100 Jack Hager: God, Country, Guns, & Drugs

I've read that you've said that the phrase that this is not my fault or it's not my fault is the biggest obscenity in America. And honestly, what struck me about you has been your own accountability that you've taken with all of your own actions. So I really wanted to pick your brain on that here and start from here.

Well, we seem to be a nation of victims. In fact, those great theologians, the Eagles, years ago had a great song called Get Over It that most people, even Eagles aficionados, are not familiar with. But if your listeners want to, YouTube Get Over It, and it starts, your mama's too skinny and your daddy's too fat, get over it.

I'd like to find your inner child and kick his little, get over it. And it's just a theme of man up, take responsibility for your life. And I just think it's not my fault. It always is. There may be contributory things, but each of us has the incredible power of choice.

And if I choose to do something that's illegal, immoral, dangerous, whatever, and I get busted or there's consequences, well, there should be consequences. It seems like the first thing out of people's mouths, whether they're five years old or 50 or older, is it's not my fault. It's my mother's fault.

It's my country's fault. It's Vietnam's fault. It's Trump's fault. It's got to be somebody else's fault because it sure can't be mine. Don't you think, and I agree with you, and that is something that bothers me in society, and I would say when I hear people doing that, it's...

It honestly or immediately, I guess, assigns some. I don't know. And like now you're fighting an uphill battle, I guess, for to to it's detrimental to how I perceive their character. And I realize there are people going through things sometimes and it can skew that. But this is I agree that.

I think it's probably more common than not in our society, or at least the part of society that I see. But where do you think that comes from? Is that something that you noticed after coming back from Vietnam and having been treated the way that you guys were treated?

I think it was probably before that. That probably amplified it. But I think well -meaning parents, little Johnny gets in trouble and they say, well, Johnny started running with the wrong crowd. Or Johnny's English teacher did this. And Johnny hears that and he says, cool. In fact, if I can jump ahead a little bit, you know that I did some time in prison.

And for me, one of the worst things about the prison system is, in a sense, they program you to fail. When I checked into prison, not because I was me, but because I was 36403, there was like a two -week in -processing situation. where they gave you the inkblot tests, the standard intelligence tests, all kinds of stuff.

You're interviewed by a psychologist, a chaplain, a bunch of other people. At the end of that time, they put me in front of the board and they said, Mr. Hager, the reason why you're a dealer and a thief is because of your bad attitude toward the United States because of the year you spent in Vietnam.

What have they just told me? It's not my fault. Instead of saying, You know, you came back from Vietnam and maybe you had some bitterness and you had some other stuff and that contributed to it, although I don't think it did. They just, you know, it's not your fault you're black.

It's not your fault you were molested as a child. It's not your fault you were poorly potty trained. Whatever they come up with, it just programs the guys and girls, I think. Probably not every prison does that, but I think it's standard intake procedure. Were you just at the one prison?

Yeah, the one prison to do time. I also do Christian prison ministry, so I've been in a lot of prisons over the years. And that's what I was trying to get a sense of was, okay, what data set are you dealing with? But as long as you've been doing it, because I know you've been in ministry for almost 50 years, right?

Coming up on it. The great mystery of life is what a young guy like me is doing in such an old body. i but you so it from what you've seen though like that is a uh a through line that you see in these in the prison system at large i'm sorry repeat that and from what you've seen though and all the on all your time both as an inmate and then through prison ministry like this this trend of Them even setting prisoners up as being victims or at least not holding them accountable is a trend that you're seeing in the system?

I don't think so as a positive thing. And beyond what the board says, of course, the inmates themselves will tell each other that. One of the common things here is I did a lot of stuff, but I didn't do this. Whatever they're in prison for, they didn't do.

And, you know, you hear it out in the yard, you hear it in chapel, hear it anywhere that, you know, man, I'm back because my parole officer's a jerk. You know, because I go in and I, obviously, I primarily go in as a Christian speaker. But I also try to go in there as a friend.

And I tell the guys or girls, when you hit the street, whether you're going to make it or not. It's not going to be determined in a month. It's going to be determined when you first walk out that gate. Do you pick up the phone and start calling some of your old buddies?

Do you go someplace where you know you shouldn't go? You have to take responsibility. Any fool can make it on the street if they want to bad enough. The recidivism rate depends on which expert you listen to, 40%, 50%. I can understand anybody going to prison once. It only takes a second.

I don't and I can't understand the guys and girls that are doing life on the installment plan. Do three years here, get out for a couple, go back in. And all of them have an excuse. They have a supposed, imagined excuse. But very, very rarely will they say, yeah, I screwed up, Jack.

It's interesting. I promise eventually I will bring this back on a, you know, a timeline from the beginning because I think especially things for you as a teenager or something that I want to be able to talk about. But with this and, you know, I'm, I've struggled with alcoholism.

I've been sober for two years now. I know you've dealt with addiction as well. And kind of what I heard with. You describing that choice that they have when they step outside of the gate and calling up old friends and stuff is almost sounds similar to an addict or an alcoholic in the.

All right, I relapsed. I've got my sober time. It could be, you know, whether that be them being out on their own or having come out of rehab. But it's like it's the exact same thing. And it's interesting because in that when you're in the midst of. in addiction, there's a lot of the lack of taking accountability or responsibility for your own actions.

And I think the victim mindset, at least in my experience, like I, I eroded myself to the point where I think I was doing the, the victim mindset thing a little bit. And do you, do you see those parallels, I guess, with your own experience with addiction and then that, that same kind of choice mechanism?

There's stuff that contributes, you know, and I don't want to overlook that. My parents were functioning alcoholics and I have a vague, vague memory. We were in Germany for five years between the time I was one year old and six years old. And I have a vague memory of my parents giving me a little small stein of German beer once in a while.

I do not think that made me an alcoholic. but it may have somehow contributed to it. In fact, I remember probably 30 years ago, one of the news magazines had a cover issue, Adult Children of Alcoholics. And I looked at it and said, here we go. They're going to equip me.

They're going to tell me it's not my fault. It's my parents' fault. But in that, they had a test. Take this test to see if you qualify as an adult child of an alcoholic. I have no recollection of what the questions were, but I aced that test. So I think there is some, in some cases, almost overwhelming contributory factors.

Obviously, a kid born in the ghetto, surrounded by crime, is going to be more prone to get caught up in that than a kid born in middle -class America. Those are stereotypes, but you know what I'm saying. But still, at the bottom, Until and unless I take responsibility for my actions, I can't change it.

Whether it's through faith or just uncommon sense or something, unless I take responsibility, yes, this is my fault, then I can change it. If I'm blaming something else or someone else, I can't change them. I can't change history. So again, my mantra is until I own it, I can't change it.

It's interesting because I feel like you kind of did that or at least had some semblance of that as a child, whether it was a concrete grasp on that or not. You were on the streets at 14, living on your own. Yeah, sure. And what led to that?

I used to think I grew up in a screwed up family. Then I went to college and found out we were dysfunctional because that sounds so much better. But as I mentioned, my parents were functioning alcoholics. I had an older brother, 11 years older than I was. So in essence, I was an only child.

My dad was career military. So he spent many years on isolated tours while I was left with my mother. And in addition to being a drunk, she was a medicine chest junkie. I remember being yelled at a lot, but I have no recollection of being disciplined, being spanked or anything like that.

I do remember a couple of times being grounded, but that didn't last very long. It was just the thing that prompted me to go out on my own. My dad came back from Korea and he was transferred to Northern California. And I was young and dumb and madly in love and playing football.

And I didn't want to go. And I said, I'm going to stay here. And they said, OK. So I stayed there. By that time, I was doing some stealing and doing some robbing. So income wasn't an issue. You know, trying to deal with people who, why are you by yourself and come up with some story?

But my parents, again, I don't blame them. They didn't, to the best of my knowledge, to the best of my recollection, they didn't abuse me sexually, physically, any other way. They just kind of nothinged me, which I think is one reason, even though when I started in youth ministry, I was 30 years old, I think it's one reason I can still relate to kids because people my age, if they hear that story of my parents, they go, oh my goodness.

Teenagers now and teenagers for the last 20, 30 years, they yawn because either they've experienced it or they have friends that experienced it. In my mind, there's no such thing as an illegitimate kid, but there are way too many illegitimate parents. And certainly not intentionally. Not parenting, not disciplining, not loving, etc.

can set up a kid for failure. And so you mean they don't necessarily have to be physically absent. It can just be functionally absent in their role. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you feel like being functionally absent is as negative or has as negative of an impact on a child as being physically absent does?

I think so. Between teenagers and convicts, excuse me, I'm not supposed to call them convicts, offenders, like they suddenly discovered deodorant or something. But between teenagers and prisoners, you know, I don't think it makes a difference because a lot of times most, and I think I can safely say most inmates did not have a father figure at all.

Not just the African -American ones, not just the minorities. but all of them. And of course, there are many more minorities locked up than whites. That's a whole different subject. But I've talked to a lot of people who dad was physically there, mom was physically there, but they weren't there.

At this point, I've been doing this for a minute now. We're getting close to 100 episodes in. Several people who have been in the prison system and then several people who try and work with people coming out of the prison system to set them up for success. And I know that's a subject that comes up a lot and so is sexual trauma more so for women.

I wonder how much of that is men not admitting or talking about the fact that they were molested as kids. I think it's definitely a factor because you can't, if they don't want to talk about it, whether it's as part of the intake process or anything else, if there's no arrest in the wreck, if there's never been any charges brought, you'll never know it.

And I think we'd probably all be very, very saddened if all of a sudden everybody who has been molested in some form started revealing it. I think it's a lot. sadly, tragically, a lot more common than we'd like to believe. Yeah, I think so. That's the thing that I've seen doing this show, and that and human trafficking is kind of...

I'm trying to get a better grasp on the human trafficking side, but I've had, I think, two guests on now specifically discussing it, and I was kind of blown away with what it hints at. What with the things that they've shared, one specifically runs an organization that has an arm that combats human and child trafficking in the United States.

But the other one was she was presidentially appointed to be one of the assistant, I think, secretaries of health and human health and the HHS at during Trump's last term. And she said it's an issue even like to the extent that they know if there's a big football game coming into town, they have to step up their monitoring and they're trying to intervene before some of these things happen.

It's that common in big concerts, big games, big festivals, like anywhere that there's a gathering of people in this country currently, there's a... huge concern for human trafficking like it's it just kind of surprising that it's that prominent and again that points to a much larger number of people coming out of it like you just hinted at it's well i live in what most people would call rural america but saint joseph missouri but not far from us is i -29 and i -35 and there's always arrests being made and of course i'm Sadly, they're only catching a small, very small percentage of what's going on.

And it's not just localized to urban areas or to inner city areas. It's all over the place. Yeah. I mean, you, as a 14 -year -old, you were living on this. Were you literally living on the streets at that point? No. Or I know you were making money.

No, I had a nice apartment. That is crazy. What year was this? 1962 -ish. 61 probably. Okay. Did you look like a man at that point? Had you hit puberty really early and you were able to get a, was that part of this? Or it was just different time and you were good at playing the role?

I think primarily different time. Also, I was smart enough in my own view. I didn't flash the money. I didn't flash my weapon. I didn't flash a lot of things. Most people in my high school, most of my associates as opposed to friends, had no clue. I mean, I didn't play the role.

I didn't do any of that stuff. There were two or three guys that I hung around with that maybe sometimes worked with me. We never flashed it, never tried to. I got busted a couple of times as a kid on other Mickey Mouse stuff. And both times they basically yelled at me and screamed at me and said, don't ever do this again, which I think is another thing that programs people to fail.

I kind of wish they would have locked me up for a year back then. Maybe it would have said, well, actions have consequences. Maybe I ought to straighten out my life. Instead, by not doing anything, it just gave me less respect for authority and less fear of consequences.

And sadly, that hasn't changed too much in the last 60 years or whatever. Yeah, I mean, we're seeing it more in the past couple of years. It seems to be these almost like catch and release with no cash bail. It's insanity. Yeah. And then it's, oh, this guy's been arrested 47 times in the past two years.

And you're like, oh, no wonder why. It's because there's no, there's no. And for you to have to get arrested in some places like California for shoplifting, you have to have stolen like $10 ,000 worth of whatever from this place. Otherwise they won't do anything about it. It's like, again, I think we would be much more alarmed if we were getting accurate numbers, even on, on the reality of how all that is playing out.

But. Because the bar is so high, even for the entry -level stuff to have the cops actually respond to it is kind of crazy. I have absolute respect for the men and women in blue, but I wouldn't be a cop for all the money in the world. Not for the last, I don't know, 20 years.

That far back? I don't know if it's that far back, but it sure seems like it. Where all the laws are on the side of the bad guys. You know, more recently, everybody and their dog has a cell phone. And no matter what you do, you're going to be taped.

And that's open to interpretation. And just like I said, I'm sure there's some dirty cops, just like there's dirty pastors and dirty anybody else. But I think the majority of them are trying to do their job. And I have mad respect for them. But I wouldn't want to be one.

Now it's a tough gig right now, man. It's I'm the, I'm the same boat as you are, but it's just, I don't know. We definitely, I feel it's a, it's an issue that's gotten plenty of highlighting. I feel like in the past several years and people are aware that it is that big of an issue, but it seems like even though it's in the public, like guys like pretty openly at this point that.

these cops are having their hands held on what they can do and then like you said having the just this insane level of we will side with the public we will side with the you know make the offender the victim in the situation again when it's not a bad shoot or hey i left my knee on a guy's neck and killed him like you know again different scenarios but in the daily operations of their job it's it's It'd be tough, but when, for you to get off the street, it's, was it, well, I guess on one hand, I know you graduated high school, which to me blows my mind after the, like knowing that you were.

In the top 10 % of my class. I think that the way that you operate it obviously is my. My take on the way that you've explained how you operated was obviously, you know, this was a very intelligent young man, but yeah, you were kicking ass in the classroom too, which is crazy.

And so I think the fact that you were able to do that is insane. Even just graduate is kind of mind blowing a little bit, but it's, was it straight from there to the army or what was good? I graduated high school in 65. And I had a couple of scholarships, but I didn't want to go to school.

But I didn't want to go to Vietnam either. Vietnam was just starting to get in the news and starting to get heavy. So I went down and I talked to a couple of recruiters, took the test. And one guy, an Army guy said, Mr. Hager, you're in the top 10 % of all this and blah, blah, blah.

And if you enlist in the United States Army Security Agency for four, five years, not only will you not go. Vietnam, you probably won't even go overseas. I fell for it. And, you know, it's interesting that my military career, the four years were spent in one of the ultimate oxymorons, military intelligence.

And in order to be there, I had to have a top secret crypto code word clearance. You know, they did the background check. They did everything else. So I went to basic, went to AIT, went to intelligence school, went to Korea. And all that time I had an interim security clearance.

Got to Korea and I still didn't have a security clearance. So they had me being a chauffeur basically for one of the colonels until they replaced me for South Korean. And finally they brought me to the commanding officers. place. And he said, these guys are from the CID, Criminal Investigation Department.

They have questions for you. I said, okay. And I don't even know if they, maybe they read me my rights. I don't know. And they said, Hager, why did you not tell us about the two arrests when you were a juvenile? And I looked him in the eye.

I said, because my recruiter said not to, which was absolutely true. Yeah. They do that. And so eventually I did get the security clearance, which I still find hilarious. and spent the four years in the agency, two years in Korea, a couple months in Germany, and the rest in Vietnam.

I do wonder, you know, if it wasn't in the middle of Vietnam, if that would have gone through, you know, they needed you. I'm guessing that's probably a big factor, because it really was, I hesitate to use the word elite, but you had to have some kind of gray matter functioning.

to be in the agency. And yeah, they probably looked the other way for some things, you know, and hopefully this guy's not going to sell secrets to Russia or China or something. But I never did think of that, by the way, that never crossed my mind. Well, when you're saying the agency, it's.

I know you were enlisted Army, but that sounds like CIA when you say that, which is not Army. What do you mean? It wasn't. In fact, the ASA does not exist anymore. I don't remember how many years ago it kind of folded up and got wrapped into something else.

But to give you an idea, when I was in Korea, there was a 10 -man detachment. And I think probably oldest among us was 22. And our operations area. had a very secure door system into it. And it's still required that we have two armed guards outside the operations area 24 -7.

And with only 10 guys there, that meant you were on guard duty a whole lot of time. And one day I was pulling guard duty and in walked a full board colonel and a four -star general. And we leapt to our feet and saluted. And the colonel said, this is...

the new commanding officer for the 8th Army Korea, Charles H. Bonesteel. And we just started giving him a tour, letting him know what is in his chain of command. And I said, that's wonderful. Our barracks is right next door. And the colonel said, he'd like to see your operations area.

And I said, with respect, sir, he's not on the access list. And I pointed to the access list. And the access list was at the top. was the director of the National Security Agency, and then came us. There was nobody in between. And the colonel was furious, and he said, well, if I try to force my way in there, what are you going to do?

With respect, I'll shoot you, sir. He was not too impressed. Bone steel never said a word, but a week later, we got a letter of commendation from him. Wow. But the agency was... The patch was a lightning bolt held by an eagle's claw. And it was such a small thing.

Nobody knew what we did. We didn't know what we did. Why should anybody else? But, you know, every once in a while, somebody would say, what's ASA? And I'd say airborne shock assault. And sometimes they'd buy it. But even the ones that didn't buy it, they knew we did stuff that could get them sent to Leavenworth.

They knew we did stuff that was very helpful. in combat and intelligence stuff. But they didn't know quite what we did. And it was kind of cool, really, being 19, 20 years old and being able to walk around and nobody would touch you. Nobody would come near you.

Overseas. In the States, it was probably different. But in Korea, Germany, and Vietnam. In fact, in Vietnam, we were not there. For some reason, they didn't want anybody to know the agency was in Vietnam. So the military, in its never -ending wisdom, had the 507th ASA group in Germany, the 508th ASA group in Korea, and the 509th Radio Research Group in Vietnam.

I'm sure the enemy never figured out who we were. So were you guys running human intelligence operations and processing packages from targeting? you know, from recon flights and things like that. Notice how my lips aren't moving? No, because I can't see them. Yeah. I just, I don't know if you could generally discuss, because it's interesting.

Combat intelligence, radio intelligence. I can, you know, we had diddy boppers. We called them diddy boppers, manual Morse interceptors. And they would monitor. in Vietnam would monitor the Viet Cong and NVA communications, trying to keep track of who they were. Those guys were pretty strange anyway, but they could tell sometimes from the way the enemy operator was keying the Morse code, they could tell which one was which.

And they saved a lot of lives. They also, it was classified up until a few years ago, airborne radio direction finding. We had planes that had agency guys in it that would triangulate and then bring hellfire down on these bases. But the ARDF stuff was brand new when I was there, and I was there 68, 69.

But it was pretty effective. But every once in a while, I wanted to get shot down. There was always a rumor going around that there was a bounty on all agency personnel. I never could verify that whether it was actual or not. There's some printed stuff that says it was that they give $10 ,000 or something for any agency guy you brought in.

And, you know, the officers would always warn us, don't get caught, you know, don't do stupid stuff when you're in Saigon or someplace because they're looking for you. And I never heard of anybody being captured. I never heard of anybody being kidnapped. And it was like... I think it was like most things in the military.

They over classify everything. Yes. And we had a piece of equipment that was top secret. And I can't even, I don't think I even will mention the code word. It was top secret. Then it had an addendum that put it in a different category. This piece of equipment was guarded all the time.

It was everything else. And I was walking down to the villa one day and I saw one for sale in a Korean junk store. No way. Yeah, it just it's those organizations are so big, you know, whether it be the government, a government intelligence agency or just the military.

Like it's I think a lot of stuff gets. Very overregulated, almost like things get over legislated and kind of get almost like. progressively backed into a corner because adding more of a wrapper around it is simpler than undoing the mess that's already been made kind of kind of situation but it's interesting hearing you talk about some of this stuff because so i was in the marines from 2014 to 2018 so little you know 50 years later and getting to see basic kind of the evolution of this stuff so i was an infantryman so it's not You know, I didn't have exposure to this stuff on a deeper level, but I got sent to some like a company level intelligence course just to try and show us kind of how to be, I guess, the work with the Intel guys and kind of be a bridge between infantry and Intel with some of that stuff.

And also got to on a separate note, my. battalion was the marine corps it's the marine corps has a the marine corps war fighting lab so like at all times that's it's the unit that like for this rotation they're testing different technology that contractors are trying to sell and things like that and we had there was this just like those planes were were triangulating they've now we were testing They were the size of a of a of a rock.

So it really it wasn't feasible for someone to take that out. Right. If you if you're going out for three weeks, you aren't also going to have your full rock set up with this system. But it would be three interconnected rocks where they they can triangulate each other for radio comms and to intercept, to jam and to also.

inject data into the transmissions to make it sound like things are being said that aren't being said and things like that but still triangulating except now it's you know on on foot and doing the same kinds of things and it's just i don't know it's so cool to see that that evolution because i was a jfo as well so i got trained to call in close air support and all that stuff and like it's just i mean that's essentially they've they've taken what is who knows how many millions dollars of thing and made it so a fire team size element can be running basically their own jamming intercepting and and targeting package it would just it's so so cool um they just get to hear it evolve like that but you know they when you hear vietnam get talked about A lot, like part of one of the things that comes up all the times is the rampant drug use that was going on over there.

Is that when you got introduced to drugs? Yeah, my drug of choice was Coors, Jack Daniels, and Johnny Walker Red when I was in high school. When I was in high school, I couldn't even pronounce marijuana. It was something downtown LA. It hadn't come over into middle -class America yet.

I never touched grass until I went to Korea. And not because of the Army, not because I was in Korea, but because I made a choice to roll the first joint and take the first hit. But it was plentiful. It was readily available. So I smoked a lot of grass in Korea, went to Germany, popped a little LSD until I got scared of it.

Never mainlined heroin. My skin popped a couple of times. Coke was rare and unbelievably expensive back in the day. So I think the only drug that I was physically addicted to was alcohol. And there are people that argue that. That's a free country. They're entitled to their wrong opinion.

But I've been dry since 1973. And to this day, I don't want to take medicine with alcohol in it. Would I like to see alcohol banned? Yeah, sure. But it's not going to happen. But I just, I know for me, I'm one drink from the sewer. And you can probably relate to that.

And the prisoners sometimes, when they're getting short or they're going to make parole, I say, hey, when you hit the street, if you find yourself in a bind and need help, feel free to call me. And if I can possibly do it, I'll come. I won't give any money.

I won't do anything like that. I won't enable you, but I'll try to help you. But don't call me from some bar because if you call me from some bar, I'll park my car in front of that bar, honk the horn, and you're going to have to crawl your sorry butt out there because no way am I going in there because I'm not going to put myself in the situation where it'd be easy.

One's not going to hurt. And some people say, you're paranoid, Jack. And I say, yep, you're right. It's something worthy to be paranoid of. It's not worth throwing. And people won't understand if you haven't. Had to, if you haven't gotten yourself to that position where I, you know, whether it be physically, like I was never physically addicted.

It was, I was, but functionally, you know, compulsively I was addicted where it was just, it was my, my, I'm feeling uncomfortable. I know I have a button to turn that off kind of thing. And it was, you know, I could make it two or three days and then I would go on a two or three day bender.

Then I would. not do it but i never got to the point where i was getting shakes or withdrawals or anything like that but like risking going back to that is not worth it and i'm sure like but is that is it something you actively fear still like do you still get cravings every once in a while or do you still get that wild thought of oh well yeah i think you know one one wouldn't hurt today uh not a craving so much but Uh, in honesty, on a hot, hot summer day, if I'm mowing the lawn or something, boy, a cold beer would sure taste good.

Uh, but I, you know, I don't even get a near beer or something else like that. I just, I think about it, forget about it, move ahead. But, uh, cause most of the time I didn't, you know, I didn't enjoy the drinking part. I just enjoyed getting drunk.

Yeah. The escape. Once you're detached from everything is what you're enjoying. Yeah. And it was pretty much standard. I'm sure if I would have carried a breathalyzer with me, I would qualify, maybe not qualify for a rest, but there was always some kind of alcohol floating around in me.

Where was all that? Because I always thought that Korea has... Pretty strict drug laws. Where was the weed coming from? I mean, you said you were hitting it quite a bit. There were locals selling it. There were other GIs selling it. I honestly don't know anything about Korea and its drug laws, but every place I went in Korea, it was readily available.

You go to the bars where the GIs hung around. You just had to ask somebody, where can I get some of this? Now, again, I never was looking for anything worse or whatever than marijuana, but wacky tobacco was available anywhere. What was it like when you came back?

I mean, I know it sounds like you didn't have a bad time over there, but I know. in america i mean you guys were villainized what because obviously you're using drugs and stuff already but like what what state were you in and how were you received even separately of that coming back and getting out of the army coming home was one of the most disgusting things in my life you know they warned you ahead of time get out of your uniform as soon as you can blah blah blah but that people could pretty well figure out who you were, whether in uniform or not.

And the screams of baby killers and all that kind of stuff was rampant. And it was disgusting, maddening. Excuse me. It was bad enough for me that I just wanted to get out of the country. So not too long after I got discharged, I saw an ad in the paper.

Have you recently been discharged? Did you have a top secret clearance? call this number. And I called this number and got hired to, and I moved to Kwajalein downrange for the Pacific Missile Range. And they sent me there as a radar operator. I couldn't even spell radar, but it was what a government cost plus operation.

If you had a security clearance, if they could reinstate the clearance, you were hired. And so I stayed overseas for, I don't know, half a year, I guess, before I came back. And, you know, For many years, I didn't wear any Vietnam hats or badges or anything. And then during the first Gulf War, I think, is when I started.

And I'm glad I did because most importantly to me is I meet other guys, non -vets. Secondly, and maybe selfishly, is very often somebody will come up and say, hey, I know you guys are treated badly and it came back. I just want you to know I appreciate that because in the last set of wars, even the people that were against the wars were not against the warriors.

And that was the difference between Iraq, Afghanistan, et cetera, and Vietnam. No, I mean, it makes me, it's, you know, I get excited when I meet one of you guys, but it also makes, it makes me sad. And I'll say it like four times over the course of, 20 minute conversation with a guy where like hey man thank you for what you did i know it's that conversation like i i the fact that america was at that point where it was so counter to the person and honestly that's i think we see that now that's how some people feel about cops um there it's It's mind -boggling to me.

I don't know. I think that's a symptom of disgruntled people just deciding this is going to be their outlet. Most of the time, probably not consequences unless you're out at a bar and you say that to a dude and he's a little tipsy and now he might fuck you up for it.

like i mean what other than being disgusting i mean it's not like obviously that had to have been horrendous but i did you see that you know like the the suicide issue is a huge problem today with veterans was that something you were seeing too coming back did you see guys did you start losing people i mean they've just been through hell A lot of these guys, some of these guys literally fighting on their hands and knees, crawling through tunnels with nothing but a pistol and a flashlight and maybe a couple of grenades.

And then they come back and you're getting, you know, drinks thrown on you and fucking screamed at and who knows what else. I think it just. Even back then, I think I realized and probably hopefully a lot of the other people realized. That just like the protests that are going on today, maybe 10 % of the people know what they're protesting.

The others are there just along for the ride, for the party, for the, you know, are they getting paid to do it? I don't know. But I just think it's so easy to have that crowd mentality. Let's go to Travis Air Force Base and scream at the vets when they get off the jets.

It was just. i'm not even sure i can describe it it was just what the heck yeah yeah i do this i get home and this is what i get uh and you know the guys that came home and went back you know the guys that did two or three tours uh i don't even know how they did it or why they did it but maybe just the and out of the country and that was the quickest way out did it make you know just another side note yeah the We weren't just yelled at by civilians, but World War II guys and Korea guys weren't too fond of us because we lost the war.

You know, after 73, you know, I didn't hang around the VFW or anything like that because it just was a bunch of war stories, probably mostly lies being told. But every once in a while, more than every once in a while, well, you shouldn't be here. You never fought in a war.

You just went to Vietnam. Okay. And that happened enough that I'm sure it happened to a lot of guys. Wow. Did you ever reach the point with all of that, that being the reception that you get from, sounds like, if not the majority, at least a healthy proportion of people.

I mean, did it make you regret? At the time, did you regret having gone over there, having been in the Army, your service as a whole? No. I think I'm proud of this. I wish they would have let us win the war. I wish we would have learned something from Vietnam that we could have brought to Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.

The worst, I don't think I ever had PTSD or have PTSD from them, but... Probably the maddest I've ever been was when we were pulling out of Afghanistan. It looked exactly like Saigon in 73. You know, just those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

And people clinging to the jets trying to get out of the country, people we told we'd support. Just like the top of the embassy in Saigon, people holding on to the helicopters trying to get out and dropping to their death and just. You know, I'm not smart enough to know whether we should have gone into Vietnam.

But if you go in, you should go in to win and not to lose. And I think we repeated the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I hope we don't put boots on the ground in the current conflict. But it just, you can't. There's going to be collateral damage.

There's going to be innocent people killed. It's part of combat, and you can't just cave to the great American public and say, okay, we've got to pull out right now. And I think it was, you know, there was that wall with the 58 ,000 names on it that, in my mind, died for nothing.

You know, they died for the guy to the left or the right, but they, as far as a cause. it was just a joke yeah i mean the gulf of tonkin was a false flag operation like we we did that we did that then you know they had talked about doing that with that with cuba um when when kennedy was president like they they were gonna blow up a civilian jetliner and blame it on on someone else like it's this is you know people We'll argue about the weapons of mass destruction thing with the Middle East and going into Iraq.

And it is now, like you said, we've pulled out of Afghanistan and left tanks and Blackhawks and munitions and weapons. We just armed them again, just like we armed them to fight the Russians. Then they went in there and the Russians came in and then we went back in there and then we're fighting the same forces.

It's this weird. it's really easy to get real skeptical real quick about these these cycles that we see with these things um and then people will call you a conspiracy nut yeah but there's yeah there's who knows what's going on or why it's going on yeah i don't yeah well yeah i'm glad you made it back obviously and i know but that I said I'd probably tell you four times, thank you for going over there and for your service.

I know that's the typical spiel that you hear from people, but honestly, knowing that that is how you guys came or were received when you came back, it really does, it's saddening to know that when you meet people. I appreciate that. Yeah. How long after you came back did you end up in prison?

I mean, what was the return to the streets from, you got that, the six months doing radar stuff that you weren't qualified for, and then you come back. Like, what was the path there? Well, when I left Kwaj, Kwajalin, I hung around Hawaii for a while, met a girl who happened to be a stewardess, and she introduced me to a couple guys she worked for.

She was smuggling small amounts of drugs as part of her stewardess thing. And they interviewed me, basically. They hired me. So I worked with an organization on the West Coast. It wasn't the mob. It wasn't mafia. It wasn't huge. It was kind of like the UN. We had black guys, white guys, Mexican guys, just a lot of guys making money.

And back then, all we did... We had some weapons, but the main thing we sold, the main product was marijuana. And I got very, very rich being involved in smuggling and moving and dealing marijuana, not, you know, wholesale or what do you call it? Wholesale, not retail, you know, selling to sellers and got away with it for three years, made a whole lot of money.

And then. ultimately got busted in 1973 uh was eventually sentenced to 10 years did four and was paroled after that i know you mentioned earlier i think it was specifically with alcohol that you something to the effect of of you know you would like to see that be outlawed And I just, you know, another thing that gets talked about a lot is the idea of legalizing, you know, everything.

I think legalizing everything might be a step far. I think we've seen how some of that has played out with, you know, letting people have basically open air drug markets and use in places like Skid Row. Maybe no guardrails isn't great, but with some of this stuff, you know, like marijuana being legal in a lot of places.

I'm in Denver now. Are you of the mind that all of these substances should be controlled? And I ask that because, you know, you having been someone who also was smuggling this stuff, like the only reason there needed to be smuggling is because it was illegal. Back in the day, I didn't think it would ever be legalized because I thought there'd be enough organization by bigger criminal elements to make sure it wasn't legalized.

Because people are making all kinds of cash and all of a sudden you're not making any cash. I don't like the fact that it's legalized because I still don't think we're absolutely sure what it does to people. And, you know, there's an expert here and an expert there and with different opinions.

But and I certainly don't think the real psychedelics should ever be legalized. But. At some level, it doesn't matter if people want to get stoned, they're going to get stoned. It's like, you know, essentially drugs are easier to get in prison than they are on the street. They just cost more.

Whenever you deprive man of something, he's going to find a way to get it. I don't think we could ever go back and recriminalize it. I don't think that'll ever happen. And I, in my more cynical moments, I think I've tried to organize a class action lawsuit for every person who was sentenced to prison for marijuana sales to get some kind of reparation that hey how come you sent us this now and now 30 years later it's legal shouldn't you give us some money for the time we served obviously that's idiotic kind of but it is weird that something that cost a lot of people a lot of time and i'm being somewhat facetious obviously but if it's illegal it's illegal and don't roll the dice if you can't pay the price etc but The fact that it is legal, the fact that alcohol is legal, and you mentioned the revolving door, people getting arrested, getting out.

One of the most maddening things to me is reading about some drunk driver that kills three people. He's got three DUIs on his record. If you drink, it's your business. You drink and drive, it's my business. And I have absolutely no respect for those who drink and drive.

Even in our stupid days, we had a designated driver before it was cool. Not so much out of we didn't want to hurt anybody. We just didn't want to get caught. So one of the guys had to stay sober so we didn't get pulled over. Yeah, I've been the idiot who has drank and drive before.

I'm not proud of it, obviously. I've never thought about that fact that because alcohol is normalized in our society that it seems like in the legal system that the DUIs are almost normalized. Where, yeah, you get a big fine, but we'll let you back out, like you said.

That's never crossed my mind. Because I'm of that mind, like you said, almost, where it's, hey, if someone wants it, they will get it. It's like, why not have a clean means that you know isn't going to have fentanyl in it? kind of mindset i guess or having the the door available there but it is and i don't know that's another you just opened my eyes up a little bit on that i'm gonna have to think about that but you know it's it's it's just it's another one of those issues that's almost maybe and maybe i haven't done enough thinking on it to like really you just did that word you use that word a few times think And I think that's another epidemic, lack of thinking in America, period.

I think it was Henry Ford said, thinking is the hardest work there is, which is undoubtedly why so few do it. And, you know, just the average American, I think, at least in my sphere, doesn't do a whole lot of time of thinking about. Really, they just want to get through the day and get a couple bucks and do something else.

But thinking about the war, thinking about drugs, thinking about responsibility, thinking about the laughingly referred to criminal justice system, it's a whole lot easier not to think about it. And people tend to take the easy way out. And I don't know what can be done to change that, if anything.

I, that's actually a very valuable conversation to have. I think that is a part of that is, is, or part of the lack of thinking I think is now I'm going to be over hyper aware of whatever I use the word think, but the people having an idea that isn't theirs because they haven't actually thought about why they feel the things that they believe.

right what is that that narrative that you have i'll the cops all cops yep okay where yeah where'd that where'd that come from oh you heard that from someone else well why do you agree with it oh you don't actually but it's it is it's easier to sit and you know it's more comforting to pick up your phone and get on instagram and and get another dopamine dose while you're swiping through whoever liked your last couple posts then It is to stop and question yourself on things or question, you know, where your source of information when it's not just you, it is.

I think with that, my man, they're intertwined. So obviously the lack of thinking comes with a lack of understanding, but I feel like they're, they're both pervasive issues and things. And that is, I don't think he can understand unless you think. And that takes two terrible four -letter words, time and work.

And, you know, it's even, you know, as a Bible -believing Christian minister, well, forget the minister part, but as a Bible -believing Christian, I just, who works with teenagers, even though I'm older than dirt, you know, I tell them, I don't want to know what your church believes.

I don't know what your pastor believes. I don't want to know what your mom believes. I want to know what you believe. And I don't know is an okay answer. But instead of parroting what they've been told from the pulpit from their parents, I want them to own their own faith rather than just being a product of their environment, I guess.

Yeah, just being a, you've been a sponge and now you're squeezing the spine. You're just absorbed what's been put into you and not actually firm related anything. nuanced and it's i i i guess do you think that lack of actual understanding in terms of an understanding of of people's on the individual level that understanding why you feel something or why you believe that thing do you think that's what contributes to this lack of being able to have a conversation that we see where people immediately go on on the attack and it becomes these explosive encounters, whether that be in the physical world or digital.

Yeah, definitely. The, the, the phrase just popped into my mind, bullet point. You know, I know the bullet points. I don't know anything under the bullet points, but I know the bullet points and I disagree with you. And, uh, you know, if I, if you put me against the wall and tell me, and I ask me why I'm not going to be able to say anything, but.

My cousin says it's true, so it's got to be true. Or I saw it online, God forbid, that's got to be true. Or somebody else said it, so it's got to be true. And then beyond that, I think we mentioned before we went on air, you know, the fact that I disagree with you does not mean that I hate you.

And whatever the issue is, all too often, if I disagree with someone's stance on anything, their response is going to be, I hate you. You're a jerk. You're a bigot. You're a narrow -minded fundamentalist or something. But instead of having a discussion, having a interaction that lasts more than three and a half seconds to, okay, what I hear you saying is this.

Am I hearing you correctly? And again, that takes time and work and an element of trust. a willingness to be vulnerable and probably most of us are not going to do that this is what i believe forget about it you're never going to change me so go away and if you try to change me you're persecuting me and now i'm going to get emotional which shuts down the conversation because i'm going to get angry with you and it's going to turn into me shouting and it's now we've there's no progress being made in any direction That little phrase, I'm going to get triggered.

Oh, grow up, man. I hate it. It's the worst. It's fun to say, you know, sarcastically to people, but it's there. And it's weird because a lot of things have been like, like co -opted almost by that. You know, the, the, the woke phase that we've had or the, like that.

The victim mindset population has almost there's terms that have been co -opted where like it's like now when I hear them, like it's almost like, you know, you cringe away from things that shouldn't be like, oh, you know, I care about human rights. And it's like, OK, usually it's not human.

It's not. human rights at the surface level it is some weird twisted thing that you've made it to do now where it's a there's a lot of baggage attached to these terms that are like fundamentally like okay those are good things to be concerned about if you're actually being objectively concerned about them and not not having this breakdown of communication that we seem to have but um you know i i was really curious because it seems like you were you were kind of wildly wise for even as a, as a kid.

And maybe that was just, obviously you're, you're very intelligent, but also maybe a by -product of, of the environment that you were in. But like with that, like what, what about going to prison was good for you, if anything? Well, the best thing was that prior to that time, I had never been in church except for weddings and funerals, had no exposure to really religion of any type.

And while I was locked up, I did become a follower of Christ, a Christian, born again, whatever term you want to use. And again, that needs to be defined because it means so many things, so many different things to so many people. But that level. I'll tell people prison was the second best thing that ever happened to me because it was in prison that I became a follower of Christ.

Beyond that, I think it enabled me to get sober. And I didn't do the AA thing. I just decided I'm going to stay dry. Not because of my faith. I didn't think then, and I don't think now, that the Bible condemns drinking. It does condemn drunkenness, but it doesn't combine drinking.

I just infuriated half of your audience, probably. But it's, I just, you know, it was four years of being around a whole lot of people that weren't the nicest people in the world. And I think it was... I can't remember his name, but there was a guy in the 1700s who said, Benjamin Rush, criminals collected together tend to corrupt each other.

They are worse than ever when at the end of their sentence, they are released on an unsuspecting society. And that is massively true. The stereotype that prison is a college for crime is true. You go there as a low -key dealer or as a... armed robber or something.

And if you want to, you can learn a whole lot of other stuff. And the peer pressure is too often a cop -out, but the racial thing is for real in prison, always has been. And when you check into the joint, you have to decide immediately, am I going to do my own time or am I going to do somebody else's time?

Meaning that if you start running with one of the gangs, You'll have protection. You'll have access to sex and drugs, etc. But in addition to doing your time, you're doing their time. The COs, the correction officers, are making notations in the files that you're running with the Crips or you're running with the Aryan Brotherhood or you're running with somebody else.

And then when you go to the parole board, they see that. Whereas if you just do your own time, keep your back to the wall, keep your mouth shut, it's going to be easier. in most respects and you can redeem the time rather than do the time i took every college class i could take uh in order to get out of my cell i willingly took i willingly took 16th century english literature because it's the only class available to get me out of that right wow and uh you know it just the the bottom line is in vietnam he had some idea who the bad guy was you had a pretty good clue what might happen each day.

In a maximum security prison, you have no clue. Somebody might kill you because you're white, because you used to surf, because somebody starts a rumor about you. It doesn't happen often, but it's always there. It's always under the surface. I'm very thankful that I was 27 by the time I got to prison.

I'm thankful that I had done Vietnam. I was with the 11th Cav. My regimental commander was Colonel George S. Patton III, son of Blood and Guts. And he had a mantra, stay alert, stay alive, stay alert, stay alive. And that helps in life in general nowadays. I never thought as a youth pastor I'd be teaching kids about situational awareness, but it helps nowadays and it definitely helps in prison.

Keep your back to the wall. Be aware of what's going on. And it's enough that if I had to get in some super weird time machine and go back to Vietnam or go back to prison, I'd go back to Nam in a heartbeat. Because you had some clue what might happen.

In prison, you got no clue. Well, and that's... Is it actually... How feasible is it to do your own time? I mean, if you don't join those gangs, then are you automatically an enemy or are you neutral in that environment? In most cases, you're not neutral. In most cases, when you check in, when you come in as fresh meat, as a new guy, whatever, at some point in the first week or two that you're there, more than likely somebody is going to get in your face and test you.

And everybody else was kind of watching. And in my case, I went out in the yard. I'd been there maybe a week. And back then, I had long hair and was blonde. And this big moose came up to me and he said, hi, Blondie. And right away, I was pretty sure I was in trouble.

And he proceeded to tell me what he was going to do to me. And I said, no, you ain't, turkey. And I jumped up and hit him as hard as I could. And I thought I was going to be dead. I thought he could have thrown me over the wall.

But instead, he kind of grinned, turned around and walked away. And I was never bothered after that. Not because I was a massive pillar of strength, but because I passed the test. In most joints, they talk, most prisons, they talk about how much heart does the guy have?

Does he have enough heart to die? And if you pass the test, they pretty much leave you alone. As long as you keep your nose out of other business. and nobody starts a rumor that you're a snitch or something, they pretty much leave you alone. That's been my experience when I was a guest of the state and in the, I don't know, 100 prisons or so that I've been in since that time.

It's still that way. Jeez. And I've always been curious because I feel like the, you know, the... story of i went to prison and i came out you know whether it be uh you know a christian or you're catholic or whatever now i'm muslim like that that's pretty common of i basically you know i found whatever i recognize as god in there and i've Cynically, especially when it's someone who's in there for life or being a serial rapist or something.

I'm like, okay, to me that looks, I'm obviously projecting, but that looks like this guy has stopped to think about everything that he's done and realizes, okay, if I don't accept something as my savior, then I am fucked if there's an afterlife. Yeah. I think it's kind of like foxhole Christianity, et cetera.

I don't think that's true. But I think there are a lot of men and women who allegedly convert to something. And maybe they're sincerely, but then they hit the street and it's a whole different ballgame. That's why I always tell the guys when they get in the short, don't leave Jesus at the gate.

Don't leave Jesus at the gate. And a lot of them do. And I remember the one time several years ago, a woman said to me, why do you waste your time going into prison to preach in chapel? Aren't there a whole lot of phonies in there that come to chapel?

And in my usual calm, concerned way, I said, sure. Why should prison church be any different than your church? She wasn't too impressed. But, you know, there's fakes that go to church on the street. There's cons that fake it. By definition, the religious community is the only safe place for sex offenders.

One of the unwritten rules in prison is that you don't ask anybody what they're in there for, and you don't tell anybody what you're in there for. So, you know, for four years, I went to church with probably not necessarily the majority. but with a lot of sex offenders, because that was the only place where they were safe.

Did you say by definition religion is the only safe place for those guys? The religious community, yeah. A chapel, you know, even though drugs get passed in chapel, et cetera, and so forth, nobody else is going to. allow a known sex offender to run with them, to be their friend or be in their gang, to be in their circle, whatever.

Yeah, and a lot of sex offenders obviously go to the hole or go to segregation and stay there. I was in one of our local prisons, I don't know, a long time ago, and I went down to ADSEC, Administrative Security, where they, segregation, where they put guys that are just either really, really, really bad, Or they volunteer.

They want to go in there. And I talked to a guy I couldn't even talk to. I had to talk to him through the access where they got their food. And I said, how long have you been here? And he said, 37 years. 37 years in that place where theoretically they get out an hour a day for exercise in a little glorified dog kennel.

But he knew. And I don't know if this guy was a cop. or sex offender whatever his thing was but he said if i go out there i'm dead and you know i've never looked at suicide as an option but had i been him i probably would have thought about it on like how does that warp your sense of reality of the world when it when it has become so small like literally to that eight by ten cell or whatever it is and then whatever totally encaged a space that you get to go out in for that hour per day like it has to warp your entire reality like literally your awareness of time and oh 37 years it's bad enough just being in the general population you know out of the regular part of the prison but if you're an ad seg or uh something like that i can't you know even if it's for a year In my mind, even if it's for a couple months, you do have access to books.

I think that you have one book, a religious book, and a book of some other type, but no TV, no radio, no nothing, at least in the prisons that I'm aware of. Like anything else, different prisons operate different ways, but I'm glad I didn't have to experience it.

I think the closest parallel to it would be POWs. Yeah. Yeah, throw some torture in on top of it, and probably what that's like. But I don't know, man. That shit, like... Yeah, I mean, you can't fathom what that would be like. That is so insane. But you'd mentioned...

Did you come out, because you were doing college classes and stuff while you were in, did you have your degree and were you a minister by the time that you left prison? No. I've got a lot of credits, but I've never worked as a, I've never put them together as a degree.

And I got out and it didn't take long until I went to a year -long Bible institute. Because I was... And, you know, I think my life's over, you know, I don't want to go to college. And I'm glad I didn't because I think if I would have gone to college and seminary, I'd still be there learning and teaching.

But I went to this school that was basically a training area for Kansas City Youth for Christ. And you didn't have to join YFC staff, but that's what the school was created for, to take people. hopefully out of high school or out of a couple years of college, give them three hours a day of biblical training, an hour a day of methods of youth ministry, enslaved labor for Kansas City, youth of Christ for the rest of it.

But I learned a lot there. And after that, I was ordained. So I have a piece of paper that says I'm a reverend, which you can tell is really important to me. But since 19, you know, I got out in 1977. Three months later, I was going to the school.

In 78, I graduated, and I've been in full -time vocational church camp youth prison ministry since then. And like you said, it's almost half a century, which is hard to fathom. And I did get diagnosed with blood cancer a couple years ago. It's kind of changed the modes of ministry that I'm open to.

They don't want me going into prison. because they don't want me in confined spaces no pun intended excuse me no pun intended but and it may sound strange to say I miss prison but I really miss prison and if I weren't married I'd probably be going back behind the walls but my wife would shoot me if I went behind the walls so I correspond with inmates as most prisoners have access to the internet nowadays and I still am friends with many of the guys I knew during the 15 years I ministered in the Missouri and Kansas prisons.

And I grade correspondence courses and do some other stuff to stay involved in prison work. But I really miss going behind the walls. And I still do youth stuff. And I, you know, over the years, if you add them all together, I did four years of my life as a camp speaker.

And I haven't done that. I've done a couple weeks. The preaching part is easy, but the hanging out with the kids takes more energy than I have these days. But it's, you know, I've got cancer, but cancer doesn't have me. And I'm not simplistic about it. I'm 78 anyway.

So probably something else is going to take me out first. But it's definitely changed the way I do ministry and changed the way I interact with people. And in many ways. I really miss those other ways. But at the same time, instead of crying about it, I find other ways to use my energy and use my time.

Because above all things, I want to finish well. Not this evening, hopefully, but I want to finish well. Going to Florida and playing shuffleboard has never appealed to me. Why retire from something you love? I'm not against retirement as a thing. reasonably happy doing what i'm doing i get to do things like this with guys like you and as long as they have a pulse i'm going to be trying to do something and trying to spread some kind of insights maybe even wisdom you know gained through hard experience and any way i can do that i'll do it you know i did write a book after 40 years of nagging i finally wrote a book and from your wife Uh, mostly other people.

When I first got out, you know, here's the, here's the exciting testimony of the guy that used to be a drug freak. And now he's a minister and come tell us your story. And then you ought to write a book jacket early on. I said, you know, I don't want to write a book because in order for it to be published, I'm going to have to have 14 chapters of the crap and one chapter about the good part.

And then even when self -publishing came in and other stuff came in, I just. There's so many books that have my similar story. But then I finally did write a brief flyover of my life. And it's out there and it's being read by people. But I have a goal of trying to get a copy of it in every prison and halfway house and jail in the country.

Simply because my introduction to the Christian faith was in jail in Texas. They found some drugs. They took everything out except what they couldn't take out, and that was the religious junk. So after a couple days of boredom, I went over to the pile of books, and there were a bunch of Bibles, some other stuff, but I was a man.

I did the crime. I could do the time. I didn't need this religious hocus -pocus stuff. But there's a paperback book that had the word prison in the title. So I said to myself, Self, you've been to jail a few times. You've never been to prison. Why don't you read this book?

Disregard the science fiction stuff. and find out what prison is going to be like. So I read the book, and it was a story of a World War II alcoholic who was led to the Lord in jail, got out, went to Bible college, started a big church in San Diego.

He's dead now, but then he wrote the book. And I read the book, and he quoted a lot of Bible verses, and it spawned just enough interest in me that I picked up a Bible and started to read it. And after a period of time, I simply... trusted the gospel, trusted Christ.

I didn't pray the prayer. I didn't jump through any hoops. There was nobody involved except me, a very lost sinner and an incredibly loving God, and I became a follower of Christ. So I'd like to have my book used in such a way to be an entry point for people into checking out what the faith is about.

That's such a cool story behind it all. What was it, once you opened up the Bible and you started doing your digging into it specifically, do you remember, was it, is there something specific or tangible that started to shift your mind from being dismissive of it to starting to accept it?

Well, again, where I am now that I had no idea at that time, I do believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. That inspired men wrote the Bible and that it is not necessarily literally true, but it is true. In other words, I've never seen a tree in the field clap its hand.

And I'm not going to argue about days of creation, hours of creation. But humanly speaking, I remember the first thing. I mean, I had no idea that the Bible was 66 books, 1400 years, three different languages, 40 or 41 different authors. So I started page one and kept going.

Somehow I made it through Ecclesiastes and Chronicles and Numbers, got to the Gospels, and I remember as I read about Jesus Christ for the first time, I think the first thing that impressed me was that he never had anything bad to say to the hookers. He never had anything bad to say to the thieves.

If you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the only people he blasted were the religious people. I thought that was kind of cool. The only people he came down on were the people who thought, isn't God lucky to have me? And that was my, humanly speaking, looking back on it, that was my first attraction to it.

Though when I finished it the first time, I said, cool thing. And I put it back in the pile. By that time, we had everything restored to us. But I put it back in the pile of books and forgot about it or tried to forget about it. But I couldn't forget about Jesus Christ.

So after, I don't know, a week or two, I went back and read some more and then got saved, born again, whatever. on January 30th, 1974. I don't think you have to remember the daytime or hour because our Christian testimony needs to be current events rather than history.

But, you know, I'll die on the mountain that Jesus is not a good way to heaven. He's not the great way to heaven. He's not the best way to heaven, but he's the only way in heaven. So that automatically puts me at odds with everybody else, to include my brother.

My brother's deceased now, but he used to say, Jack, you're so never -minded about this stuff. I said, yo, Bob, it's easy to be narrow -minded when you know you're right. And there's some of the stuff that I know I'm right on. A whole lot of stuff about the faith that I don't understand.

But I am, you know, brainwashed or narrow -minded or whatever, that when Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father except through me, he meant what he said and that it's true. I don't think that makes me a fundamentalist in the sense that the only Bible I read is the King James and my wife has to wear a dress all the time, etc.

But I am fundamental in the sense that I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. And I think it was Mark Twain who said, when people say they don't understand the Bible, Mark Twain said, I don't think it's the part they don't understand that bothers them.

You can understand enough to realize you probably have to make a decision. But most people ignore it. And I'm convinced that most people in Christian churches, I shouldn't say that, that a lot of people in Christian churches are as lost as an Easter egg. They're just what we referred to earlier.

They're parroting what they grew up in, but they've never made a personal commitment to Christ. And I think that's probably it. The bigger burden of my life is people that are in the church that don't have a saving relationship with Christ. Do you think that's almost the similar or parallel kind of like armor defense, you know, when it's that passiveness to it is, well, I'm checking the box, so I go to heaven kind of thing?

Yeah, absolutely. I think the... You know, biblical illiteracy among Christians, among professing Christians, has always been a thing, but it's epidemic now. I know that I can go in as the guest preacher in any church in the country, and they can introduce me and say, this is Jack Hager, he's going to bring the message today.

And I could go to the pulpit and say, it's a pleasure to be here. If you have a Bible with you, whether it's on your phone or a physical Bible, would you turn to 2nd Hezekiah chapter 4? And most of the people would start looking for it. There is no second Hezekiah in the Bible because I think most, the majority of Christians have no clue what the Bible has to say because they've never read it or they've read bits and pieces and they may have sat under good preaching for decades, but they still have not opened their heart to the possibility that Jesus really wants to be personal and powerful in their lives.

And it's comfortable. I don't have to think. My mommy told me this. My youth pastor told me this. Jack at youth camp told me this. It's got to be true. And they never do the hard work of thinking, even though the Bible says, examine yourselves to see whether you be in the faith.

That is too dangerous, and you have to be vulnerable in order to examine yourself. What does that look like? I mean, yes, studying the Bible, I'm assuming trying to actively digest what you read and ponder it. But on the, I mean, is that more intimate relationship? Is that praying?

Like, what does that look like? I phrase it as inhale the Word of God, exhale prayer. That unless and until somebody develops a regular systematic intake of the Word of God, the most they can hope to be is a typical Christian, and we don't need any more of them.

And, you know, praying is an amazing thing. And, you know, prayer, virtually every religion has some type of prayer. But the Bible says pray without ceasing, and I'm pretty sure that means pray without ceasing. And I think, I don't have scriptural proof for this, but I think for the active disciple of Christ, who tries to feed on the word on a regular basis, who is trying to develop a prayer life, who is not just a church groupie, but is actively involved in a local church, I think your thought life, in a sense, becomes your prayer life.

That there's always that underlying thing. I hear a siren. I can pray about it. I can see someone who looks sad. I can pray for whatever he or she is going through. And I'm not saying I've got this whole thing figured out. No way. But I think it's just, again, it takes work and effort.

It takes getting up earlier to spend some time in the Bible. It takes getting out of bed on Sunday to go to church. It takes the effort of finding a Bible -believing church. It takes the effort of having Christian friends that you can... discuss things with and be real with and be genuine.

You know, everybody needs that. This dates me. I used to do school assemblies, et cetera. And even in some of my preaching, I say, you really need friends. Even the Lone Ranger had a buddy. And, you know, finally, a couple of decades ago, I realized most people had no idea what I was talking about.

So I had to introduce them to the Lone Ranger and Tonto. But, you know, you just, people, you know. We really do. We really do. We really do need each other. And as a person of faith, you can't do this thing as a Lone Ranger. And as a human being, you can't do this thing as a Lone Ranger.

And all too many people try to. Yeah, that, I guess on one hand, actually, you already told us you're 78, so you'd already told us your age. I think you're also very fortunate. I believe there was a Lone Ranger remake in recent years. So I think you can start using that reference again.

And I think it was horrible. Yeah. But the, I think, you know, that the not doing things alone, that's something I've had to learn since, especially since I shot myself, but it is like, and it's, I'd say even then that's been seven years. I would say the last like four years is when I really started to realize that.

And it's, I don't know why that's so hard for some of us to learn that it, kind of looking go ahead women come about it naturally and i'm going to get in trouble for that not because they're weak but i think women are more emotionally in tune or something they're more willing years ago there was a thing called promise keepers there was really big for a while uh coach colorado coach started it it was big rallies of men getting together and he really pushed having accountability partners, et cetera.

And I think it was really helpful. It's still around kind of, but not very big. But men don't come, you know, I think combats, you know, people say, did you have many friends in Vietnam? I said, not really, you know, because that friend could be dead the next second.

And, you know, at the same time, we certainly, you know, I was not in combat daily, but enough to be aware that. I wasn't fighting for God, America, and the American apple pie. I was fighting for the guy to the left or right, or in my case, the other guys on the track with me.

But I think combat and prison are similar in the sense that unless you've been there, done that, you have no clue. It doesn't matter how many movies you watch, how many books you read, how many people you talk to. Unless you've been there, you have no idea. Obviously, I hope most people don't go there.

But even then, what started the whole conversation, I think, is in a sense, I do believe PTSD is a very real thing. I also believe it's tremendously overdiagnosed, just like ADD. You know, I think there's some kids that have attention deficit disorder. I think there's other kids that are just brats and need to be spanked.

Instead of, you know, I think there's no harm or no shame in going to a medical professional with whatever your issue is. But I don't think step one is take this pill. Absolutely not. No. Which does not mean I'm against medication. It does mean I'm against, oh, okay, take a pill, go away.

There should be other things being done alongside the pill, especially when it's the psych stuff. Like it should be therapy. should be are you working out is your diet right what else are you doing do you have a social network no okay how can we start doing that or developing that too it's i i think and i actually just had this conversation with a friend recently who was wanting to go have some uh assessments done to see if this person has a a certain um diagnosis um and i really i think i'm on the same pulse as you on this like i i and i'm not a comment that i'm not talking about ptsd specifically i'm talking about just generally these some of these diagnoses i think like you've said some of them whether it be add or everyone now is autistic um are Because it's, first of all, it's pathologized by our medical system so that money can be made off of it.

But then it becomes, for some people, it becomes their identity. And some people are also looking for that to become their identity. Absolutely. Just like you've talked about, you know, excuses. It's not the same thing, but it is, you do, sometimes it actually does get used as an excuse for an action or poor actions that people have taken where it's like not really fitting, but it becomes.

This, like it always gets mentioned that, oh, I have, you know, I have this. I have this. Oh, yeah, but I have this. It's because of my this. And it's, I think that's another very, I don't know where that came from. I mean, it is essentially, it is still a different flavor of the victim mentality on things.

Because the mindset should be, okay, I have this. What does that mean? I guess, how, how did I get it? What does it mean? How does this function? And specifically what can, when it presents in me, like, what can I do to mitigate those? Like, what have I tested to, okay, I've, I've had brain injuries.

I can be very forgetful. I take notes on everything. I know I can be very agitative. So I try and be very conscious of that. I know I have sleeping issues. So I do this and it's, I don't know. I don't, I don't know if that's all. I guess, do you think that's a symptom of the same root problem or is this something that is separate?

I think, I'm not sure I've ever really thought about it in those terms, but I think it's an outgrowth of victimhood that, and I know you're not saying this, you know, there are these issues, but they're so over -diagnosed or... used as an excuse for horrible behavior. Although, again, that may get medically messed up.

But I think it's, you know, can it get worse? I don't know how, but it probably can. But again, I'd urge everybody to get a copy of Get Over It by the Eagles and listen to it. It's just so much wisdom there that, but it still takes people.

being willing to ask for help and help being there. In fact, you know, I want to be very, very clear. Coming to Jesus doesn't fix everything. Yeah. Yeah, there is a certain flavor of alleged Christianity that Jesus wants to make you healthy and wealthy. That's crap. You come to Christ with your baggage and, you know, he can do anything he wants.

When I tell people I'm an alcoholic, they say, oh, no, no, no. You're a Christian now. You're no longer. Shut up. I'm still in this earth suit. I'm still trapped in this body. You know, it doesn't instantly go away. You know, I don't want to be simplistic at all.

That coming to Christ does not fix everything. It fixes eternity. It fixes. It's the start. You know, Bible calls being born again. You're born again. All you can do is eat and poop, and you hopefully grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, etc.

But none of us get there. I haven't been tempted to have a drink forever. I got a good buddy in Kansas City. He owned a head shop in Atlanta, somehow became a Christian. He struggles daily with the desire to get high. As far as I know, he's not caved in, but it's a daily struggle.

There's no one side. There's no one -size -fits -all repercussions of becoming a Christian. There's still baggage to be dealt with. There's still things to be dealt with, temptations to be struggled with. And I despise the come to Jesus and all your problems are over thing. Or come to Buddha and all your problems are over, you know, whatever.

Yeah, selling anything is a one -off solution. uh i think disingenuous i think it can be maybe not even intentionally but it is kind of predatory like especially when you're if you're speaking to someone who's very very lost and really really struggling and you're like oh well you know um our our church has the answer and you will all you need to do is come get baptized and accept jesus christ as your lord and savior and all will be washed away and all will be good like i think that can be Even unintentionally manipulative.

I think sometimes it's intentionally, but I think most of the times it's unintentionally. They're not being careful with what they're communicating. Maybe that's an advantage that I have in the Christian community. I wish I would have become a Christian when I was five years old, blah, blah. And not simply because of the drugs and the...

crime and stuff, but becoming a follower of Christ at the age of 26 gives me a more sensible perception of what faith is and what faith isn't. I think that someone who genuinely becomes a Christian when they're six years old don't know anything else about it, and I'm not even sure where I'm going with that thought.

The Christian life is not a party. It's a fight. It's a fixed fight. I read the back of the book. We win. But it's still a fight. And you may, you know, I'm still struggling with this, Jack. Welcome to the real world. You know, I get, well, why do people sin, Jack?

Because it's fun. I say that in church and I'm going to get glared at. Maybe I do and I do get glared at. I did drugs. I did other stuff because it was fun. And if it wasn't fun, I probably wouldn't struggle with temptation. And temptation in and of itself is not a sin biblically.

And I often tell people, if I'm preaching to a teen group or an adult group or a mixture, I'll mention temptation and I'll say, if you're not fighting some type of temptation, I doubt that you're a Christian. That also gets me glared at, but as you probably figured out, I don't have really thin skin.

And I'm going to try and speak truth. I'm going to try and speak it in love, but I'm trying to speak it. And again, I get called narrow -minded, even by Christians, and that's okay. I'm going to do my own time anyway. Well, I just... I have a pretty strong sense that you understand why you feel what you feel.

And I think anyone, you have to respect that, right? Whether you agree with it or not, it's okay. These are thought out. There's a reason that rationale behind it. And it's, I don't know, man, it's a, you, you said earlier something to the effect of like, hopefully putting some wisdom into the world.

And I think you definitely are. I feel like you've thrown down a lot of wisdom here. And I know over the past almost 50 years, you've had to have. imparted some lessons and some insights that have stuck with people especially like why why do you decide to work with with teens and in youth specifically beats working no when i got out of prison the first job i got was a minister of sanitation otherwise known as a janitor at a church and uh this is in southern california it wasn't a real big church but it's big enough And they had a K -6 school attached to the church.

And, well, first, when I got to the church, they almost immediately asked me to be the volunteer youth pastor. The idiots. I'm a month out of prison, maybe. And they never said it, but they said, hey, we get this ex -drug dealer as youth pastor. He's going to draw kids like a pile of poop with all flies.

And by God's grace, I did it and I didn't do too many dumb things and I enjoyed it. And then the first Easter, I was washing, I had to wash the windows of the school and they hired a couple of kids to help me. And this one kid was helping me and he said, why don't you come speak at my YFC club?

And I said, what's a YFC club? And he told me it's a teenage club called Youth for Christ, blah, blah, blah. That was my introduction to Youth for Christ. It was my real introduction to. youth ministry as a possible career and took a couple steps here and a couple steps there the doors opened and it was almost like I was pushed into it or pulled into it and I love it I just you know one of the one of the things I have learned over the years early on the really sad thing was the amount of youth guys that didn't seem to like youth They like the games and they like being the person people look up to, but I still like teenagers and I'd still rather work with teenagers than most adults because if I preach something or say something, the kid will usually say, Jack, that was really dumb.

Or the parent will say, that was a great sermon, Jack, and go home and have roast duck for lunch. They're like, did you hear what Jack fucking said? Come on. Exactly. Yeah. And I think... You know, I've got friends that are in their, heck, 50s now that came to Christ through my ministry way back when and by God's grace are still walking with Christ.

And some of them will say, you know, at first I didn't like you because you were so bullheaded and you were so passionate and so narrow -minded. But I'm glad I stuck around and I'm glad I listened and I'm glad it got through. And I don't dance. I don't.

I pray I don't play games verbally or any other way. Do you speak in tongues at all? I know the truth, and if you don't like it, too bad. But at the same time, I'm going to try and tell it in love, as opposed to, you dirty, rotten, filthy sinner, you need to get saved right now.

Even though, yeah, like I was, they're dirty, rotten, filthy sinners, because all I've said, you fall short of the glory of God. But every human being has a stamp of God on them. Every human being. was created by God, created in God's image, and deserves the respect inherent in that.

Their actions may be despicable, but at the end of the day, they are still people. Nobody's beyond redemption. Nobody's beyond salvation. And that's one reason why I enjoy prison ministry. Where's your favorite place to preach? Prison. The guys already know they're screwed. Where's your least favorite place to preach?

Christian schools. because they think they know everything, whether it's a high school or a college. But as long as God opens the door, I'm going to go through them. And God could use a donkey. There may be some similarities. I'm amazed I get to do what I get to do and amazed that I've done it for so many years and just very thankful.

I think I'm very thankful that I've gotten to cross paths with you. I think you've probably, on top of... everything else and passing along your faith but i'd like the impression that i've i've gotten in speaking with you you've probably also taught some people to be free thinkers which i think is you know depending on as as important i would say as as the rest of your work i really do and i think it's it's special and we need more of that and You know, I hope if we could get your book in every prison system in the in the country here, that would be what an incredible full circle thing for you to have, you know, distilled down or fermented the own path that you had and then be able to pass that along to others.

And it's I. I just, yeah, I respect the hell out of what you're doing and obviously what you've done. And I also want to apologize earlier. I think I said that it sounds like you had a good time when you were in Vietnam. I don't know why I said that.

I get weird. Go ahead. The definition of combat is... moments of terror surrounded by hours of boredom or something like that, somebody said, I don't think there's anything like combat to be an adrenaline rush, you know, afterwards. And again, I wasn't in it all the time. We typically stayed in base camps, but we went out on ambush patrols.

We went on other stuff. I was a track commander in a 17 -ton armored cavalry assault vehicle. sitting behind a .50 caliber machine gun. You can't hit the broad side of a barn with a .50, but you sure can scare the snot out of people with it. I think fun would be an accurate word for very small portions of it.

There's nothing more that gets the adrenaline going, the blood flowing. This guy's trying to kill me, and the only way I can stop him from killing me is by killing him. It doesn't go through your conscious mind, I don't think, but it's just, I certainly don't miss it.

And I certainly don't want people to go through it to prove that I'm right or wrong. But I think most combat vets will tell you that, at least to some degree, that it's, everything else was boring compared to that. When that's, guys come back and then die in motorcycle accidents and doing adrenaline stuff.

And it's gotta be, it's like a junkie. sink or seeking that fix in a in a sense and i i i don't know i i feel i always feel because i'm not a combat vet very out of place asking people about it and so i should have just asked you hey did you see combat and then just moved past it but i just i feel like it's not my place to ask i should have but the saying it sounds like you enjoyed it was not i don't know where that came from so i do apologize but um thank you again for for going over there and again i think i just i'm sorry you guys were treated that way but i am glad to hear that people make a point to tell you that they feel that same way now um and what what's the the title of your book so that everyone can find it and hopefully help spread it around and Where else should people find you?

It's Captured by Grace, available at Amazon, some other places. I do have a Facebook presence, Jack Hager, and I do have a TikTok, I think it's RevJack7. But I also have an email. If there's somebody that would like to argue or discuss or whatever, it's just jack .hager at Gmail.

It's what I do. You're not an imposition. You're not... Taking advantage. And I'm not going to hit you over the head. With a 10 foot by 18 foot King James Bible. But I will talk to you. And I will enjoy listening to you. If you'd like to do that.

Other than that. Just think. Take time to think. Each person is irreplaceable. Incredibly. And fearfully. And wonderfully made. And each person is valuable. And if you're listening to this and you don't feel that, talk to people. Get some help. Check it out. You are irreplaceable. You are important.

And you are loved. Yeah. That's a beautiful place to wrap it up. I've talked about that a lot on this show. You just have to ask for help. So many people out there want to help you, but they have to know that you need it. And you owe that to yourself to get that help.

So let people help you. Is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap this thing up, Jack? I think that'll do it. I've really, really enjoyed it. All right. Thank you, sir. Thanks everyone at home for listening to another episode of Going In Blind. I just want to clarify a thing or two before I make the usual announcements.

I'm not sure how eloquently I worded it while Jack and I were speaking, but I do want to clarify that I was not dismissing these diagnoses, nor was Jack. But just there's a trend that I've noticed that some people tend to lean into using a diagnosis as a crutch rather than taking action to address something or as an excuse for some of their actions.

But I think we made that pretty clear. Just like I apologized to Jack at the end there. I wanted to make sure that I was more clear here. But with all of that out of the way, please, if you've been listening for a while or if you enjoyed that, leave a rating and review if you are just listening.

Or if you're on YouTube, like the video and subscribe to the channel. That helps keep attracting people like Jack to come on the show. But other than that, I will see you next time. Bye.