and caring for who you really are will have a lot more meaningAca,!A|Aca,!A?

The first sergeant did return home for two weeks at mid-deployment and continued to write in his journal. Dana remembered he didnAca,!a,,ct get much sleep because he was either holding tiny Jordan while dancing around the living room or he was standing by his infantAca,!a,,cs crib watching him sleep.

Charles returned to Iraq to start the second half of his tour. Then on Oct. 14, 2006, one month before he was slated to return home, he and two of his Soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device that detonated under their Humvee while in convoy outside of Baghdad. Son Jordan was 6 months old.

Dana pens Aca,!EoeA Journal for JordanAca,!a,,c

When Dana received word on the death of her fiancAfA she sank into a deep grief, had trouble facing work and savoring life the way she had when Charles had been alive.

Aca,!A"I had anger, pain, denial, but I had to do something with my grief though what I really wanted to do was just stay in bed,Aca,!A? Dana said. Aca,!A"I had to do something positive for myself and for my son.

Aca,!A"My start in terms of healing was to write, it was the only thing I could think of to do so I decided to write a memoir, a Journal for Jordan,Aca,!A? she said. Aca,!A"Jordan doesnAca,!a,,ct realize heAca,!a,,cs the Aca,!EoeJordanAca,!a,,c behind Aca,!EoeA Journal to Jordan.Aca,!a,,cAca,!A?

Today DanaAca,!a,,cs dilemma is when to give him the book she wrote which is intended for a young man and when to give him the journal itself which is meant for him to grow with.

Aca,!A"There are parts of the journal written for a boy; parts for a young man and parts for a man whoAca,!a,,cs about to get married,Aca,!A? she said. Aca,!A"And, so it will mean different things to him at different points in his life.Aca,!A?

Initially, she thought about writing the book just for her son but she went to her editors and said she wanted to put a face and name on the war and personalize for people, she just wasnAca,!a,,ct sure she could do it emotionally.

Aca,!A"A lot of my colleagues at the paper said, Aca,!Eoewe donAca,!a,,ct know anybody in the militaryAca,!A| we havenAca,!a,,ct met Soldiers so writing a book would personalize for us too,Aca,!a,,cAca,!A? she recalled her fellow workers saying. Aca,!A"I was put in charge of assigning stories to a beat called, Aca,!EoeThe War at Home. I worked with reporters to develop stories about the domestic impact of the war on military families and while our paper and others donAca,!a,,ct always get it right, IAca,!a,,cm trying to do my part to make sure Soldiers are portrayed in a positive light.Aca,!A?

Dana took CharlesAca,!a,,c entries and expanded on them, literally writing a book to her son in which every chapter starts, Aca,!A"Dear Jordan.Aca,!A?

Aca,!A"ThereAca,!a,,cs nothing that will keep you more honest, humble and authentic than writing to your child,Aca,!A? she said.

Private versus public

She knew if the book was to be honest, it had to be thorough, which meant she would have to expose much of the private side of her life and make it public, something she wasnAca,!a,,ct accustomed to as a journalist whose acclaim was usually limited to a faceless news story by-line. She also didnAca,!a,,ct want to write a fairy tale because, Aca,!A"families arenAca,!a,,ct fairy tales and the military family is not a fairy tale and our family wasnAca,!a,,ct.Aca,!A?

Aca,!A"I thought if I have to give up my privacy and share my life in order to honor this man, and so that people will understand the sacrifices military men and women make every day in this country and in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places, most of them without books or movies ever being written about them, then I would,Aca,!A? she said. Aca,!A"WeAca,!a,,cre just one family. ThereAca,!a,,cs nothing really special about us except that IAca,!a,,cm a writer and I was able to tell our story by writing it for my son.

Aca,!A"I wanted the book to be a way for Jordan to better understand his parents, but also so that anybody who would care to read it who didnAca,!a,,ct know military personnel would have a better understanding of the sacrifices that Soldiers and their spouses make in this country every day,Aca,!A?

Dana said.

Dana said she didnAca,!a,,ct expect Aca,!A"A Journal for JordanAca,!A? to become a best seller nor did she expect Hollywood to express an interest in telling her story. Actor Denzel Washington and Columbia Pictures have bought the movie rights but Dana will be a consultant with full script rights.

Today she said people are sharing the book with their sons and daughters. There are fathers who buy it who say they want to communicate better with their children and are writing journals. There are spouses of Soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan who thank her at book-signings and there was an e-mail from a Soldier who said the book helped him cope with the loss of a battle buddy.

While there are times, Dana said when the loss of Charles still makes her depressed, she works through the sadness, then focuses on the positive. That positive, she said, is that Jordan will always be able to hear his father speak directly to him for the rest of his life and that the wisdom Charles shared with his son can be shared universally.

Related Links:

A Journal for Jordan

Video: 'A Journal for Jordan'