56 Days, Surviving the Heaven's Gate Cult - Matthew Chubboy

56 Days, Surviving the Heaven's Gate Cult (eBook)

Matthew Chubboy (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
120 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-7176-7 (ISBN)

On March 26, 1997, Marshall Herff Applewhite completed his fiendish plot to take as many lives with him as possible through mass suicide. He and 38 members of his Heaven's Gate Cult were found dead in their Rancho Santa Fe home. This is the story of my journey into the darkness of the Heaven's Gate Cult and how God brought me out.

Matthew lives in Jackson, Missouri and is the Associate Pastor of Perry County United Pentecostal Church. While retired, he maintains several websites and provides digital services to various clients.

"e;Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."e; - Matthew 5:6 In October 1975, I was home on leave after graduating from Advanced Infantry Training at Ft Polk, Louisiana. My college buddy introduced me to the UFO group, and I asked them if I could be a member while in the army. I was told I would have to go AWOL if I wanted to be with the group. We were told to give them all our money, get a King James Version Bible, and separate ourselves from all worldly activities. We agreed to abstain from drugs, alcohol, and sex. I was all in, traveling with some people who believed as I did. Everything was going according to their plan except for one thing The group required us to get a King James Bible Red Letter Edition so that we could easily pick out the words of Jesus, and reading his words awakened my hungry heart.

*1*

In the Army Now

San Jose, CA, January 1975

I sleepily ambled into my parents’ kitchen. My dad sat stoically at the kitchen table. Nursing a cup of coffee, he peered at me over a pair of reading glasses. He wore a restrained expression I knew all too well. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I glanced around the kitchen. Dishes lay strewn about the floor in a mosaic of chipped porcelain. Every cabinet door had been flung open. I stopped at the edge of the table, my heart pounding.

Placing his coffee mug on the table, Dad calmly asked, “Did you make this mess?”

I examined the scene again, frantically trying to conjure any memory of the night before. I was vaguely aware of having met up with a friend. And I was almost positive that whiskey had been involved. But after that, I honestly drew a blank.

I stuttered, “Maybe it was a raccoon?”

My mistake became immediately apparent as my dad threw me a look of suppressed anger and said, “Now think carefully about what your next words are going to be. I’ll ask you one more time... Did you make this mess?”

I had no memory of trashing my parents’ kitchen, but it seemed my dad already knew the answer to his question. With no other recourse but to confess to my supposed crimes, I muttered, “Yes, sir.”

Dad swallowed hard, pinched the bridge of his nose, and inhaled deeply. “Matt, you are an undisciplined person. The only thing I can think of that would help you is for you to join the army.”

My dad had retired from the army as a lieutenant colonel before going into the aerospace industry. He graduated from Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania through the ROTC program. He held the speed record for the Huey Helicopter during his time as a test pilot. He had served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He had been invited to be an astronaut on the Mercury Space Program.

This man knew discipline.

As much as I hated to admit it, I felt relieved he was taking an interest in my future.

I pulled out a seat across from him, sat down, and replied, “Alright, I’ll join the army.”

Ft Polk, LA, September 1975

“YOU MAGGOTS WILL REMAIN IN FRONT-LEANING REST POSITION UNTIL I HAVE DECIDED WHAT TO DO WITH YOU!” Drill Sergeant Williams bellowed.

He was the biggest and toughest man I had ever known in my life. His ability to command engendered genuine respect. I could picture him in any battle situation, shouting orders while leading his unit to victory with a battle-calm presence.

He paced in front of our company.

I looked up at him from my front-leaning rest position. My arms were already feeling the strain from five minutes’ worth of holding still in the uppermost position of the push-up exercise. Several grunts could be heard in the ranks as Drill Sergeant Williams continued to pace back and forth.

He peered down his nose at us, “You will remain in the front-leaning rest position until I come back. Maybe at that time, I’ll know what to do with you maggots.”

As soon as Drill Sergeant Williams closed the door to the company barracks, a unanimous sigh of relief punctuated the silence as everybody collapsed onto the tarmac. We remained in that position for as long as we dared until we heard the familiar squeak of the screen door opening.

Once again, Drill Sergeant Williams paced in front of us. After a few more minutes, he finally commanded us to assume the parade rest position. We stood up, set our feet shoulder-width apart, and held our hands behind our backs.

“Now, I know that Wilson and Smith were not the only ones who flagged down that roach coach,” he barked.

At the mention of the roach coach, my mind shot back to earlier that morning...

During the morning formation, Drill Sergeant Lee instructed us on survival training. Afterward, we strapped on our gear and headed out to the field. We practiced path-finding and wilderness tactics until lunchtime. At lunch, we were instructed to take only one piece of chicken, a potato, and a tomato. Drill Sergeants Lee and Williams declared that this would also be our last meal until the following morning. We finished out the day’s training and returned to the barracks. Drill Sergeant Williams chose a weapons cleaning detail and dismissed the troops. I watched as the detail marched off to the ammo depot before the rest of us went into the barracks to prepare for the next day.

After about thirty minutes of hubbub in the barracks, the familiar sound of the roach coach horn in the parking lot brought a dozen GIs to the front door, salivating like Pavlov’s dog. Someone in the group groaned and muttered, “Oh man, why should we have to wait until tomorrow to eat?”

Jackson, a tall bulky guy with a penchant for cigars and booze, proclaimed, “Man, I’m so hungry I could eat a cow!” He turned to me and asked, “Hey, Chubboy, would you run out to the roach coach for me?”

At that point, I distinctly remembered the words of Drill Sergeant Williams: “I’m taking these men to the ammo depot, and we will be back in two hours. In the meantime, all of you are in survival training. Do NOT flag down the roach coach.”

We all knew that Jackson liked to rebel. We joked that he joined the army just so he could continuously defy authority. It was a miracle he hadn’t been kicked out of the army yet. I turned to Jackson and warily replied, “We’re not supposed to go to the roach coach.”

“Don’t be such a square, Chubboy! I’ll be eating it. I’m the one that’ll get in trouble. I’d go myself but it’ll take too long for me to put clothes and shoes on,” he whined, gesturing to the towel wrapped around his waist.

Unable to refuse, I begrudgingly mumbled, “Alright.” I grabbed his money and ran to the roach coach. While waiting for Jackson’s steak sandwich, I glanced cautiously around the parking lot, my mouth watering at the delectable aroma of sizzling meat. Several others from our company had followed suit, barreling into each other as they raced to get to the front of the line. I was only there for Jackson, but the temptation to get something for myself was overwhelming. Despite this, I wanted to do the training exercise as instructed. So, as quickly as I could manage, I dashed back to the barracks.

It seemed like only minutes before we were summoned to a company formation. We found Wilson and Smith in the front-leaning rest position with Drill Sergeants Lee and Williams towering over them. “I want the rest of you maggots in front-leaning rest position right now!”

I was drawn back to the present as Drill Sergeant Lee declared, “We know that Wilson and Smith were not the only ones to buy something off the roach coach.”

“Every one of you that went to the roach coach, step forward,” Drill Sergeant Williams ordered.

It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Nobody moved. Drill Sergeant Williams stepped forward and repeated, “I said, Wilson and Smith are not the only ones guilty. The rest of you step forward right now.”

Even though I didn’t get anything for myself I knew that I was complicit in the crime, so I stepped forward first, joining Wilson and Smith. After a brief hesitation, Jackson and twenty more men joined us. Drill Sergeant Williams dismissed the rest of the company and commanded us to stand at attention. As we stood at attention, Drill Sergeants Williams and Lee went into the company barracks. After thirty minutes, they returned and informed us that we would be attending a disciplinary event on Saturday, known as, “The School of the Soldier.”

Saturday morning at 0700 hours, we were all at formation with full field gear. Not knowing what events were ahead of us that day, I felt a sense of dread. As we marched from our company headquarters to the obstacle course, Jackson whispered to me, “Did you hear about Olson in Company A?”

I shook my head no.

He continued, “He died yesterday on an eight-mile march—from heatstroke.”

“Wow,” I whispered back, practically speechless. We never imagined that any of us would die from something as mundane as heatstroke during a simple eight-mile march. What was the sense in that? How would Olson’s family come to terms with such a pointless death? An image of my younger brother Rob interrupted my train of thought.

“Matt! Get up, get up!”

I groaned as I rolled over in bed. My sister Monique stood panting in the doorway, her eyes darting wildly about the room.

Still waking up, I groggily mumbled, “Wha—?”

Through panicked sobs, she shouted, “Rob’s been hit by a truck! We’re all going to the hospital!”

As she darted back out of the room, I sat up in bed. Rob, our youngest brother, had been hit by a truck? I couldn’t believe it. In shock, I mechanically dressed and walked out to the garage. In a hurried haze of activity, Mom ushered us all into the car and drove to the hospital.

Once inside, we were led to a separate waiting room for family members. After a short while, a priest came to visit us. I didn’t understand what good a priest would be in such a situation and his...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	13.8.2024
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
ISBN-13	979-8-3509-7176-7 / 9798350971767

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