Restoring American Patriotism: A Conversation with Gen. Jerry Boykin

0:00 Hello everyone and happy Fourth of July. I'm Stephen Stratton and welcome to the Stradivarius 4th Podcast. To commemorate this important holiday, I invited Great American General Jerry Boyk as my guest. He understands what it is to be an American and to be proud of his reality. During his 36-year career in the U.S. Army, he spent 13 years in the Delta Force and was involved in numerous high-profile missions in the 1980 Red Postage Rescue Attempt, the 1992 hunt for Apollo-Escobar in Lafayette, and the Black Cocktail Incident in Sebaugia in which they made two. After retiring, he became United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and for President George W. Bush, is the author and visiting professor at Hampton City College, Virginia. He is currently the Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council in Washington, B.C. He has insights not only about physical wars but about spiritual warfare, and he is an astute observer of the chaos that's happening in our world. Because of that, it's been helpless to understand what's going on. He is a patriotic American. Thank you, Double-A-Miss, I exclusively interview with retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin. Thank you.

1:29 General Boykin, as we celebrate the Fourth of July that celebrates the founding of our nation, why do you think that we see a decline in patriotism, and is that caused by an overall decline in America? Yeah, Steve, first of all, thanks for having me on the program here today. It's a cause and effect issue here. Our founding fathers took some huge risk to allow us the opportunity to call ourselves Americans. They had no desire to fight a war, but they did, and that war cost us a lot of lives. What we wound up with was the greatest country that has ever been on this planet until the last couple of decades. What we're seeing is that we're seeing the Marxist movement in America is having a field day. They're becoming stronger and stronger, and what that's doing is it is driving today's generation, and a generation before that,

3:03 in fact, away from being patriotic and loving America. My dad was a World War II veteran, and he was wounded on D-Day at Normandy, lost his eye, but he was proud to be an American. No matter what it cost him, he was proud to be an American, and you better not dishonor the flag around him because that was a surprise for you if you did. Today, we have a generation of people who have not been encouraged to be proud to be Americans, to be proud of who we are, to be proud of the sacrifices that have been made by so many Americans so that this nation could be the greatest nation on earth. I think it's very sad, Steve, and you can go back, and there's two things that I think are responsible for this, and one of them is certainly the education process. Our education today is teaching them all the bad things that they can think of that America has been involved in, but the other thing is we keep electing these people that are sheep or wolves in sheep's clothing, and they

4:34 are politicians who are just waiting for their opportunity to have their Marxist impact on this nation, and I think that's pretty much where we are. Well, I agree with you entirely, and during COVID, we saw during the shutdowns how quickly some of these politicians you're referring to were very happy to impose really draconian measures having to do with COVID, but also take away our rights, such as causing churches to not be able to meet when you could go to the grocery store and you could go to the gambling casino and the liquor store, but you couldn't go to church. And also, before I ask you other questions, I want to mention that my father was also a World War II vet.

5:25 He served in the Pacific in what they called New Hebrides, which was away from the fighting, but he was also very proud to be an American, and I was very proud of him. Let me ask you about some things that are going on at world events. There are many bad actors in the world. Right now, Putin is meeting with North Korea. Russian subs are off the coast of Florida. The Israel-Hamas war may escalate. Where do you think this is heading and why does this significance? Well, I think that we are living in some very perilous days. I don't think anybody would disagree with that, except those who are the perpetrators of a lot of this mischief and chaos. To be honest with you, Steve, I have just finished reading, if you'll allow me to get into this a little bit, I've just finished reading David Jeremiah's book called The Great Disappearance. It's talking about the end times. It's talking about the rapture of the church. He makes some very good points in there, but I think that if we are honest about it and if we understand what the word says, I think what we're seeing is we're seeing the end times coming together. Now, it could be another thousand years. Nobody knows, and that's... But when you look at the wars and rumors of wars, and you look at what's happening

6:56 in this nation and you say, is it going to get any better? No, it's not going to get any better. I think we're going to see more and more of this. Then what you're ultimately going to see is you're going to see some of these people that are allied against the United States, they're going to turn on each other and that's going to be another war front. I think Russia and China are probably the ones that I would see being the first to turn against each other. Keep in mind that even though China went over and visited with Putin, the very next week, Putin had a big assembly of the Central Asian state leaders to talk about the future and he did not invite the Chinese president. Now, that was a snub. So these two, regardless of what we may think, they're not close in any way because each of them wants to be the world leader. They want to dominate the world, each one of them separately independently. In my view, they want to be the world's strong man, if you will. I think that that is going to bring about even more war and conflict in our nation,

8:33 in our world. So watch out, there's more coming. And of course, for them to reach that goal, there must be a weak United States or they have to somehow get the United States out of the position of being the greatest power in the world. And you referred to David Jeremiah in his book and that leads to my next question. While it's interesting to understand the geopolitical aspects of what we see in the news, do you believe that this is leading to the prophecies of the Bible about the end of time on things such as one world government, one currency, and of course, wars and rumors of wars? Yeah, and there's another thing that's very important too, and that is in Luke, I think it's Luke 22, Jesus told the disciples, but before all of this, talking about the wars and rumors of wars, the earthquakes in diverse places and all that, he said, before all of this, they will persecute you. They will take you before kings and rulers and persecute you on account of my name. Is that happening in America? Is that happening in this nation today? And you brought it up when you talked about the COVID, where the churches were under greater restrictions than any of the other

10:09 entities in America, and that's just getting worse. And so I think that all of these things come together to set the stage, I think, for the end times. And yes, I think it's near. I know that you're a spiritual man. You have that reputation and me knowing you personally, I certainly believe that, and you have a very outspoken role with the Family Research Council, yet you're also a military man. You understand war. You've been in war. You've been a general.

10:50 And I want to ask you about the similarities between what we call spiritual war, where the Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. And to compare that and the similarities with strategies in war. What are your insights on that? Yeah, Steve, when you're in a physical war, the first thing you have to do, and Sun Tzu said this, he said, know yourself and know your enemies, and you need not fear 100 battles.

11:32 We have to know our enemy when it's in a physical war or a spiritual war. Both of them are important. We put a lot of emphasis on our intelligence community here in the United States. I was the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and I finally got an inside look. I spent two years at the CIA also, and they go to great lengths to know our enemy, know what they're going to do, to be able to forecast and predict what the enemy is going to do. And keep in mind that it all came about because of Pearl Harbor, because we missed that, and we lost a lot of lives as a result of that. So since then, we have put a lot of time and energy and human resources into this. But in a spiritual war, you still have to know your enemy. You have to understand who the enemy is. And not enough people in America read the Bible. Not enough people sit down every day and read at least a portion of subscripture.

12:50 And that's how you know your enemy. You know your enemy because you've read what the Bible tells us about Satan. It says, he walketh about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour. That's start right there. Just start right there. And then people say, well, I don't want to study Satan. You better. You better. Because if you don't understand his tactics, if you don't understand how he does things, if you don't understand how he will get you in a conundrum, and you don't even realize it's happening until it's too late, you're not going to win that battle. But let me tell you, I have been in a lot of spiritual battles since I've been out of the army, as well as when I was in the army. And I must tell you, you learn something every battle. You learn something new. And that's what you do in a physical war. You learn something. You learn from what you experience on the battlefield. And Americans, Christians all over the world need to be making concerted effort. To have two things, and you can go back to Ephesians six about this, two things that you've got to have. First of all, you have to have a daily Bible reading program.

14:17 And secondly, you got to have a daily prayer life. It puts you before the Lord and gives you the opportunity to thank him for his blessings and to tell him what what you are asking him to do in your life. And so what advice do you have for the people that are watching, many of whom would agree with what you just said, or at least are open to it? How can we grasp hold of winning a spiritual battle? Or even how can we intercede for our nation and and for the world in terms of what's happening? Or is it just sort of inevitable what's going to happen? Yeah, that's a good question. And it's one that I still ponder today, you know, it's getting worse. But look, I think it's very clear that that the Lord told us to occupy until I return. Didn't know what he said occupy until I return. And, and he's told us to go go about taking the gospel to all ends of the earth, baptizing in the name of the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now, that means we have to do everything that he's called us to do. And he is right there in the Bible, we've got to do everything he's called us to do. We've got to be vigilant, we've got to be determined, we've got to be energetic

15:50 about it. But we can't just sit back and wait for his second coming or the rigid or the rapture. It's going to happen. But we are supposed to be on alert until he comes. And we're on alert when we're out there trying to win souls and trying to bring people a better understanding of what the Christian life is about and what the expectations are for us. You know, and my final question on this short podcast, I want to cycle back around to what we started with. And that was talking about patriotism. Because we're of course, airing this on the Fourth of July, even though people will be seeing it online much later. What do you recommend to restore patriotism in the nation overall? What can the average person do? And is there hope if Christians and other conservatives speak up?

16:52 First of all, we need to get people on school boards across America who understand the importance of knowing history. That's why when you look at Joshua and Moses, before they died, they brought the people together and they gave them a history lesson. They wanted them to know where they came from. They wanted them to know who they are. So we have got to get people on the school board. Secondly, we've got to get teachers that have not been tainted by the Marxist movement, by the Marxist teachings in the colleges and the universities, because it's also crept into the lower schools now. And then, as far as I am concerned, moms and dads need to recognize how important it is for their son and daughter to know what God has done for their family. They need to know who they are, where they came from, and what the Lord has done for them. And that's something that just does not happen in the average Christian home today. There's not a lot of discussion about that. And then I will say, and the final thing is, read. Read history. Read. Because only, what is it, Steve? About 24% of the Americans read for understanding. And I don't know how you can stay in business like that,

18:30 but you've put out a lot of books, Steve, and they're good. And we need to read, not just the Bible, but we need to read American history so that we develop a pride in what America stands for, what America's done, the sacrifices that have been made, and start with the Founding Fathers. Well, I think what you say is so important, and of course I agree with you. I do publish books over 2,000 at this point. And I'm a reader, and I decided this year to keep track. So far I've read or listened to an audible 37 books this year. I believe in it. And your comments have made me just reflect. And in the last week, I've watched some videos on PragerU about history and our presidents and things. And there's a lot of good material out there. We don't necessarily get it in the mainstream media, but thankfully we have alternative media. And I just want to thank you for what you and the Family Research Council are doing. You're a voice. You're a light in the darkness. The darker it is, the more a small light shines. And you and Tony Perkins and the others have, are certainly that. So I want to thank you for taking time to be on the podcast. I wanted to deal with these issues on the 4th of July. And so I want to give you the last word, and then I'll come back with some closing thoughts for my viewers.

20:01 The last word, as far as I'm concerned, should be, be proud to be an American. Because there are generations of men and women that have served this country to give us the right to be proud to be Americans. So lift up your flag on this 4th of July. Let that flag be visible from every direction. I saw one today as I was coming back from Bethesda. A car came by with a huge flag on the car just blowing in the breeze. And I thought, wait till I get out of here. I'm going to go get me a flag and put it on my car. Be proud to be an American. That's my message.

20:48 Welcome back. I want to encourage you to subscribe to The Strangler Report. If you don't already do so, press the blue bell so you're notified every time that we're live Tuesday and Thursday at 4pm Eastern. And click this on social media. It's your way to do something for the 4th of July. Post a picture of an American flag. My interview with Jerry Boykin will interest those who are in your circle that we all have to do our part to encourage and return it our way. Thank you for watching The Strangler Report today. Thank you for subscribing. And until next time, God bless.