Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Jack, I want to take. First of all, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: My privilege.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: I'm so excited to talk to you. I was like, I want to get there already. I'm almost like not doing the introductions.
I'm so curious. I want to take you back to that moment that you decided to enlist.
Why did you decide to join the army?
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Well, I graduated from high school in 1965. As hard as it is for me to say that Vietnam was starting to get a little hot and heavy, I knew nothing about it. My dad was a lifer in the military, so I knew something about the military. I had a couple scholarships when I graduated, but I didn't want to go to school, didn't want to go to Vietnam. So talked to my recruiter, took all the tests primarily just to avoid being drafted and going to Nam.
He gave me the test. He said I was in the top 10%, blah, blah, blah. And that if I enlist in the Army Security Agency for four fun filled years, not only would I not go to Vietnam, I wouldn't even go overseas. I fell for it.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Well, first of all, I love your approach of taking control of your future. I think that's absolutely delightful. What actually ended up happening? What did the like the first six months of your service look like?
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Well, I went to basic training in Fort Ord, California, went to some other training in Georgia, then went to the ultimate oxymoron military intelligence school in Massachusetts and got on a jet, went to the Republic of South Korea for 25 months.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Wow. What did you do there? What did that look like?
[00:01:33] Speaker B: If I tell you, I have to shoot you.
The military over classifies everything, but some of the stuff that we did is still classified. In fact, when I was discharged in 1969, I had to sign a bunch of papers that now we call non disclosure things or something. But basically, if I talk too much, I'd end up in Leavenworth.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Let me ask you this. What are the insights that you learned throughout your military service that have kind of molded who you are as a person?
[00:02:04] Speaker B: How stupid America is, how ignorant the American people are. Broad brush. I was in Korea when the North Koreans swiped the Pueblo. And most people aren't even aware of that. It was a spy ship that we had operating off the coast of North Korea. The North Koreans decided to seize it. They killed one guy in capturing the vessel. And that was the most scared I've ever been in my life. Because of my security clearance, because of what I did. I knew that everything we had in South Korea was nuclear and I really thought we were going to go to nuclear war because silly me, I didn't think the United States would sell those 93 men down. But they did. They sold him out. They did do nothing to rescue him. They were held captive in North Korea for a little over a year. When they were released, the commanding officer was court martialed because he didn't jump through the right hoops apparently. And that was in Korea. From Korea they sent me to Germany. I was in Germany when the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia two weeks ahead of time. We knew Russia was going to invest, invade Czechoslovakia. So we moved our units up on the border so we could gather intelligence and do some other things. And then I got to Vietnam right after Tet 68. And it didn't take a rocket science to figure out that they were not going to let us win the war in Vietnam. And I'm not quite sure who they were, but I know it wasn't my colonel. I know it wasn't those general in Vietnam. I knew it was somebody back in the Pentagon or maybe higher than that. And I grew. You know, 1965 was a different world. There was still a sort of respect for authority.
I could still meet my best friend's mother and assume that her last name was the same as his name was. There was, it was a whole different word. You know, the British invasion had started and the Beatles stuff and let's spend the night together was such a shocking thing back then. It's so innocent now and then to go into the service. And I don't regret going in the service, but I regret the way the powers that be wasted 58,000 lives, American lives in Vietnam and untold thousands, hundreds of thousands of Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian, Thai.
I'm not smart enough to know whether we should have gone into Vietnam, but I am smart enough to say if you go in, you go in to win.
And that means collateral damage, that means other things. And we obviously didn't learn anything in Vietnam. Witness Afghanistan and Iraq.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: And why do you. Why is your conclusion that, you know, the American person, kind of the average is ignorant or dumb. Like how do those two things connect together?
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Well, I think it was Mark Twain who said no, it was Henry Ford who said the most difficult thing to do is to think, which is why there are so few that do it. And I think it's not just Americans, but I think people in general just tell me what to do, tell me what's going on, don't rattle my world too much and I'll just move Ahead. You know, we just went through a rather contentious election and I don't want to go either way on that whole thing, except to say that it's on the Internet, it's got to be true. You know, that's a joke, it's a meme. But there's many people that fall for it. If somebody seems to have a little bit of authority and they speak authoritatively, whatever that means, people fall for it. And I just think doing the hard work of doing your own research, doing the hard work of doing your own thinking, doing the hard work of being not paranoid, but trust, but verify. I have a sort of a sanctified suspicion that I may not be hearing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: You know, my dad used to tell me that every single. This was the day that we had, you know, newspapers today we'll call them, you know, media outlets, whatever. He used to tell me all the newspapers lie, every single one of them. And he said to me, the only way to have some semblance of the truth is to read all of them.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: And try and filter it out and.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Try and figure it out for yourself.
So I think there's something fundamental and social media doesn't make this easier because in certain ways it's an echo chamber, right? That based on the things that we want to hear in the rooms that we put ourselves in, then we're hearing the lies of the echo chamber that we're in. No matter which echo chamber it is, everyone has their own lies that we tell ourselves. So it's maybe more difficult than ever.
It's a lot of hard work, right? Reading all the newspapers, it's, it's not easy. It's. It's really this, this difficult job of deciding that you're on this journey to seek out the truths and ask yourselves, what are the things that you think are true that aren't necessarily. That's an uncomfortable thing to do.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: It certainly is. And again, it takes two terrible four letter words, time and work. And we're either too busy or think we're too busy. And I recognize that the pace of life is wacky and all kinds of other things, but as a human being, I want to know what's going on. Not so I can prove how intelligent I am. I can disprove that very quickly if you wish, but, you know, not so I can prove anything or be higher than somebody. I just want to know. And you're right, it takes work, it takes effort, it takes determination. And sadly, those are commodities that aren't Very common.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: The common sense ain't so common is the. I feel like there's a hack here, though. There is a shortcut, and that shortcut is curiosity. And I mean, you kind of said it, so, you know, I apologize for kind of taking your words, but keep me honest here. If you agree or not, that if the only thing that we did is just we were curious and open and instead of talking, we would listen, that's a little bit of a hack to hear like different perspectives and learn more about the world than we think we know.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: I think listening, you're absolutely right. Listening is hard work. And to really listen, not trying to listen so you can have a counterargument, but just really listening and listening well enough to say, you know what? This is what I hear you saying, and then say what you think you've heard. So the other person can either confirm that or say, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. But again, that takes work on both sides and I guess a bit of humility that I'm not quite as smart as I think I am and that this person, even if I may stone cold disagree with everything they say, their opinion is valid. It may not be truth and they may not realize it's not truth, but I have to respect them as a human being. And sometimes that's rather difficult, but. And hopefully that's reciprocated.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: I would even argue that it's easier to change somebody's opinion by listening to them and being truly curious than kind of lecturing at them. So I would say even if you're truly trying to make a change, listening is an incredibly powerful tool. No matter how you look at it, it really is.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: And it's rare. It's. You know, I tell kids I work with, teenagers mostly, and I tell them, you know, one of the best things you can do is look people in the eye. Just look them in the eye. Just. It authenticates them. It gives them at least a feeling that you're really interested in them. And instead of gazing off into the Netherland or something else, it seems so simple, but it's so rare.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: I couldn't agree with that more.
You're, you're, you're. You've kind of gone through your military career. You're standing at the edge of that. What's going through your head?
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Well, let me backtrack just a little bit to lay some groundwork. When I was in Korea, I loved Korea. It was a year long tour. I extended for a year. I tried to extend again. They wouldn't let me because I just wanted to be discharged in Korea, hook up with a Korean chick, open up a bar and stay there the rest of my life. They wouldn't let me do that. So I put in for Thule, Greenland, Sinop, Turkey, and I can't remember the third place of the dream sheet that you put in. This is where I want to go because I still didn't want to go to Vietnam. So these are so called hardship tours. Instead, the military and its never ending wisdom sent me to Germany, which is typically a three year tour. And I had just under a year to go. They sent me to Germany. Germany was not good duty. The commanding officer hated me, literally. And so I 1049, I volunteered to go to Vietnam because there are only two ways to get out of Germany. That was either re enlist and I wouldn't re enlist for two days for a three day pass or go to Nam. I didn't want to be a hero, just wanted to get out of Germany. At that time I was an alcoholic, was messing around with other drugs, just didn't really care too much anyway, go to Vietnam, go through that stuff. July 9, 1969, I'm honorably discharged, come back to the States. And as you probably know, we were not welcomed home at all. And we were.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: So there's a lot of young audience that is not necessarily familiar with our history. Could you, I think this is an important point. Can you share a little bit about that when you say we were not welcome home?
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, this is 1969, July. I land at Travis Air Force Base along with a whole lot of other troops. They wouldn't let us off the plane for about an hour and a half because for some reason some protesters had gotten into the air base and the air police and other officials were trying to make a corridor through these people. And we finally were able to get off the plane. The first American girl I see, a beautiful, stone cold, beautiful blonde chicken. She's yelling at the top of her lungs, how many babies did you kill in Vietnam? How many babies did you. I ignored her. There was a grizzled old Marine sergeant behind me and he said only as many as I could eat. Didn't phase her. She just continued screaming. The anti war movement was a real big thing. People were running away to Canada, et cetera. And the hatred of the American soldier was a genuine thing that was really, really hard to come home to. And you know, in Afghanistan and Iraq there were many people who were against the war. But at least in my perception, I didn't run across people who were against the warrior. But in Vietnam, they were against anybody that had a uniform on. And the obscenities and the physical danger was a very real thing. I was already disenchanted with the United States and that even though I heard things like that, until you really see it, it doesn't become as concrete. And it just cemented my hatred for the United States at that particular point in my life.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: What happened next? Once you're back on American soil, what was your first step?
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Well, my first step was to get drunk, find some drugs, do some other things. And then I started looking for a job. I did not want to stay in the United States. And I happened to see an ad in a San Francisco paper that said, have you recently been discharged? Did you have a top security codeword clearance? Come see us. It was a thing called Global Associates, and they were headhunters for military consign, military augmentation of men and women that had a very high security clearance. They didn't care what your job was. If you had a security clearance, they were going to hire you. I went down, I interviewed me, they hired me. They sent me to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, which was downrange for the Pacific missile range. The theory was they'd fire a missile from Vandenberg and we'd shoot it down in Kwajalein.
They hired me as a radar intercept operator. I couldn't even spell radar. I had no idea what that was. But it was a government cost plus operation. The more they spent, the more they got. And I just went there and stayed about two and a half months. Got very, very bored. Came back to Hawaii. Bummed around Hawaii for a while. Met a young lady who was a stewardess. She introduced me to some guys she worked for on the side. They basically interviewed me and hired me. We moved to Oregon, and for the next few years, I was involved in multilevel marketing that happened to be illegal. I understand there are people who think all multilevel marketing should be illegal, but this was drugs and guns. The typical stuff that everybody's heard about. Got away with it for a few years. Made a lot of money, had a lot of fun on the inside. I was bored to death, and I could never let anybody know that. And I just didn't care about myself, so why should I care about anybody else? Did a lot of stuff that I am no way proud of any more than I'm proud of a lot of things in my life. But it was a lot of fun for a while. And then the boredom set in. And then December of 1973, I was finally, as would was ultimately to happen, I was finally arrested in Texas and eventually sentenced to 10 years in Oregon State Prison.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Most of our audience can't even comprehend what that would feel like or what an experience of going through prison would even entail. Give them a little bit of an insight on what does a day in life in prison look like.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Okay, every prison is different. And again, we're talking prison, not jail. A jail is usually run by the state of the county and typically misdemeanor time or waiting trial.
Prison is run by the state of the federalities. Typically you're not going to do less than a year in prison. But every prison is different in some ways. But they're all the same in some ways. Also.
You're confined with a whole lot of people who, some of whom probably should be in a state hospital.
Others just don't care about anything. Others are as scared as they can be.
I think there's a guy named Benjamin Rush back in the 1800s who said something. Criminals collected together tend to corrupt each other. They are worse than ever when at the end of their sentence, they're released on an unsuspecting society. And prison, being an advanced school for crime, is a cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true. You can learn anything you want in prison. You can get anything you want in prison if you're willing to trade for it or muscle people for it. Prison is a place where you wake up in the morning and at least for me, the first thought through my brain is this the day I am going to die? Or is this the day I have to kill somebody in order to stay alive? Life means nothing in prison. Maybe the best way to illustrate it, if right now I was given the choice of going back to Vietnam or going back to a maximum security prison, I'd go back to Vietnam in a heartbeat. Because at least in Nam, you had some idea who the bad guy was. You had some idea what might happen day to day in prison. You have no clue. You can be killed because somebody starts a rumor about you. You can be killed because of your skin color. You can be killed because you bump into somebody who's having a bad day. Life means nothing behind the walls. And it's as close to hell as I'll ever get.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: How did you, I mean, how did you make that change after coming out of prison? I mean, through your own testament, you know, it's not a great environment to help you Build the skills and the attitudes and the values that you know, your average Joe might consider as good or correct.
What made the change for you? Why were you amongst the lucky few, so to speak, if you would even agree with that.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: I agree with it to some extent. And again, I recognize that not everybody shares what is now my faith. But it's important to point out that I did become a stumbling follower of Christ while I was in jail. That's a long story in and of itself. So I was a newly born again saved, Bible believing Christian, so to speak. And when I checked into prison, one of the processes is they give you a bunch of tests. They give you a bunch of basic intelligence tests, square peg, round hole test, the inkblot test, all that junk at the end of two weeks, not because I was Jack Hager, but because I was 36, 403, going through the system like almost every prisoner after they gave me the test, you appear in front of the parole board. The parole board tells you A, why you're in prison, B, what you have to do to impress them. So when you come to the parole board, you might have a chance of getting out.
The well meaning people told me that the reason I was a drug dealer and a thief, et cetera, was because of the bad attitude I had toward the United States because of my jury duty in Vietnam.
What have the idiots just told me? It's not my fault Vietnam did it to me. And unfortunately that's. And again, these are well meaning people. But instead of saying, yo, you're an idiot, you made some bad choices, you got to man up, take responsibility for your life and start making better choices instead of that. In my case they said it was Vietnam. In somebody else's case, it may say they were molested as a child. They may say because you're black or because your parents got divorced or whatever. And certainly all those things contribute.
But man has the power of choice.
And I think until and unless, whether they're in prison or on the street, until and unless somebody says I have personal responsibility, they won't mature, they won't be able to change because they're allowing other people to push them and mold them into what they want to be.
Had I not become a Christian, I don't think I would have fallen for it anyway because I knew nobody made me do it. I wasn't poorly potty trained, it wasn't a result of some dastardly thing. In fact, I have four kids, two the old fashioned way and two that we adopted. And in adopting my daughter back in 94, I had to be interviewed by a social worker. And among other things, she asked me about my childhood memories. And I said, I have none. I don't remember anything. I don't remember much of anything the other side of 10 or 11 years of age. I remember we were in Germany. I remember my dogs in Germany. I kind of remember the maid we had there. I remember a couple other isolated incidents, but I had. And she just got this ashen look on her face. And I said, time out, timeout. To the best of my knowledge, my parents didn't abuse me sexually, physically, anything else.
And I'm not, you know, I'm not going to unlock the secrets of my childhood. Maybe they're a secret because that's where they need to be. If it was manifesting it myself, if I was into porn or into molesting people, I might have to go back and try and unpack. Was there something that really contributed to those stupid choices? But there wasn't. All that stuff contributes, but you still have to make your own choice. So I think, even without my faith, I think I would have said, no, I'm not buying this. I went to prison because I made some dumb choices. I can understand anybody going to prison once.
The tragic part is the recidivism rate runs 60 to 80%, depending on which study you listen to. And I do prison ministry and prison counseling now. And I just tell the guys, hey, man, if you want to make it, you can make it. It's not going to be easy, but don't come crying to me about your parole officer being a jerk. Don't come crying to me about it wasn't easy because I was black or white or pink or whatever. You can make it if you want to make it, but you've got to fight the fight. Fight. You've got to stand up for yourself and realize you and only you put yourself in prison. Therefore, you and only you can keep yourself out of prison.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: But this culture of victimism, of trying to find the excuses and blame, like, oh, the system is rigged. Well, yeah, maybe it is, but that really doesn't help you. It doesn't help you to do better, to have a better life and to live your best life by believing that, in fact, what you're doing is you're disempowering yourself from the fact that you can have a better life. So I don't know what your perspective is. Is it worse today or is it just the same? Have we been dealing with this? I'll call it a disease you know, forever.
But I feel like it really is a dangerous thing.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: I think it is worse and still getting worse. And I think, you know, we are a nation of victims and.
Oh, who was it?
The Eagles. Those great theologians. The Eagles, the great, best harmonizing band ever. My one regret is I never saw them in person, but they had a song. It was on the flip side of Hotel California, I think. Of course, some people don't know what a flip side is, but anyway, it was called Get Over It. And if you don't know the song, YouTube, it's just, you know, your mom is too skinny and your daddy's too fat. Get over it. I'd like to find your little child and kick his little ass. You know, it's just a wonderful song that I wish people would listen to.
But I think it's, I think it's worse now because maybe my generation, when they became parents, had bought into the victimhood thing. So when their kids screwed up, they said, little Johnny, it's not your fault, it's your coach's fault, or it's your math teacher's fault or it's whatever. And they instill in the child a sense of victimhood instead of personal responsibility. And I think it's not my fault. It's the greatest obscenity in the country.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: I mean, I understand that there is, you know, a good intention here. You want to help. You know, there's an intention here of trying to help people feel good.
And the problem with it is that it's non intuitive, that you're actually doing damage with that approach, right? That you're actually disempowering somebody where really you're, you're thinking, oh, I just want them to feel good. I want to, I want them to know that they are, you know, not responsible for the bad things that happen to them.
But we don't kind of think of the downside of that that is, that is, I would agree, catastrophic from that perspective.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Well, I think it's one of those things where two, two, two things to compare.
I played football one year in high school, not even the whole year, because at the beginning the coach laid down the raw. And one of those things was, if you're caught smoking, you're off the team. And back then we're just talking cigarettes, right? He caught me smoking and I was off the team.
The comparison to that was the school handbook for my high school said any students caught smoking on campus of William S. Hart Union High School will automatically be suspended for three days. That's what the Book said. But every kid in the school who had an IQ three points higher than plant life knew what it really meant was any students caught smoking on the campus of William S. Hart Union High School will automatically be suspended unless they are related to a school board member on the starting Fox football team, a cheerleader, etc. And so forth.
Another example, I got busted twice when I was a kid and both times they basically slapped me on the wrist and said if you ever do this again instead of teaching me that actions have consequences.
And I think that is just mushroomed that as you say, people are either intentionally, I'm sure it's unintentionally feeding and enabling victimhood.
And I think the worst thing that a parent or any authority figure can do is make a rule, describe the consequences and then not follow through. I tell parents, if you tell little Johnny to be home by 11 o'clock or he's going to be grounded for a week and he comes home at 11:05, it's not a time for mercy. Ground him. Teach him that actions have responsibility, actions have consequences, and, and that you are responsible for those actions.
But I think there's a famine of that type of parenting and that type of authority in general.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: I agree. You know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and it's really difficult sometimes to do the right thing, especially when, you know, as a parent myself, I have three kids. It. I found myself telling my daughter, please don't put me in the position that I need to punish you because I will. And, and I told her, please, like do the right thing so I don't have to be in that position because it pains me to, to have to, to discipline you. So, you know, I, I get it. I know, I understand why we want to avoid doing these things and we want to come up with these alternative philosophies because it's, it's difficult.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: You can't be, you know, as a parent as much as it's one of those things. I often talk about the differentiation between my heart and my head. My head thinks one thing, my heart thinks another thing. You know, back when my kids were young, I want to be their buddy, I want to be their friend. I don't want to be the boss, I don't want to be the authority figure. But I think a parent has to suck it up and be caring enough and be loving enough to let your kids hate you short term in order to help them learn discipline and responsibility.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: I heard something so incredibly interesting and I can't remember who Said it, but it was basically, I would rather have my kids, you know, be my friends in their 30s, 40s, 50s, right, 20s, after, than be their friends now as they're growing, right, as they're still in the house under 18. Because I'm concerned that if I, if I'm their friend today, I will not want to be their friend in the future. They will not be the kind of person that, you know, I would want to have as my friend. And that was, that was so. That was so interesting to me because to a certain degree, as a parent, you're making this sacrifice, right? You're saying, and maybe this is overly personal, maybe this is my view, but you're basically saying, you know, no, you as a parent are not here to, you know, have, you know, the easiest road. You're here to turn your children into human beings. And that's about value, that's about values. That's about hard work. That's about kindness and giving to community. And that's not an easy thing to do.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: I think it's the most difficult job I've ever had is being a dad.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: And, you know, you. You've taken upon yourself more of that difficulty by being a youth pastor. I wanted to lean into that and learn a little bit about, you know, the, the kids that you're meeting on their journey and, and how these lessons are impacting them.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Well, I've been doing this for 45 plus years. One of the great mysteries of life is what such a young guy like me is doing in such an old body. But I, you know, obviously my. My goal is to point them to Jesus Christ and faith in Christ.
But I will love and work with anybody at any place, at any time and understand that it's a process. It's not necessarily a slam, bam, thank you, ma'am, decision time. But I think, I think the one.
I think people mean it as a sort of an insult, but I take maybe a pride in it. The one criticism I hear, not so much from kids, but from adults for many, many years is, Jack, you're way too transparent. And I go say, what?
How can you be way too. You know, you don't have to go into sordid details, but I got it. You know, I got nothing but the truth, the whole truth. I got to be real. I got to be genuine. And I think I've had a lot of teenagers tell me, either as teens or when they're in their 20s and 30s and 40s come to back at me and say, you know what? You made a difference in my life. Not so much because of the wonderful sermons you preached, not so much for the wonderful words of counsel, but just the fact, here it is again, that you looked me in the eyes, you took me seriously and you told me what you thought. You didn't dance around, you didn't try to pussyfoot it. There were times you called me a jerk. I didn't like it then, but I needed to hear. And I think everybody's got their own style, everybody's got their own giftings. But I think number one, until you give me reason not to, if you're 13, 14, 15, I'm going to treat you as a young adult and not as a teenager, whatever that is. And sometimes parents say, you expect too much of young people. And I say, okay, when can I expect something from them? Do they have to turn 18? And if I'm in a particularly bad mood, I say, you know what? In 1968 and 1969, kids their age are trying to kill me and they were laying down their life for a lie. But I have to honor that, I have to respect that. And these kids, they're fundamentally not kids, they're young adults and we need to treat them seriously and understand that they are still learning, their brain is still doing all that stuff. But whether I'm in a maximum security prison teaching preaching or at a church or at a Christian camp or at a small group, I'm me. You know, I don't change. I don't change the vernacular, I don't change the approach. I guess I'm just going to say this is what it is and if you don't like it by the wall, but try to do it in love.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: And there's something so shocking about this, the concept that truth is just deeply impactful and valued. And to me what it sounds like is that these kids are basically saying, thank you for being honest with me.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: I think that's it.
And another thing I've heard or read in emails, social media has its own difficulties, but it's wonderful for staying in touch with people and have people that haven't talked to you for 30 years discover you and get. And Jack, thanks for being honest. Thanks for taking me seriously. And Jack, one thing that really impressed me is you weren't afraid to say, I don't know, I'd ask you a question. You go, I don't know, let's look it up together, let's work on it together. Instead of saying, well, you know, because I have a piece of paper on my wall that says, I'M a reverend, I can tell you everything you need to know. I say, I don't know.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think what's beautiful about that is a, you're, you're teaching humility through example two. You're teaching curiosity and you're saying, look, that is a wonderful question. And kind of delighting in the curiosity and then going and exploring that together with such a simple thing, right? You're, you're achieving so much. So there, there's, there's a beauty to it, I gotta say. Just saying, I don't know, I think.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: It'S, you know, I guess it's a pride thing or humility thing or something. But, you know, I love education, I love reading, I love learning, I love growing.
And at the same time, I think the more you know about anything, the more you know that you don't know a whole lot. And just being willing to say that I think opens doors that otherwise would stay shut. And as you say, it just gives the person, whether a teenager or an adult, the freedom to say, oh, it's okay not to know. It's okay to not have to have every place in its right box and every place in its right column or whatever. It's okay to say I'm not sure, or to express an opinion and say, now this is what I believe.
I'm not sure this is what the Bible says. I'm not sure this is what your denomination says, but this is what I believe. Instead of trying to say, well, thus saith the Lord. There's some things I can say that on, but a whole lot of things.
First, Jack 1:8 says, don't write what you don't know. Mess up what you do know.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Jack, what an absolute delight. There's just one scripted question for our show, and it's a hard one at that. If you had to go back to 20 something year old Jack, what would your advice be to him?
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Well, number one, I wish I would have come to faith earlier. I had no church background, no religious background, no nothing until that jail cell in Texas.
Otherwise, I back at the age of 20. I think I was, I think I was a very mature 20. I moved out when I was 14.
I learned by doing, so to speak. And I'm not sure if I had it to do all over again, I'd have any solid advice for me except keep thinking.
My commanding officer in Vietnam was Colonel George S. Patton iv, son of blood and guts. He had a mantra in the 11th cab, stay alert, stay alive. And I think that works in combat, that works in life. Stay alert, be aware what's going on around you.
It just makes me think, it's so sad. Never in my life up till about 10 years ago did I think I would ever spend part of my ministry teaching young people about situation awareness, about, you know, because I'm a convicted felon, I can't have a weapon and it's only been probably the last five or six years that I wished I could carry again simply because we live in a nutty world that's getting nuttier. But and I'm not advocating one way or other on gun control, et cetera. I'm just saying I wish I could have a way of protecting myself and my family that I can't have because of my felony record.
It's a great question to which I don't have a very good answer.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Jack, I appreciate you deeply. Thank you so much for joining the show today.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: It's been my privilege and it has been fun.
