I gave my heart to Jesus at about 7:30 pm August 3rd, of 1988 at a free Christian summer camp – PRCYC (Pleasant Ridge Christian Youth Camp). I really don’t have the space on this website to give God justice in describing that whole experience! I was adrift in life with absolutely no hope of amounting to anything prior to that. Since that Christ (doing everything in Himself) has given me More Than I can Contain. I tell people from time to time that I am in no way ashamed of Jesus. I am, however, desperately ashamed of how I have represented Him since that day.
In August of 1989 I left for boot camp in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. I completed it only by the grace of God and fulfilled a life long dream of being a Marine. After recruit training, Marine Combat Training (MCT) and School of Infantry (SOI). I may perhaps, in all humility, represent the single weakest link in the Marine Corps Chain. I was not a PT machine or anything like that and I was only a reservist. I only made the rank of LCPL (E3)…, but that is STILL the Marine link and I think that says something!
I settled down to a short lived but steady routine of going to school, working as a CNA in various nursing homes, and attending my monthly drills with my unit H&S CO. 3/24 or 3rd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment. I said short lived because not too much longer down the road our unit, along with the majority of the 4th Division (Marine Reserve Division), was mobilized and sent to Southwest Asia. I spent several months in Saudia Arabia, learning further and further to trust in God. It was during that time that I was granted the inspiration for my song “Loud N Clear“ .
When I got back home from this I would eventually make the greatest error of my life. I got tired of waiting for God to bring to fruition the destiny that He had in mind for me and I decided to go after my own destiny, on my own. I would spend several years in this watered down, disobedient, lukeward state… and it would be very costly indeed. June of 2001 God ripped the rug out from under my feet. It really shook me up and got me back on the right track with Him. Since then, well, it hasn’t been easy by any stretch of the imagination but His way is always best . He has blessed me pressed down shaken together and running over… Once again “More Than I Can Contain“.
The United States Marine Corps is a unique branch of military service (not necessarily better than anyone else – we respect everyone who serves our country, even you sailors 😊). Use the right tool for the job, am I correct? If you need total air superiority over a theater of operations, even though we have amazing air resources at our disposal, you don’t need the Marine Corps, you need the USAF. If you need to conduct operations over a seriously extended time and perhaps occupy this territory post combat, you don’t need the Marine Corps (even though we have conducted and maintained these missions many times in our nation’s history) you need the United States Army!
As for the USN, well if you need to get the Marine Corps where you need to get them, if it is via water, you need the United States Navy… Ok again just kidding, the Navy does not ONLY exist to give us a ride. They are the very best in the world at what they do. I love and respect every one of them. Especially the “Devil Docs” (Navy Corpsman who deploys along with the Marines and provide emergent medical care – they very often MUST be naval infantry as well and they are the very best people, bar none in the United States Armed Forces) and “brown water sailors” and Sea Bees (CBs = Construction Builders) etc.
And it is assumed that our main mission is to be an amphibious force. This is true, but the primary mission of the USMC is established to be an Expeditionary FORCE IN READINESS! Therefore there are several MAGTAFs (Marine Air-Ground Task Forces – officially known as MEUs = Marine Expeditionary Unit) at sea at every given time. We are trained and organized, refined, and thoroughly tested to land, kick in the door, kick in the teeth (if needed) at anytime, anywhere on planet earth.
I said all of that to say this. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that since I was about 10 years old and saw the boot camp picture of my uncle in dress blues, that I dreamed of one day being a United States Marine! I was indoctrinated with our mission’s philosophy, and that is my philosophy (and dare I say calling from God) of my ministry; to be an expeditionary servant in readiness to be able to respond at a moment’s notice.
Now in all fairness, I must state that there is a good chance that I represent the single weakest link in the history of the Marine Corps. By the grace of Jesus I earned the title but I was never the “roughest, toughest” Marine around. At the beginning of boot camp I barely scored high enough on my initial physical fitness test to keep from being sent to a remedial physical development platoon. 😊 I was no PT stud by any means. I got the bare minimum at first.
But it is the Marine link, and believe me, that matters!
I feel that all true Christian Marines are “Royal Marines” in God’s military!