Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander

I knew God would help me through it. I was working in the offices at Howard Brothers Discount Stores in West Monroe, and Phil wasn’t doing much of anything besides drinking and staying out all night. I came home from work late one night, and Phil started in on me about running around on him again. He looked at me and said, “I’m sick of you. It was bad enough that I had to live with you before, but now you’re a holy roller.” He also called me a Bible thumper and a goody two-shoes. “You think you’re an angel,” he said. “I want you to get out and take the three boys with you. I want y’all to leave.” He knew he couldn’t separate me from my sons.
    I asked Phil, “Are we messing up your bachelor’s life?” He told me yes, and I knew there was nothing else to do but leave. Our little boys were so sad and had tears streaming down their faces. They didn’t want their daddy drunk, but they loved their father. We stayed with Phil’sbrother Harold for one night. He told us we could only stay one night because he was afraid of what Phil would do. I never held that against Harold because I didn’t know what Phil would do either.
    The boys and I moved into a low-rent apartment, and White’s Ferry Road Church helped me pay the rent and get some furniture. We were apart from Phil for about three months; I was really hiding from him. I put everything in my maiden name, thinking he wouldn’t be able to find us. I went to lunch every day with one of my girlfriends at work, and one day when we came back to the office, we saw Phil’s old, gray truck in the parking lot. Phil’s head was lying on the steering wheel, so I figured he’d driven there, then passed out drunk. I told my friend to go on into the office and watch out the window and if she saw Phil flashing a gun to call the police. “You can’t go out there by yourself,” she told me. “Let’s go in and call the police.” But I didn’t want Phil following me into my office and hurting anybody, so I told her to watch out the window and call the police if anything bad happened.
    I walked up to Phil’s truck and opened the door. His face rose up, and there were big tears streaming down his face. I had never seen him cry. The macho man never cried. He looked at me and said, “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything. I want my family back.” He told me he wouldn’t drink anymore and was done with partying. Of course, I’d heard that many times before. I felt God’s courage inside me and told him, “Phil, you can’t do it by yourself, buddy. You just can’t.” Phil told me he needed help and then asked me where he could find it.
    “There’s only one person who can help you,” I told him.
    “God?” Phil asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “I don’t know how to find Him,” Phil replied.

    “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything. I want my family back.”

    As a boy, Phil had gone to church and Sunday school, but he had been away from God for a long time. I told Phil I knew someone he could talk to and to be back at my office at five thirty, when I got off work. I told him I’d lead him to my apartment. When I went back upstairs to my office, I was so happy I sailed up three steps at a time. I called Bill Smith, the preacher, and told him to be at my apartment at five forty-five. He said, “Well, let me check my calendar.”
    “What is more important than one lost soul coming back to the Lord?” I asked him. “If you have anything else, you have to cancel it.”
    “You know what?” Smith told me. “Nothing is more important than that.”
    Smith and his wife, Margaret, met Phil and me at my apartment. The first thing Phil told him was: “I don’t trust you.” Smith told Phil that he could understand why he didn’t trust him. “Considering the people you’ve been running around with, I wouldn’t trust anyone either,” Smith told him. Then Smith held up his Bible and said, “Do you trust this?”
    “Yeah, I trust that book, but I’m going to check out everything you say,” Phil said. “I don’t take any man’s word for anything.”
    I went into the back room with the boys and Margaret, and Phil and Smith studied the Bible together for several hours. When they were finished, Phil told Smith he was going to check out everything they’d talked about, and they scheduled another meeting for the next night. We let Phil move into our apartment, and the first thing the boys asked him to do was