Jeremy Stalnecker, CEO of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, argues that the military's rising suicide rates stem from political mandates undermining real combat trauma rather than secular psychology. He contends that behavioral issues require spiritual alignment and biblical accountability instead of victimhood narratives, noting how "pseudo-trauma" erodes institutional credibility. The discussion concludes with practical advice for civilian churches to support service members through genuine care, tangible resources, and free programs like Mighty Oaks Programs.org, emphasizing that Scripture suffices for all regardless of military experience. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
Time
Text
From Pastor to Military CEO00:02:17
Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webben with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to Theology Applied.
In this episode of Theology Applied, I was privileged to have a special guest, Jeremy Stalnecker, who is the CEO of Mighty Oaks Foundation.
Mighty Oaks Foundation seeks to serve our military, both active duty and veterans, as well as first responders, and primarily they serve these individuals in the realm of trauma, specifically PTSD, addressing these real issues of pain and difficulty, not With the wisdom of man, but through a biblical worldview.
In addition to this topic, we also beg the question is the military going woke?
We hear lots of different things that are concerning as conservative Christians in the news headlines, but what's actually happening on the ground with our troops?
Tune into this episode, it'll be a real treat.
Real quick, before we hop into our episode, if you'd like to support Right Response Ministries, you can do so by giving a donation of any amount at rightresponseministries.comslash donate.
If you're unable to support our ministry financially at this time, you could still support us in a significant way by simply subscribing to our YouTube channel, clicking the bell, and, of course, sharing our content with your friends and family.
Without further ado, here's today's episode of Theology Applied: Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right.
So, my guest for this episode is Jeremy Stalnecker.
He is the CEO of Mighty Oaks Foundation.
So, without further ado, Jeremy, would you take a moment, introduce yourself to our listeners?
Tell us a little bit about, before you get into your ministry, tell us about your story, your testimony in terms of Christ and being in the military, and then tell us a little bit about your ministry to our troops.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, thank you for having me on.
Really appreciate it.
And appreciate the work that you guys do.
I enjoy listening to.
Your interview is just, you know, it's right response, right?
And it really is.
Faith in the Marine Corps00:05:49
And that's what this is all about.
And I think we have a common understanding of what the answer to most of these issues are.
And I appreciate you spending some time talking about this.
A lot of people don't.
And so thank you for doing it.
My story, you know, I was raised in a very conservative Christian home.
My dad was a pastor and pastored for over 30 years.
And I always talk about going to him when I was 14 years old.
You know, if you're raised in a pastor's home, it's kind of the family business.
Everyone expects for you to become a pastor.
It's just what's going to happen.
Holy Spirit, calling of God doesn't mean anything.
Your dad's a pastor, so that's what you're going to do.
And I knew that that's not what I wanted to do.
I talked to my dad when I was 14 and said, Dad, would you be okay if I didn't become a pastor?
And he said what pastor dads are supposed to say.
He said, Son, be whatever God wants you to be.
That's the best thing you could possibly do.
I said, Dad, I believe God wants me to enlist in the Marine Corps.
He said, Son, God does not want you to enlist in the Marine Corps.
That's not what God wants you to do.
I know this.
So we talked that out, and over the course of time, I went to college.
My parents wanted me to go to college.
That was kind of their stipulation.
You're going to go to college.
What you do after that is up to you.
And went through the process of going through a commissioning program.
I was commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1999 as a second lieutenant.
Made my way through Quantico, Virginia, where all Marine officers go.
Went to infantry officer course and served with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines based out of Camp Pendleton here in Southern California.
As an infantry platoon commander, just a really for me, that was the culmination of everything I had wanted to be and had wanted to do.
I accepted Christ when I was younger, and I really did.
That was never something.
I never had a crisis of faith per se or anything like that.
But growing up in a Christian environment, growing up around good, godly parents, I went to a Christian college.
It was very easy to live that out.
And it wasn't really until I got into the Marine Corps that living out my faith and walking my faith out, whatever phrase one would like to use, really became something I had to consider and something I had to think about.
You know, that was the first time I found myself in a secular environment, not to mention a Marine Corps secular environment.
I really had to understand what it was to be a Christian, what it was to stand for Christ and live for the Lord in that environment.
Went to Iraq as part of the initial invasion into Iraq in 2003.
We deployed to Kuwait in January of that year.
Our infantry battalion did, along with the rest of the 1st Marine Division.
And on March 19th, 2003, a lot of folks will remember.
We went into the country.
Our battalion, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, was the first Marine infantry battalion into Iraq in 2003.
First KIA of the war with one of our lieutenants, and we went from southern Iraq, made our way to Baghdad, and eventually the Battle of Baghdad on April 10th, that was also our infantry battalion.
So, you know, a very, at that time, what we call a kinetic war environment.
Things changed a lot, but we were very much, you know, a mechanized unit moving from south to north to Secure the largest city in the country, a city the size of Los Angeles.
And that's what we ended up doing on April 10th.
And it was in that process, really.
So I had a wife, I had two small children, I was a part of a good church.
But it was really at that time in my life where I understood the sovereignty of God.
I understood that the enemy doesn't care who you are, where you come from, what you look like, what your background is, doesn't care.
And so many of those truths came to Clarity in my heart and mind, and understanding who God is, and the fact that we trust God and we lean on God and we move forward, has really become a driver in my life and changed in many ways the direction of my life.
Came back from Iraq, and because of a lot of circumstances, I had already made the decision to get out of the Marine Corps.
I came back June 1st, 2003, July 1st, 2003.
I was serving on a church staff, the church that we had been attending.
My pastor, I don't have a pastoral background.
I don't have a seminary background.
I have a criminal justice degree and I was an infantry officer.
But my pastor said, hey, we've got a place for you here.
If you'd like to come and serve, we'll bring you onto the staff.
And that's what I did.
Very, very difficult transition for me.
The first year out of the Marine Corps while working at a church where I know people loved me and cared for me, and I had a pastor that cared for me, I was an absolute train wreck.
I was a mess at home.
Two small kids, a wife that loved me, and I was angry all the time.
Which manifested itself in throwing things and hitting things, not my wife or my kids, thankfully, but just about everything else.
On a church staff, blowing up in staff meetings, getting thrown out of staff meetings.
Eventually, after about 11 months of that, my pastor called me to his office and said, This is just not working.
I love you.
I care for you.
I care for your family.
But you're going to have to go somewhere else if you don't get this thing figured out.
Sent me away for a week, said, Come back at the end of the week and tell me what you're going to do.
This was 2003, I guess 2004 at that time.
Post traumatic stress and the issues we're going to talk about today weren't things that the church was talking about.
And I knew my pastor loved me, but he didn't know how to deal with me.
And that's fair looking back.
And through a process of conversations with my wife and praying and really trying to understand where I was, I realized that so much of what I was doing was my fault and my responsibility.
Trauma, Psychology, and the Creator00:15:28
It wasn't everyone else in my life.
Everyone's a jerk.
Everyone is a problem.
No one knows where I've been or what I've done.
That's what I was telling myself.
I mean, that's the story I continue to tell myself.
But really, it was I was not doing what I needed to do, I was not living the way that I should have been living.
Once I got a hold of that truth, the personal responsibility aspect, everything changed.
It didn't change overnight, but I was able to move forward and stayed at that church for another four years, served on that staff for a total of five years, eventually, pastored a church in the San Francisco area for another seven years before doing what I do now, working with veterans and our military.
So, a long road, an interesting road, and kind of a convergence of the military and my ministry life now, and doing what I do now.
And I'm thankful for the path that God brought us down.
Um, yeah, it was a very interesting transition, but uh, here we are now.
We serve the military, praise God.
Well, tell us about serving the military.
So, you've told us your story, a little bit of your testimony, how you got up to that point.
So, what is it that you do with Mighty Oaks Foundation?
So, we work with um, essentially four groups veterans, active duty service members, first responders that's you know, police officers and firefighters, and then spouses.
And we could talk about you know, all that is involved in that, but um.
There are a lot of programs for all of those groups of folks, particularly the veterans and the active duty service members.
A lot of programs that deal with post traumatic stress and combat trauma and other, we'll say, mental health related issues.
A lot of programs.
What most of those programs fail to deal with or address, however, is the spiritual need.
And what we understand is that you can put a bandaid on a wound, but that's all it is if you haven't dealt with the actual problem.
And so many of our service members.
Whether it's veterans or active duty service members, and really in our first responder community as well, the programs that they have access to are putting a band aid on a gaping chest woman.
They've got a hole in their chest, and we're covering it up or trying to change habits or whatever, and not dealing with the spiritual issue.
The founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, who I work with, Chad Robichaux, is also a Marine veteran.
I'm a Marine veteran.
And as we were working through a lot of this a long time ago, 10 years ago, We decided very clearly and very fundamentally,
that's not the right word, but we decided that what we would do as Christians who have found healing through a relationship with Jesus Christ and aligning our lives to His purpose for our life is we would move beyond the programs and the therapies, all the other stuff that service members have access to, and address specifically that spiritual need.
And In the beginning, folks said, if you do that, you will never have access to the active duty military.
You'll never have access to police officers and firefighters.
Maybe you'll get some veterans to come to your program.
But if you talk about God, talk about who he is, talk about what it is to have a relationship with him through Christ, if you talk about these kind of spiritual healing or what the Department of Defense would call spiritual resiliency pieces, you'll never have access to real people who are really hurting.
And we said, well, we'll just do the best we can and see what God opens up.
And that's what we've done for the last.
10 years.
We've had more than 4,000 people come through our week long programs where we bring people to one of our facilities across the country.
We spend a week with them talking about what it is to align your life to the life that your Creator created you to live.
Most of the folks who attend our programs are not Christians.
Many of them would have what they would call no faith at all.
Some of them might even be adversarial to God because of the loss of friends and so forth.
They would say they hate God or they're angry at God.
But they've tried everything else.
They end up with us because they have nowhere else to go.
Through donors, we pay for the programs, we pay for travel.
So there's nothing, they're not losing anything in the process.
So they'll come.
And they'll sit and we'll say simply, observe what we do, watch what we do, listen to what we say, look at the lives that we are demonstrating to you through testimony, and compare your life to that.
And see if you have what you need to continue moving forward.
We talked about, again, God the Creator.
If there's a Creator, then there's a plan.
If there's a plan, then we need to understand that.
If we align to that plan, then the traumas and the difficulties and the trials and the stuff that is holding you bondage and captive will no longer have control over you.
And we've again seen 4,000 folks come through those week long programs.
We've spoken to more than 150,000 active duty troops, whether it's in bases or conferences across the country, as unit commanders and unit leaders have reached out to us and said things like, We don't really care what you do or what you say, but we need help.
And if you can come and help us, we'll open the door for that.
God has been very, very good to us in just opening doors of opportunity that really should not be open to us.
And yet we have a very good rapport with the active duty military.
And certainly on the veteran side.
So it's been incredible to watch and be a part of.
Praise God.
Well, let's talk about PTSD for a little bit.
So just so you know that where I'm at, we talked a little bit before we started recording this episode, but for me personally, as a pastor and being a Reformed Baptist pastor and conservative in my convictions, I would prescribe to biblical counseling.
I think that a lot of secular psychology, well, you know what, even that statement that I'm about to make is me softening it, but not being completely honest.
I think secular psychology, period, not just a lot of it, but period, is garbage.
I think that it does.
The problem with secular psychology, in my assessment, is that the secular psychologists, by virtue of being secular, by virtue of their denial of Christ and his lordship and his truth, that the unbeliever who is at enmity with God, who is going to somehow help a person heal, will, you know, exactly what you were saying.
You say, do you have a creator?
And if there is a creator, there's a plan that this creator has, you know, and.
There's a design, right?
There's a goal.
There's something that we're working towards.
There's an image of this creator that we're meant to reflect.
There is a model that we're meant to emulate.
And in secular psychology, for the unbeliever, it's one, I think that they get the starting place wrong.
So, on the one hand, they have bad anthropology.
They don't adhere to the word of God as truth.
And what the word of God says, not only about God himself, but what the word of God says about man man in his design.
Which was originally good and without flaw, but then also man in light of his sin and his depravity and the curse of sin and all these kinds of aspects.
And so, if you have bad anthropology because you don't adhere to the Bible, then your starting place of who man is is off.
But then, even perhaps more important than that, the ending place of where we're moving toward is for you and I, we would say that we want in our ministry.
Whether it be with civilians or veterans or whoever it may be, our goal is by discipling people that they might be forged more and more into the perfect image of the perfect God man, Christ Jesus, that he's the model.
He is the end goal, that we are trying to be formed more into his character.
And so if you're rejecting theology, and namely the doctrine of the Son, the perfect God man who is the model, and if you're rejecting the Bible's anthropology, Who man is in God's original design, and then also in light of sin, then I just feel like no matter how many big words you have, and no matter how many degrees you have on your wall, I don't really care to hear you.
And I would recognize that all truth is God's truth.
So if we find a Babylonian library, then I would be of the assessment of let's plunder the library and let's see if anything is true.
But if it is true, it's only because even unbelievers are created in the image of God and because of common grace.
Unbelievers still can discover and affirm things that are true in light of God's world because they live in God's world, they've been created by God.
But when it comes to psychology, it's not just like in engineering or building a bridge or discovering a cure to cancer.
You're talking about something that is intimately involved with who is man and who is man meant to be, which that's something that I believe an unbeliever can't really grasp.
If they reject Christ, and so my point is in saying all that, I prescribe to biblical counseling.
However, I do recognize that there are physiological things at play, that there are spiritual things, which that's what you guys are emphasizing that the world and its attempts to serve people who are hurting won't acknowledge hardly at all the spiritual side.
But there is also, we're not Gnostics, so we are spirit and body, and there can be physiological problems.
You know, so when I'm offering biblical counsel as a pastor, we'll talk, you know, we talk about the Bible, we'll talk about the spiritual issues, but I'll also say, hey, you're, it sounds like you're only sleeping four hours a night.
You're probably going to be a little cranky.
You should sleep because God made you a human being.
You should exercise.
You should, what are you eating?
You know, those kinds of things.
And then, of course, if it's beyond those basic things like exercise and sleep, then I always encourage them, in addition to getting biblical counseling, go and see a general physician, which is different than go and see a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but go and see a doctor.
We believe in medicine.
We believe that God made a spirit and body and that all truth is God's truth.
And I do believe that unbelievers can discover and affirm right and true things about man and his physical body, or at least we could up until a few years ago when we started thinking boys were girls and girls were boys.
But, you know, anyway, so all that being said, PTSD, I don't know a lot.
I really think our listeners and I personally would benefit from hearing you.
How much of that is physiological?
How much of that is spiritual?
And what do you do as a Christian?
Trying to help people with this, but without giving into godless psychology or what portion might be right.
What's your perspective on that issue?
Yeah, so that was a really big question.
Yeah, I know.
I'm sorry.
Probably the next six or seven hours breaking all of that down.
Right.
But no, it's a great question.
Great question.
And I think that that is what we, as those who would hold to the sufficiency of Scripture, that's what we struggle with.
And it's a struggle because of all of the things that you just illuminated.
We go to doctors.
I believe in the sufficiency of scripture, but if I have a broken arm, I'm going to go to a doctor to have that arm set because they have the experience and the tools and the resources to do that.
So, on the front end, going back to your original point of starting point, when we talk about clinical treatments for post traumatic stress disorder, and I'll talk about how we view that, but when we talk about clinical treatments, that would include secular psychology, but it would include a lot of other things too.
There are therapies, there are There are a lot of things that fall into that clinical care bucket.
The problem with clinical care, a lot of problems, but one of the major problems and probably the biggest problem for veterans and service members who are struggling to try to figure all of this out is the starting point.
A clinician will say, We're going to start with therapies.
That therapy will probably include medication.
We have folks who attend our program that are on more than 20 medications a day.
20 medications a day.
Because a clinician, Has said, well, you need this for sleep and you need this for awake and you need this when you feel bad and this when you feel manic, you know.
And they'll try to balance it all out chemically.
There are a lot of other therapies and a lot of other therapeutics that can be used, but that's their starting point.
And if somewhere along the treatment route something spiritual needs to be interjected, then they'll include that as well in their therapy.
Their starting point is clinical and somewhere along the way there may be spiritual if it's needed.
We would say the starting point is spiritual.
We have to deal with who you are before a holy God, your standing before God, the fact that you were created, that there is design, and the reason you're struggling so much in your relationships, et cetera, the reason you're struggling to figure out your path forward is not because of what happened to you, but because you're not aiming at the right target, you're not moving in the right direction.
We start with the spiritual, and if something clinical is helpful along the way, Then we can look at that as it aids in spiritual healing.
Gotcha.
Now, to your point, there are both psychological and physiological impacts of post traumatic stress.
And this is all still being researched and still being understood.
On one hand, you have traumatic brain injury, which, you know, for many, many years, until fairly recently, the way that it would manifest itself, the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, for those that aren't familiar, because of an explosion, because of.
You know, head injury, which is very, very common in the military for our combat veterans in particular.
The symptoms of that traumatic brain injury looked very much like post traumatic stress disorder the anger, the uncontrolled emotions, you know, all the things that go into post traumatic stress disorder.
And so we were diagnosing them the same way, not addressing the physical, the very real physical, biological, physiological issues associated with a concussion, and particularly when there have been multiple concussions.
The TBI, the traumatic brain injury, has a real impact on the body and that needs to be dealt with.
Thankfully, again, doctors, to your point, have figured this out and have begun to treat that separate from post traumatic stress disorder.
And that's fantastic.
And so we're seeing some great things happen there.
Post traumatic stress disorder is very interesting and it goes back to the creation piece.
God created us perfect again, as you mentioned earlier, and He created us with some presets in our brain that are designed to keep us safe.
One of those things is how we handle trauma.
We have a subconscious response to traumatic events that take place in our lives.
It is a place in our brain where the limbic system, where information is stored.
And it's stored in a way that we don't even always recognize, so that if we find ourselves in a similar situation in the future, this stored information kicks in all those presets so that we can respond better.
Presets for Safety and Survival00:08:32
We were in this situation and something bad happened.
An example that we use, and it's a great example because a lot of combat veterans can picture it.
You are on a forward operating base somewhere.
It's a fairly secure situation, but you're being mortared by the enemy every day.
This becomes very commonplace.
Mortars start to fall one night as they have every other night.
You have a bunk mate, and he's taking his time because this happens every single day.
You start screaming at him, the mortars are coming.
We need to get to safety.
He looks at you and says, this happens all of the time.
A mortar drops on top of him, and one of your combat friends has lost his life.
That's a traumatic event, obviously.
Your limbic system is designed to store that information so that the next time you find yourself in that situation, you respond subconsciously without thinking.
God gave us that.
That's a very important thing that He put into us.
It's for survival, it's for our own care.
The problem is when you find yourself at home and you're getting your four year old ready for a soccer game, and she's taking too long to put her cleats on or to put her shoes on to get out the door, and your brain says, We've been here before, another urgent situation similar to this happened, and someone died.
And you lose control of yourself.
We can train this response.
We see this in our first responder community.
A police officer will draw and present his weapon thousands of times at a target, pulling the trigger only when it needs to be pulled, looking at the right target versus the wrong target, so that he's training that subconscious part of his brain to respond instinctively.
These are all built into us by God, it's creation.
So when we talk about post traumatic stress and some of the symptoms of post traumatic stress, how people respond after traumatic events, We need to understand that God created us the right way, but like everything else, sin has perverted that, and we're dealing with a perversion of what God meant for good.
So we're not broken.
That's the point.
We call it post traumatic stress disorder.
You're not disordered.
The event that you experienced may be disordered, but you're not broken when you respond to something that is traumatic, including death or sexual trauma and a lot of these other things that we would talk about as it relates to trauma.
And so the way that we address that, again, You know, there are physiological issues that are sometimes involved in that.
Thankfully, doctors, you know, physicians are learning and understanding that.
And a lot of good research has been done in that regard.
But when it comes to how we behave, we have to accept responsibility for our behavior.
We have to understand that there is no excuse to behave badly, there's not a good excuse to behave badly.
And if you have experienced trauma, you've experienced these things in your life, as, you know, 70% of adults will experience an acutely traumatic event in their life at some point.
I would say it's more than that, but clinically we say it's 70%.
That does not give you an excuse to behave badly.
Well, how should I behave?
You should behave like a child of God if you're a Christian and understand what that is and move toward that.
Now, moving toward that is, again, very broad.
We also have biblical counselors at each one of our sessions who understand the application of Scripture to the traumas of life and moving toward the person God created you to be.
Again, we use this language, it's very vague.
What it means is understanding what the Bible says and living your life according to that.
And if you do that, it puts the rest of it in perspective.
Are there problems?
Are there issues because of your trauma?
Yeah, probably.
That's part of being human.
We see this throughout Scripture.
You think of Adam and Eve, the trauma being thrown out of the garden.
Adam and Eve, again, the trauma of finding out that one of their sons murdered another.
What's the consequence of that?
There is one.
It's traumatic.
You think about Noah, who had to deal with being locked inside of the ark as his friends, those who were outside, the people he preached to for 120 years, are trying to get in and they're drowning and they're dying.
He would have heard it.
I guarantee there are people banging on that door and scratching on the side and trying to hang on, which may be why we find him doing some of the things that he did later in the story.
You know, throughout scripture, we see trauma to include Jesus Christ in the garden as he sweat, drops of blood.
I mean, this is life.
Life is traumatic.
And trauma being a part of your life doesn't give you an excuse to behave badly, but you need to know how to move forward in spite of that.
And that how is in alignment with the word of God.
That was a long answer.
I don't know if I got to your point there, but yeah.
Yeah, no, that was great.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
So, continuing in this vein, but maybe shifting gears slightly, you know, one of the things we talked about, you know, before we started recording the episode was in light of, you know, the things that we see in our news cycle.
And now, for me as a civilian, I don't get the inside scoop.
And so I, you know, but I have common sense.
And so I'm willing to bet that, you know, that the headlines, I, well, I wouldn't bet this, I'll hope this.
I hope that the headlines of the military going woke, you know, or four star general or five star general, you know, reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, you know, I hope that those things may make the headlines with a few people, you know, big wigs in the military that really more politicians.
Right, right.
You know, but I imagine and I hope that on the ground that that's not really seeping in.
Turn from our wicked ways as a nation and our culture, if we don't repent of these things, then that is something that could happen and probably at least in trickles here and there is happening.
And I'm thinking about that in light of everything we've talked about thus far in terms of living in a world of trauma.
You said life is traumatic, you know, because we live in God's world and so it's good, and yet we live in God's fallen world and so it's under a curse.
The creation itself is not a curse, but there is a curse that is set on creation because of man's sin.
And so creation itself is groaning with eager expectations for the sons of God to be revealed.
And so we experience heartache, we experience tragedy, we experience terrifying and traumatic situations.
And I would imagine, at least if I put myself into somebody's shoes who's in the military, that if I'm having, you know, waking up with cold sweats in the night and reoccurring nightmares and struggling with PTSD, because I've seen.
My friend gets his body ripped apart with shrapnel, and then I have to sit through lectures about how to be more empathetic.
What I'm saying is, if there's real trauma, like men being ripped apart by a real enemy that doesn't care about political correctness, China loves the effeminacy of America.
And China is, as you know, they're even legislating getting rid of sissy men in movies and entertainment and those kinds of things.
China is, you know, they don't care about that.
So there are real enemies out there, not so much the Chinese people, but the Communist Chinese Party is at enmity with God and hates America because there are still remnants of God's law in America and those kinds of things.
And so there are real enemies, there are real problems, and there are real trauma.
And then there's what I want to call pseudo trauma, where you're making someone a victim who's not a victim, and you're trying to create trauma or really just drama because you like it and you thrive on it and you're trying to get attention.
And I would imagine that these two things would be in conflict drama and trauma.
And as drama comes into the military with people who have, Actual trauma, real situations, not pseudo made up situations.
I would see this hurting that the drama and the political correctness, the wokeness in the military, in many ways, even demeaning and almost mocking real trauma and real pain.
What do you think about that?
Yeah, that's, man, there's so many interesting points to what you just said.
Accountability in Modern Leadership00:09:05
When we look at the leadership of the military, military is an interesting beast.
Because it is led primarily by politicians.
Now, some of those politicians wear a uniform, as General Milley and others.
They're politicians.
I've been around long enough now.
I'm 20 years removed, just about, from my military service.
And I've known a lot of folks who I served with who are now in positions of senior leadership, whether colonels and generals and folks that I respected and still respect who are still doing good work.
When one makes it to the level of The Joint Chiefs and some of these appointed military positions, they certainly are politicians.
They think like politicians.
They act like politicians.
And they're there because they're political.
That's a truth.
When we get to the operational side of the military, different branches will be more, I don't like the term woke because I think it's pretty broad, but woke or social justice aware, whatever you want to call it, than others.
United States Army, United States military.
Uh, United States Marine Corps rather tend to be the least of those, the Navy, the Air Force, a little bit more.
The jobs have a lot to do with that, the types of people they attract have a lot to do with that.
But when you get to the operational forces, there is a job to be done.
And one thing that I have seen from my time in the military and forward is that those young people who go into the military and do that job do it and they do it well.
So, whatever it is that our senior leaders are talking about as they Are sitting before Congress, the books that they read and the nonsense that they so often espouse does not affect the impact that our young servicemen and women have doing their job.
However, and this is the big however, when those political ideologies become policy, that begins to affect the operating force.
We have seen this the most clearly this year, or more clearly this year than at any other time, probably in military history.
With the vaccine mandate in the military.
The fact that political military leaders have put, as a matter of policy, in place something like a vaccine mandate, and they are willing to lose a percentage of the United States military to enforce this policy, and we could talk about that all day long, but to enforce a policy that has zero bearing on the operational force, but is impacting every level down.
That's when it becomes a problem.
We see these policies being pushed forward that are impacting the young men and women who serve.
And if you look historically, military history, there have always been ups and downs.
There have always been good leaders and bad leaders.
There have always been these times of dark days and better days.
But what we're seeing now is, I would say, unprecedented in a lot of ways.
And so that is impacting folks.
So, how do we quantify that?
Well, we could look at the number of people who are leaving because of the vaccine mandates.
That's impacting people.
But to our point of post traumatic stress and Again, I don't love this term, but we could call it mental health.
The Department of Defense put out a study last year, so in calendar year 2020, that had some interesting findings.
So typically, we say that there are 20 to 22 veterans a day that commit suicide to take their lives, 20 to 22 a day.
It's a terrible number.
That's the number we've used for a lot of years.
On the active duty side, that number has been right around one and a half.
More recently, a little bit higher than that, maybe as high as four active duty service members a day, tragic number.
The Department of Defense did a study last year, and the findings were this active duty suicide rates, active duty suicide rates went up 25% across the active duty community, across the Department of Defense.
This is all services, 25%.
The Army, the active duty suicide rate went up 35%.
The Air Force, it stayed the same as the previous year.
The previous year was the worst year for active duty Air Force.
Suicides in the Air Force's history.
So, these policy decisions being made by political military leaders do have a real implication when it comes to things like what we're experiencing right now.
So, yeah, there is a real consequence for those who lead.
And it's funny because it's always been a belief that it doesn't matter who's leading the military.
Marines will do what Marines do, soldiers will do what soldiers do.
There's a job to be done, there's a mission to be accomplished.
But now a lot of that is changing and we'll see where that ends up.
I don't know where that will end up.
Taking that one step further though, and I think this is where pastors and churches and Christians need to focus.
We work with veterans and active duty service members who almost to a person will say they have post-traumatic stress as a result of combat or just their military service.
A lot of folks now particularly haven't been in combat, but they have.
Something that happened in their military service.
When they come to us, that's their presenting problem, if you will.
As we begin to present a biblical blueprint of what it means to live your life, what the Word of God says, who God is, and how that applies to you, these things that we talk about, what we learn very quickly over just a couple of days is that most of the folks who talk about combat related post traumatic stress were traumatized as children, a lot of sexual assaults, a lot of abuse.
Relationship issues, pornography issues, a lot of sexual sin that they brought into the military that was perhaps exacerbated by what they did in the military, but that that is not the problem.
They're looking at the wrong place.
So when it comes to churches and Christians who are trying to deal with this and address it, we have got to get back to discipline, to teaching the Word of God, to helping young men and women understand who they are before God, what the Bible says, how to filter their lives and their view of the world through the Bible.
So that when they're confronted with these other issues, they know what to do.
They just have no guide.
And that puts them in a very, very bad place when additional trauma comes into their lives.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can't imagine.
And it's crazy, even as you're just, I think one of the things that's going on in our culture, well, not even culture, but society at large, is just the credibility of so many of our institutions has been just completely shocking.
Right, right.
And rightfully so.
Because the lid has been blown off with several major institutions, and people are getting to look behind the veil and see what's actually going on.
So, even as you were talking about like childhood trauma, you know, whether it be, you know, sexual abuse, you know, and I can't help but think of recent stories that have come out with the CIA, you know, and different special agencies that are just, you know, where multiple individuals on staff found, you know, like with child pornography and child abuse and all these kinds of things.
And it seems as though.
It seems as though there's just been a lack of accountability, maybe.
So, like what you're saying is on the ground level, people who are involved in the military and we could say other organizations outside of the military, there's a job to be done.
People have a mission and people will rally and people will get it done.
But it usually tends to be the people who aren't really, they're not actually on the team anymore.
They don't have the mission anymore.
They accomplish the mission.
And then they achieve some kind of reward status to where they're not really military anymore.
They're a politician or they're not really a worker anymore.
They're, you know, they're whatever.
And they're a bigwig now.
And there's so little accountability.
And now the lid's being blown off.
And we see just how much abuse of power there is.
And it goes all the way back to, you know, like just a little kid, you know, gets to be the hall monitor, you know, and they become a tyrant, you know, and just, you know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And, uh, And there's just been so much tyranny, whether it be the vaccines or whether it be mask mandates or shutting down churches and all these different things.
Liberty Versus Public Safety00:02:30
And you're right, the result across the board in the military, but with civilians and just across the board, suicide has gone up tremendously for young adults, whether they be civilian, whether they be military.
And it's just, yeah, it's really sad to say that in the name of public safety, what we did was we stripped everyone.
Of liberty.
And it seems like that's always the trade, right?
It's individual liberty versus public safety.
And it seems like people in power, they have an agenda, they have something that they have a new mission, some kind of global mission or whatever.
They just want to be remembered and make a name for themselves or whatever it is.
But they have their own mission.
And the thing that gets in their way is all those pesky provisions in the Constitution, those freedoms, those liberties, because America has a great foundation.
And so then they have to get people to voluntarily forfeit those liberties.
And so, what in the world, you know, but liberty is so precious.
What in the world is going to make someone in their right mind give up liberty?
For, you know, what you got to trade something pretty valuable for someone to give up liberty, but the illusion of safety will do that, you know.
And there's this God complex like, I'm going to shut down the virus, or I'm going to stop tornadoes, or I'm going to like policy doesn't stop tornadoes, policy doesn't shut down, you know, epidemics.
There's only so much we can do.
And when you over police things and you pretend to be God and you scare the living daylights out of everybody, which is this fear mongering mainstream media and all these kinds of things, and then tell them that I'm the savior and all you have to do is give me your liberty and I will make you safe.
And it turns out that not only did we not solve the original problem, whether it be COVID or whatever else, it didn't work, but all we did was we created new problems.
There's substance abuse, off the charts, suicide.
Off the charts.
Unemployment, off the charts.
All these different things.
Now, inflation, off the charts.
They just came out with a study saying that the average family is next year is going to have to pay a middle class family $4,000 more on total expenses annually, which that's not just like gas costs a little bit more, but that's a real thing that people will feel that.
And it's a crazy thing too because that lack of trust.
Identity Beyond the Ransom00:07:42
In the institutions, it impacts someone who's already struggling and has struggled through their lives with trust and finding a place to belong.
So, if you see someone who was traumatized as a child, they are obviously carrying a lot of trauma if it hasn't been dealt with.
And a lot of those folks will end up in an organization like the Marine Corps, the Army, the military, because it's a place where they can find belonging, they can find trust, they can find brotherhood and camaraderie and care, and they've got leaders who care for them and watch out for their best interests.
You know, we've all seen the movies, and so we know that's how it works.
And then it doesn't.
And there is such an identity wrapped up in the trauma of a child.
And then that identity is traded in a lot of ways for the identity of military service.
I wear the uniform.
I am this.
I am this thing.
And then when our leaders let us down or walk away from us, we lose our identity in that process, or we get out of the military, or we're pushed out of the military, or whatever the case.
And we no longer know who we are.
So, a big part of even what we deal with with veterans is helping them understand that that job you did is not who you were.
The trauma you experienced is not who you are.
It's all a part of your life and a part of your story.
But that's not who you are.
We need to understand what our identity is because it happens in churches where a pastor will do something egregious and those that he's led and taught and who have trusted him.
He betrays them in that sense.
It's a betrayal of God, but it's a betrayal of those that he leads as well.
And the trauma and the loss of identity who am I now and what do I believe now?
Churches go through that, congregations go through that, kids go through that with parents that do the same thing.
And certainly it happens in the military.
And then you add that acute trauma on top of it the physical trauma.
It's a very deep and dark hole that you have to help someone work their way out of.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're right.
Well, do you have any final thoughts on PTSD or trauma or just serving our troops?
Maybe I could put it like this.
What are some things that, you know, I was in San Diego for a long time pastoring a church there, and we had some Marines, but a lot of Navy.
And, you know, so maybe for some of our listeners who find themselves in one of those kinds of areas, and maybe they're a civilian, you know, speaking to civilians for a moment, but they're in a church where there's a military presence, you know, where they have brothers and sisters.
Sisters in Christ that they see on a regular basis who are active duty in the military, what are some just practical ways that civilian Christians can love and serve them?
Yeah, that's a great question.
Loving and serving is a great place to start.
Loving people, genuinely caring for people.
Military folks, I can't speak for all military folks, but generally speaking, someone in the military who attends a local church is not there because they want to be singled out as someone in the military.
They want to be loved and cared for as a human being, as someone who would go to that church, just like anyone else who would go to that church.
I often have pastors reach out to me and And they'll ask something like this How do I help those in my church who were in the military, who are struggling?
I didn't serve, so I can't relate to them.
And while I understand the heart of that question, the reality is if scripture is sufficient, it's sufficient for all people, not just people that you have a common experience with or understand.
To apply scripture to the issues that service members are dealing with, the struggles that they're having, the feelings that they're feeling, that's always the right way as one Christian to another.
And so it's lovingly applying scripture.
But I think beyond that, it's just being loving, it's showing care.
If you are in a community of active duty service members, a lot of ways to show care.
You can care for the spouse and the children while the service member is away.
The church that I'm a part of now, and I was many years ago, is in Oceanside, California, right outside of Camp Pendleton.
And we'll have times where a third of the church is on deployment, and there are a lot of wives and a lot of kids.
Who needs to be cared for.
And man, there's no better way to show love and care and concern than to be there for them and take care of them.
Also, there are a lot of people who are struggling, and there are resources that are needed.
Our organization has written several books.
We have a lot of resources.
We do a lot of content production in terms of video.
We have some podcasts.
Pointing people to those resources can be helpful as well.
For someone who needs help but may not want that help, you can point them to others who have also served, who know where they've been and where they're coming from.
Hey, go check this out.
That's been helpful as well.
And just being there for them.
Yeah, that's good.
You said you were in Oceanside.
Did you ever know?
This is a random question, but did you ever know a pastor there named Jonathan Ransom?
You know, I met him years ago, but it's been a long time.
Yeah, I remember when I was in San Diego, he was there for a while, and then he ended up being stationed in Japan.
But yeah, he was a good guy.
So, and since you were in Oceanside, I thought I asked.
Yeah, it's funny.
I haven't heard that name in a long time, but years ago, It's a good name, huh?
I wish my last name was Ransom.
That's a great name.
It would be a lot easier to say if it was Ransom.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, thanks so much, Jeremy, for coming on the show.
The last question is this let our listeners, could you tell them how they could follow you and keep up with your ministry?
Yeah, the best place to go is just to our website, Mighty Oaks Programs.org.
So it's Oaks with an S, Programs with an S, Mighty Oaks Programs.org.
That's our website.
And so there on our website, first thing you'll see is a place to apply for the program.
A veteran, active duty service member, first responder, or spouse can apply for our program.
There's no cost to attend, and we'll work with you to do all the logistics and all the planning.
We'll cover the cost of travel so that there really is nothing that would prevent someone from attending the program other than the five days it will take to go.
So we want to make that available.
Please apply.
We have a great team that can make that happen.
We also have places for resources.
We have a blog that we run off of that website.
We have video and other resources as well, so check that out.
And we put all that out there.
We do charge for our books, but we give, so for instance, last year we gave 45,000 books away.
So when we charge on our website, it's so that we can give them away to our active duty folks.
So if someone falls onto our website, they look at something they want and they think it would be helpful, just email us and we'll send it to you.
You can't afford it.
So we just want to make sure that every resource needed is available.
That's great.
Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Thank you.
Appreciate all you do.
As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, We'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.
To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.comslash offer.
We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?
If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource.
As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.comslash offer.