EP 146 Searching for understanding and forgiveness with Robert Stark

In this one, Cody talks to Robert Stark. He’s a former army infantryman and the author of Warflower, a book about his upbringing in Alaska and his time in the military. His upbringing was a turbulent one — his dad was absent, his mom struggled with addiction, his brother spent time in prison and his step-dad is serving life in prison for murder. He says he was known as the kid with the family of degenerates — people who drank alcohol, did drugs, stole, and went to prison. Eventually, he found himself struggling with his own alcohol and drug problem. So, he joined the army to travel and to learn more about himself. It was a part of his life that altered his way of thinking and understanding of the world.

It’s been 20 years since he served in Iraq, and he says he’s still working through it. He talks about an experience when one of his fellow infantrymen shot and killed an Iraqi man under questionable circumstances. It was a moment that made him start questioning everything — what were they really fighting for, and how was this man’s act so much different than the one that put his step-dad in prison for life? There was so much to work through after finishing his military service — on top of his family history, he was now thinking about the fog of war. So, he found himself dissociating from his memories and isolating himself for days at a time, smoking weed and drinking. 

It took him years to step away from his substance abuse and to gain some clarity and accept the things he had seen and the things that he had done. He spent some time in India and Nepal doing yoga retreats and meditations. He would sit there and visualize the situations he struggled to understand — he would work through them as if he were the people acting them out and then he would embrace them with love and understanding of what led them to making the decisions they made. It’s a technique that helped him understand what he didn’t understand. 

Today, in times of personal crisis, he regains his equilibrium by going on walks on his property in Happy Valley, Alaska. Peaceful walks in the woods, among the trees and the birds and the mountains in the distance. He thinks of his wife and his daughters and the man he wants to be — loving, dependable and present.