Breaking Free

Topic: Perspective

Author’s Note: This message was far longer than originally intended.  I encourage you to give it a read – it is a deeply personal reflection a long time in the making.

Social media has many valuable uses, and I have seen it work for the betterment of an entire movement and the nation when it brings people together to achieve goals.  It is the modern-day printing press, and rapidly transmits information at a time when we need to understand the world, and its battlefields, the most.  This quick-and-easy potential access to the minds of countless millions is a double-edged sword, in that it can be leveraged not just by those with good intentions, but by those bent on using it to further enable evil works and promote an agenda of darkness.

The highlights of my time spent at the forefront of the election integrity movement are not what you may think.  Many critics seem to think that extensive travel, being a keynote speaker, making money, or having publications, podcasts, and large productions air your content make for a fulfilling life free of everyday worries and troubles.  Rather, my most fulfilling moments come when veterans write to tell me that they’ve decided to get involved in their local communities, applying their skills for good rather than following through on the nagging pull to take their own lives, or when grandmothers who have sat idly by and watched the future grow dimmer for their grandchildren decide to confront corruption that has existed under their noses all that time.

I go to bed at night with plenty of things on my mind, but one that never concerns me is the question of if I’ve given it my all to be the best I can be in my field.  I have not yet missed a travel date, or called in sick, in more than 500 days of travel in nearly two-and-a-half years – I have run this race with all of my heart, with few regrets, have answered the bell every single time I was expected to be somewhere, and I have some amazing tales to tell.  I believe wholeheartedly in the mission of taking risks and abandoning security for the chance to right wrongs and change the course of human history.  Likewise, I also believe that those who love freedom and life will win the battle against those who spread despair, corruption, misery, and death – it is only a matter of time.  I consider my life of comfort and ladder-climbing, the one I strived to obtain while pursuing degrees, poured out for the cause of freedom and I trust that God will direct my steps and provide for me so long as he calls my mission to carry forward.

That last thought may sound daunting to you – but to me, it gives freedom.  Whereas I once feared the changes gripping and overtaking the society we have known, I no longer have desire to merely prolong death for as long as possible.  I’m ten days shy of 39 years old, physically fit, healthy, and of sound mind, and consider this my prime for living out my purpose.  Many following my work on social media understand this well and have committed to the same cause, and have suffered severe consequences for their actions in the name of righteousness – you will never know their names, and they are fine with that because they have the integrity to do what is right when no one is watching them, and they don’t need affirmation from likes and shares online.

Action and engagement motivate me and ignite my soul.  Passivity, complacency, and inaction depress me.  When I’m on mission, I have little time for distraction and discouragement – optimism tends to come naturally because to engage in any other disposition would serve only to render my mission moot.  That mindset is from my father, who had no choice but to “push it aside” and focus on his mission, lest he get himself or those under his direct supervision killed in combat.  Of all things related to this work, what I find most discouraging is not that we haven’t yet achieved the goals we wish to see – like clean elections, secure borders, justice for the unborn and the eradication of modern-day slavery – it is the judgment, hostility, and demand for perfection wielded against fellow imperfect people who are on a journey to wholeness.  In far too many instances, we are making strides to eradicate the societal evils described above, but in doing so, are abandoning the very hallmarks of character that are supposed to be abundant and evident in those of Biblical faith.

In 2022, I spent countless tens of thousands of miles behind the windshield with a former Marine Corps sergeant named Thomas “Sonny” Morgan, who drove a utility van that had been gutted and converted into a rolling bunk, kitchen, and armory.  We travelled every corner of the country, and once, he dropped me off late at night at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport with plans to meet me 72 hours later in Virginia Beach.  He beat me there, by van, as I flew two separate itineraries with a day off in between flights.  We are still friends today, though our mission has changed to the point we haven’t ridden together in more than a year.  Sonny is rough around the edges and has things in his past that could be used against him – and he doesn’t miss a beat.  Instead, he refers to the journey and uses those pitfalls, failures, and opportunities for growth to impact other people for good.  He reminds everyone he can to be at peace with their pasts.  I’d be willing to bet Sonny will read this article, as he is in fact one of the most astute people I’ve met on this mission.  He has never hesitated to ring my bell if he thought I needed to be straightened out or brought down to Earth, and much of what I’m writing today is a byproduct of his outlook and of his outreach to me.

Now comes the time for me to be at peace with my past.  One of my most heartfelt articles in this journal was written nearly a year ago, when I reflected on how God makes a way with people for His purposes if they are willing to grow, be challenged, and adapt to new possibilities.  I left the Army nearly 10 years ago and resigned myself to the standard young veteran career path – use your degree and pursue the same jobs everyone else is chasing and try to make ends meet between jobs when you are inevitably laid off for various reasons – which happened to me on two separate occasions.  Security, which is important for a family, is sometimes obtained – but it alone will never fulfill one like pursuing a calling does.

I have been prepared to function as I am today for many years.  Throughout my youth, I was unathletic and at times, quite overweight and out of shape.  I lacked the natural ability to thrive at my first love, baseball, and one day when I was in eighth grade, my father told me he was embarrassed to watch me play baseball.  That was the last year I ever played, because I wasn’t good enough to make my high school’s nationally ranked team that had very high standards for even making the roster.  I played four years of football in high school, but only started occasionally, despite my size. 

My height, which already exceeded 6’3” by ninth grade and would continue to sprout, wasn’t enough to provide any value whatsoever to a top-tier basketball program, but I had that brainpower – and even then, that gift was often categorized as providing useless trivial knowledge.  I lacked confidence in what God had blessed me with so much that I didn’t understand if He had a purpose for my life.

I worked for the baseball program for three seasons at Ole Miss, applying that brainpower to apply new solutions to the tune of Moneyball, predating the trend of analytics impacting the college game by a solid decade.  Once I realized baseball wasn’t going to lead to a career, I pursued the family pastime of military officership – which has continued without interruption from the time of my father’s commissioning 60 years ago today at what was then called Fort Benning, Georgia.

I excelled at cadet training and fast-tracked my way to a commission in less than two years.  I survived a medical board my first summer in the Army, once they found out just how deaf I am in my right ear, in nothing less than a miracle (thanks in large part to my father’s advocacy on my behalf) and wound up becoming a Military Intelligence officer, gaining valuable experience under pressure tracking and targeting the enemy, and becoming proficient at briefing senior officers who could have crushed my lieutenant being into dust had I come unprepared and without actionable intelligence.

My foreign policy views today do not resemble those I held in 2006 when I decided to pursue my commission.  In those days, I embraced the role of America as the world’s rightful police force and charged head on into making a name for myself and expressing patriotism in the only way my 21-year-old mind knew how.  I read a book one night shift one night in Afghanistan that changed my view forever, and another two years later in Alaska that confirmed my career in the Army would be much shorter than I had anticipated when I was in college.  I could no longer justify spending the best years of my life fighting wars that never had meaningful objectives for victory present, on behalf of people who do not view western freedoms with the same regard those taking bullets for them did.

I do not regret having served in the United States Army.  I was exposed to the harsh reality of a world I had not known and survived while learning to deal with hardship and pressure in a crucible like none other.  Military officership provides a test of personal mettle and leadership that no other occupation can provide, and it often takes having your bell rung and your ass knocked in the dirt to come to grips with the heavy burden you must carry to lead men effectively.  That leadership requires charisma and setting the standard in all you do, but also great humility to acknowledge when you’ve missed the mark, as well as an understanding that a leader must never order a subordinate to perform a task he would be never be willing to perform himself.

What I do regret is that looking back, I believe I raised my right hand to serve to please my father more than I raised it to serve my country.  Sure, I am proud in retrospect of having served and learned under pressure; however, I craved my father’s approval so badly, I believed following in his footsteps was the best way to get it.  The young man described earlier in this post was made fun of not only for his lack of athletic prowess, but for his once soft, pudgy body, and any grades less than A, all the way into college, by the man who needed more than anyone to teach a son to believe in himself.

What I’ve learned about myself in my own failings in life was necessary not only to forgive my father for the affirmation wounds he left me with, but to forgive myself.  Serving in combat, even as a support officer not in direct contact with the enemy, is stressful enough – imagine serving as an infantry officer for three tours in a war 10 times more deadly than our involvement in Afghanistan.  In his day, officers and NCOs who sought mental healthcare or counseling of any kind for PTSD were flagged and rarely promoted again or given positions of great responsibility.

Rather than halting the progression of their careers, they nursed themselves in different ways – namely gambling, alcohol, and women - anything to replace that rush of adrenaline gained from trying to survive in a jungle against hostile forces known for dismembering bodies and committing unspeakable atrocities and war crimes they would never be held to account for.  I’ve come to realize that my father wounds were likely a byproduct of his trauma sustained in combat that were passed down to all four of my siblings, and then to me.  I came around later, the only child of my father’s second marriage.

My father dealt with those wounds all the way until he died when I was deployed overseas in Afghanistan.  Saying goodbye to my father, with three months left to live, was a harrowing experience I will never forget.  I had not planned how to say goodbye to him – I wound up saluting him as he was seated at the kitchen table, a shadow of the man he used to be thanks to the pancreatic cancer consuming his body, and he stood up like he was 25 years old and returned that salute with perfect form.  He had given his life to Christ just days before right in front of me and immediately began to change his disposition from bitter and angry at God to fully reliant on Him.  He would write me up until his death about his faith in God.

He was a good man, although not everything he did was good.  He had a good heart, and passed down knowledge to me that has sustained me through good times and bad.  I will always cherish his letters sent to me when I was half the world away, especially about attitude maintenance.  It was the subject matter for one of my favorite speeches I’ve ever delivered.

I never intended to become part of a critical, nation-saving push for national election reform, all the way up until such a push became reality.  In fact, the feather in my cap up until November 3, 2020, was bragging rights for being the only person in my circle of friends to have predicted the 2016 election accurately, and I did so in all 50 states.  My level of physical and mental energy, and motivation to leave a wonderful nation for posterity, makes the subject matter, the daily checklist, of what I do easy.  The things that are hard to navigate that leave me with regret for jumping into this fray come in the form of judgment, hostility, distrust, paranoia, and constant discord between self-proclaimed patriots and Christians.  Opponents of what I’m doing (shallowly stated as the left) try to discredit work.  Those who nominally support the work of election reform (shallowly stated as the right), even against their own political and social allies, are dead set on discrediting character and putting people under the shame of past sins and guilt, despite constantly espousing Christian worldview.

That is not the message of the Word that I know in my heart.  I posted about David last week, specifically about how he is one of my favorite Biblical characters, because even though he committed great sin, his heart of repentance led to him being referred to as a man after God’s own heart and appointed as the chief ancestor in the family line of Jesus Christ himself.  His misdeeds are doubtlessly part of Scripture so we, thousands of years later, will realize that God has purpose and redemption in mind for all.  Imagine how David would be judged today by the self-righteous among us who act as if they themselves weren’t also redeemed with the agony of the cross.  We are shutting the door to the kingdom of heaven in the faces of others with our judgmental attitudes, turning away those who need restoration.  That is not the message of the cross, which brings hope.  It is the message of the kingdom of darkness.

When I entered this movement, I was married.  I am no longer, and that has been the case for nearly two years.  One reason I don’t talk much about family anymore is because, well, I’m not supposed to.  I have been blessed with three wonderful children and enjoy great relationships with all three.  They love me, and I love them, and we greatly value our adventures together.  Sometimes, I take any number of them with me on work trips, like on our most recent trip to Washington State last month.

Good leaders own it when they screw up.  Likewise, in military units, anything the unit does or doesn’t do falls on the commander of that unit – much like you see in pro sports when a manager or coach is fired, even though he isn’t the one swinging the bat, missing blocks, or dropping passes.  As a perceived leader in election integrity, while I have taken every effort to avoid the ugly personal conflicts, I have joined along in sidebar commentary and disparagement of others, particularly when I gave myself the permission to do that with my own circumstances as cover – that behavior is unsavory and as I’ve described above, and while it is typical behavior for this world, it is not in keeping with my own beliefs about how others should be treated.  In my marriage, I failed to lead as I should have led, to be diligent from the very beginning, and through my actions and inactions, helped bring about the end of that union.

I spent Christmas Day 2021 deeply pondering whether I wanted to continue in life at all.  Until now, no one reading this article knew that.  This is not a plea for sympathy – it is a shot across the bow to those who believe social media followers, money, fame, notoriety, Trump acknowledgements, or any other false images portrayed by happy, smiling faces on social media somehow exempt someone from dealing with the worst of personal circumstances.  In my case, I stayed on mission, partly because it must be carried out, and to keep my mind occupied and focused on something I felt I could impact.  These past two years have brought healing and personal growth to the point in which I feel my personal story is worth sharing, in that it should cure you of any notion that life is easy for anyone, or that people you think you admire from the distance of the Internet are those you should aspire to emulate or trade places with on the basis of perceived circumstance.

These things are difficult for me to discuss and cause me great discomfort.  Since I have been young, I have always longed to be enough, to be approved of; however, if we seek approval from men rather than from God, we fall short and must refocus our priorities and refine our mindset. Affirmation comes from God.  God approves of me, even if I didn’t have the approval I was looking for and needed when I was young and vulnerable, or when I sought approval in the wrong places as a grown man, or when I wanted to be perfect for a social media audience that largely had no idea who the man behind the account was.

I am tired of spending mental energy worrying about people trashing me, judging me, or wondering about details of painful experiences.  I am sharing this personal reflection with you because I’d be willing to bet that many needed to read it.  Perhaps my vulnerability will help you understand that none of us are perfect, and that everyone struggles with guilt, shame, self-doubt, and worry over an uncertain future.  I’d be lying if I didn’t mention I have at least some concerns that many of you will reject my body of work because you’re disappointed in my personal failings.  I have many friends to thank for pouring into me over these years, most recently Kelly – who has been through hell herself and has not let life stop her mission.

You don’t have to remain stuck, looking into your proverbial rearview mirror.  You can be at peace with your past.  We are the ones who chain ourselves to it, not God.  His will is that you come forward from those old chains and take up a new name, a new identity.  Those who persist in judgment and condemnation do not understand the completeness of the sacrifice of Christ, and that it was meant to bring us to complete union with the Father.  They minimize his sacrifice, done once and for all.

I am free of my past today.  I will not be threatened into silence or discouragement because I bear the wounds of imperfection, past brokenness, and sinful nature.  Rather, I take heart in the fact that while I am a great sinner, I have a greater Savior, and he will fulfill his purposes for my life because I am walking away from the fears and worries of being seen as something other than perfect.

May this message bless you, and may you be willing to give him the chains that bind you.

Author’s Note 2: Normally, this is the point I ask you to consider becoming a paid subscriber to my journal to support this mission.  Rather, I’d like to thank you for reading this far and ask you to practice the steps to change we need to see as a united front.  You hold the power to walk into a brighter future and take away power from those who would seek to tarnish your reputation.