For Today!

At 27 years old, on December 14, 1991, I experienced the fullness of being born again. Seven months prior I walked across the stage at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center to receive my Green Beret and Special Forces tab. It was the culmination of my childhood dream after discovering a National Geographic article in grammar school titled, Special Forces in Southeast Asia. In it a Green Beret was fighting for the freedom of an indigenous people. I was captivated and everything about it was romantic from the palm trees and the huts they lived in to their tribal dress and the weapons they carried.  I wanted to fight for their freedom with all my heart. I didn’t know it then, but God had wired me, before the foundation of the world, to be one of His liberators and destiny was pinging all over the place. It was the motto of the Green Beret, De Oppresso Liber – to liberate the oppressed, that set me ablaze for a dream I would stop for nothing.  There was one glitch in this whole endeavor; when this kid from Newport Beach, California, whose every fifth sentence was a string of “dude,” “gnarly,” and “cool” became a Green Beret, he was empty. Read on…