Free Jerry Boykin & Lynn Vincent by Never Surrender Page A

socialism—or its dictators. And so “science” was Lenin’s god.
    Even wars without overt signs of religious strife—struggles for land, power, treasure, freedom—could be, at their core, spiritual battles. Attempts by men to serve mammon—or to fight for the right to liberty divinely imprinted on each person’s heart.
    Then Pastor Bob began to talk about America. “What you need to understand is that God ordained this nation to be a place where people could worship freely, and a place where other nations could look and see the foundation of that freedom is the belief that it is God who grants freedom to all men. He’s called this country to be a light in a world of darkness. And He didn’t create a country where believers could have freedom with the expectation that unbelievers would defend it.”
    That made so much sense to me. Biblical passages flashed through my mind: Joshua at Jericho, David and his armies. I could see that the concept of fighting for your country, of defending your land, was taught in Scripture, even ordered by God.
    “It is not only right for Christians to defend this nation,” Pastor Bob went on, “it’s their responsibility. If God calls you to defend this country, He’s not offering you a job, He’s calling you to service.”

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    AFTER FORT CAMPBELL, I served in a number of short assignments, and God blessed Lynne and I with a third child, Aaron. By 1977, I made captain and transferred to Florida Ranger Camp at Eglin AFB, where I became an RI and branch chief, overseeing various aspects of training and supervising patrols in the field. Outside my office, I had a great view: an alligator pond occupied by the camp mascot, Big John, a fifteen-foot gator. Big John brought back memories of hunting alligators with my dad. He would’ve loved to take on Big John, who on January 5, 1978, was sunning himself outside my office window at Eglin when my phone rang.
    “Captain Boykin,” said the man on the phone, “this is Lieutenant Colonel Gene Blackwell with the Army Personnel Center.”
    “Hey sir, how’re you doing?” I was puzzled as to why he was calling me, but tried to sound casual, which I almost always did anyway because of my Carolina drawl.
    “Fine, fine,” Blackwell said. Then he got right to the point: “We want to ask you to volunteer for a new unit that’s being formed at Fort Bragg. It’s highly secret and I can’t tell you much about it.”
    Instantly, he had my attention.
    “What I can tell you,” Blackwell went on, “is that when you get to Bragg, you’ll undergo a thirty-day assessment and selection program and you need to be in top physical condition for it. At the end of that, if you make it, you’ll be asked to volunteer for an assignment with this unit. We need to know your answer this afternoon.”
    That was exactly how he laid it out. Zero details. Take it or leave it. And almost before the last word was out of his mouth, I realized I was going to say yes.

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    I TOLD LIEUTENANT COLONEL Gene Blackwell I’d consider his offer and call him back. Whatever he was talking about, it was so secret he asked me to commit without even knowing what I was committing to. The mystery intrigued me. I wondered whether the Army was actually standing up some kind of new unit, or preparing for a sensitive mission. I knew that prior to the Son Tay raid, in which a small task force swooped into a North Vietnamese prison camp to free American POWs, Colonel Bull Simons had recruited and trained his men in secret. Man, I wanted to be part of something like that.
    I also knew Blackwell had to be sitting up there at personnel reviewing records. I tried to imagine what spurred him to call me, among what had to be hundreds or even thousands of candidates. Maybe it was the combination of my Virginia Tech commission and Ranger experience. In any case, his words, “if you make it,” lay before me like a dare.
    So I did the thing I always do when confronted with a serious dilemma: