Faith Over Identity: A U.S. Marines' Path from War to Worship

What if the title you’re most proud of is the very thing holding you back from who you’re meant to become? 

That’s the heart of this powerful conversation with Marine infantry officer turned pastor and Mighty Oaks Foundation CEO, Jeremy Stalnecker. From leading Marines in the 2003 push to Baghdad with 1/5 to leading a church in Oceanside, Jeremy opens up about anger, dislocation, and a misplaced identity that nearly cost him his marriage and his calling—until trusted mentors stepped in with hard truth and hope.

We unpack what it means to be a leader instead of just doing leadership, and how faith reframed Jeremy’s view of the Marine Corps as a noble chapter—not a permanent identity. If you’ve ever felt stuck between who you were and who you’re becoming, this episode offers clarity, courage, and perspective. The uniform comes off, but the mission continues.

Connect with Jeremy Stallnecker
🌐 Website: jeremystalnecker.com;🎙️Podcast: March or Die; 💼 Organization: Mighty Oaks Foundation;📘 Facebook: Jeremy Stalnecker Official;📸 Instagram: @jeremystalnecker;🔗 LinkedIn: Jeremy Stalnecker

Transcript

Speaker 01: 0:08

Welcome back everyone to the On Armor Talk Podcast. I'm your host, Mario P. Fields. If you are a first-time listener or viewer, welcome to an amazing show. If you want to check out some episodes, go all the way back to 2020. And we have some amazing episodes, and each episode is unique in its own way. Today, we have Jeremy Stallnecker who will be joining me on the show. He uh is taking a curse to remove his armor to help people gain other a better understanding that we we when we are all born, we're born with emotions. That's natural. But to think through certain things in life and to make decisions, that's a choice. And that's what this show is all about to help you gain a better understanding of how thinking changes things in life, especially those external factors. And last but not least, you guys know every episode that you listen, you download, you share, or you go on my YouTube channel and watch on the podcast playlist. It's all for charity. Been doing this four years now, and we've generated thousands of dollars that's donated to my nonprofit, Still Serving Incorporated. Again, helping those students in Pitt County, North Carolina, and that's in Innovation Early College High School and Early College High School. Gain those soft skills, get those opportunities that there's not funding out there in the world, and our nonprofit cuts those checks and creates those amazing, amazing opportunities for the next professionals around the world. Jeremy is a United States Marine Corps veteran. He was an infantry officer, served in 5th Marines. I'm going to say one 1st Battalion, 5th Marines to be a little bit more accurate. Go SoCal, my friend. Go SoCal.

Speaker 00: 1:59

Right, right.

Speaker 01: 2:00

And he's also the co-founder and CEO of Mighty Oaks Foundation, an amazing, an amazing foundation that supports, again, their mission is amazing, supports service members and families who have those hidden injuries. And I learned a lot about that when I when I was at Wounded War Batine West. And a lot of those hidden injuries to that brain and other things are very deadly. And I'm glad that he has taken the steps to really help those people. And then he is also a senior pastor. And there's more to Jeremy Simplify, my friend. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 00: 2:43

Thank you. For sure. It's awesome to be with you.

Speaker 01: 2:46

Looking forward to it. Yeah, we, you know, we've been trying to get this episode recorded since 1775.

Speaker 00: 2:53

A long time. I learned a long time ago when the Sergeant Major says go, you go, and he says hold you hulk. So uh no, I'm happy to put it down, man. It's awesome.

Speaker 01: 3:01

And I and I learned a long time ago, uh, Jeremy, that the value of an officer and especially a genuine one who cares about his men and women, people like you, you better stick next to him and give him some good advice. But for this show, call me Mario, my friend. And uh can you do me a little favor, just tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about you?

Speaker 00: 3:22

Sure. I was, as you mentioned, uh in the Marine Corps. That was my life dream from the time I was uh very young. And uh, man, the doors opened up. I always say I couldn't have placed myself where I was if I had planned it that way. I had the opportunity to uh go through a great commissioning program, which someone during college let me know existed. I didn't even know it existed, I didn't know it was a thing. So I was able to be commissioned, ended up at 1st Battalion, 5th Marines in uh 1999, and through a series of circumstances, stayed there, stayed basically with the same same platoon. I was with the rifle platoon for a short time, but then uh the platoon that we deployed to Iraq with, I was the platoon commander for over two years, um, which was incredible. And um went to Iraq at the beginning of 2003, the the opening salvo of the war. Uh, that was our battalion 1-5, reached the berm, made our way into the the southern part of the country. Southern objective was ours. First KIA of the war, Lieutenant Shane Childers was one of our Marines. Uh, made our way to Baghdad and uh came home after the Battle of Baghdad, retrograded back, took a few months, of course, but uh came home a month later. I left, uh, came home 30 days later, literally, I was out of the Marine Corps, and I was working as an assistant pastor and associate pastor on church staff in Oceanside. Uh, did that for five years, and then I became the senior pastor of a church uh that I pastored for seven years before full-time working with Mighty Oaks, which is what I do now. And we work with uh veterans, active duty service members, first responders, and their spouses dealing with, as you mentioned, the unseen wounds really, and it is it's that combat trauma, trauma related to life. It's the stuff no one sees, but that has a dramatic impact on the men and women who serve. And so been uh been fortunate to be able to be a part of that. So it's been it's been quite a uh quite a journey. Um man, time flies, but uh but here we are.

Speaker 01: 5:19

And and you know, for those uh, you know, Marines and sailors that that you lost, or any of the listeners and viewers uh lost during uh 2003 or the entire um operation uh Iraqi freedom, I I I continue to say prayers for you all for healing and understanding. And the same for you, Jeremy, uh for those folks that were close to you that that you were in charge of as that young officer. Uh but but let's get to it, you know what infantry officer, you know, in the grunts, hoorah. Yeah, and then on the side, an associate pastor. Yeah, at what point in your life journey did you realize being a pastor is going into that religious, that clergy industry. I think that's my calling.

Speaker 00: 6:14

So it's interesting. I was raised by a pastor. My dad was a pastor. Yeah, 35 years he pastored. He uh, I say he, it was he and my mom, our family, I guess, started a church here in Southern California. And so that was that was the world that I grew up in. And I always make the joke, and it it's funny to me, it's not as funny to everyone else, but it's funny to me that the one thing you learned growing up in a pastor's home is that you don't want to be a pastor, right? That was the one thing I learned. And and it wasn't because I was against God or church or anything like that. I just I saw how hard they worked, I saw what what was involved in that, and I knew that wasn't my calling. And so, as a as a teenage kid, I went to my dad and said, I really believe God wants me to take a different path. And he said, Do what God wants you to do. I said, I think God wants me to enlist in the Marine Corps. He's like, There's no way God wants you to enlist in the Marine Corps. That can't be God, right? It's gotta be somebody else.

Speaker 01: 7:09

That's what I was gonna ask. I was gonna say when you said, all right, dad, um God is speaking to me. And not only do I want to go into the Marines, I don't want to go into the infantry.

Speaker 00: 7:20

Right. Yeah, and so we had that conversation, and he said, Look, I'm gonna support whatever you think God wants you to do. I'll support it, but we want you to go to college first. That's how I ended up in college. And he said, You do anything after that, but you need to go to college. And that's where I found out at the commissioning program that I went through and and why I was able to be commissioned as an officer. So I came from kind of that church world and that church background, but I mean, the only thing I cared about was the Marine Corps and being a Marine officer, uh, being an infantry officer. It's it's to me, the Marine Corps is the infantry, and I know there's a lot of Marines are like, that's not well. To me, that's what it represented, right? If you're a Marine, you're an infantry guy. That's I didn't I didn't really understand it. There was more than that, and it took more than that, right? So going through even the selection process for MOS is um, and it's a long process for officers. You're supposed to put in your three top choices, and I put in one. And uh our staff platoon commander at the school said, What do you want to do if you can't be an infantry officer? I'm like, I don't care, doesn't matter, pick something.

Speaker 01: 8:25

Hey Darren, you you said you put in your top three infantry officer number one, infantry officer number two. That's it.

Speaker 00: 8:31

That was my only and I and my uh staff platoon commander at the time was like, Well, if you can't have infantry, what do you want? I don't care. And he said, You better be careful what you asked for because you just may get it. And uh, and I did, right? So became an infantry officer. I was sent to 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. Um, and and we talked about this a little bit. Incredible. My my first company commander was uh General Calworth, um, who at the time was Captain Calworth, but uh I learned so much from him, and he's continued to be an influence in my life since then. Um but had an amazing time, ended up in Iraq, as I mentioned. In that process of time, my wife and two little kids and I started going to a small church in Oceanside, California, outside of Camp Dentleton. And I don't I don't know another way to say it other than God really started to turn my heart heart toward the opportunity to serve people in a different way. I had only ever wanted to be an infantry marine, I was that, and then I had this moving from God, and again, I don't know another way to say it, but this calling, this impression that I should help other people through the church. And I had an opportunity to do that. My pastor said, if you ever leave the Marine Corps, I'd love to hire you on our staff. I don't have I have a I have a criminal justice degree, I've never been to Bible college still. Um, but he said, we've got all this stuff going on, and you're a leader, and I need a leader on my team. And so if you ever want to leave the Marine Corps, so I put in my paperwork to get out of the Marine Corps before we went to Kuwait, which ended up we ended up in Iraq. And um then we went to Iraq, and as an infantry marine, as an infantry officer, kind of the the pinnacle of service is leading Marines in combat, and and other service members understand that is leading marines in combat. Um at the time, if you remember, we thought the war was over when we stopped fighting in uh in 2003. So I felt like I had done everything that I had ever wanted to do at you know, the ripe old age at 26 or whatever, 25. And um started to make that decision to leave, to go into church ministry. And it was I was so conflicted because I love the Marine Force so much. I was leading Marines and had led Marines in combat. You can say whatever you want to, but until you've done it, you don't know if you can do it. And I had the opportunity to lead Marines. Um I I said lead to work with them, right? They were amazing, and it was just an honor to be a part of it. And I knew when I came home I was getting out and I was gonna go on this church staff. I was so conflicted. I told you briefly the story of Cal Worth meeting me. We were I was coming out of an office in Iraq. I was so conflicted about what to do next. And he got like right up in my face and said, Listen, Marine, you do what you believe is the right thing to do, and it will be the right thing to do. And so um, I went home 30 days later, I was out of the Marine Corps and working on that church staff. And so I was where I thought God wanted me to be. But what I didn't understand was that my identity was still wrapped up in what I had done in the Marine Corps. And so for the first year of being on that church staff, I was a disaster. I almost lost my marriage because I was just so angry and so frustrated all of the time. I was just horrible to be around. And then on the church staff, right? I came out of the infantry community. Now I'm working with other like church guys and just a wreck, right? And I called everybody out for everything, and I was I was a mess. Hey, Deacon Fields.

Speaker 01: 12:05

You're not smiling enough, Deacon Fields. Give me 10.

Speaker 00: 12:08

Right. I start yelling in staff meetings because somebody was doing something stupid. I'm like, come on. And it was a mess. And I almost lost that job, right? Eventually, long story short, my pastor, some other men came alongside, confronted me on that. But I had to get a hold of that. You can be where God wants you to be, but if you don't get your identity right, then you're not going to be effective in that place. And what I learned in that process, and what I've continued to learn, you know, since then is I was a Marine. That's what I did, but it's not who I inherently was or am. It's something I can be proud of, and I am thankful for, and I'm proud of, but I I am I got my whole identity from I led Marines in combat. You people don't know what that's like. Right. It's the difference between doing leadership and being a leader. And it took me a long time to get my brain and my heart around this thing that I had the privilege of doing that. Now I'm in a new place. I get to use the same skills, the personality, the opportunities that God has given me in a different place, but I can continue to lead. And so that was a long process. It took me a long time to get there. But um once I finally got my head around that, things started to line up and I was able to move into that next phase of life.

Speaker 01: 13:30

And I tell you, Jeremy, look at the amazing global impact you have had since then. I mean, you know, and and I love how you you know you look at that dad and going yourself going, I don't want to be a pastor. I don't care if I'm I don't care if I'm I'm running a food chain, man. I am not gonna be a pastor. And you know how it is, Jeremy. I can speak this language to you. You have your plans, and it and the humor's coming out. I mean, God's you know, kind of smoking his holy cigar, going just laughing. Listen to Jeremy saying he doesn't want to be a pastor, yeah. Right, right. Someone go get me some uh some holy orange juice.

Speaker 00: 14:08

Yeah, God, God, I think, laughs in our plans, right? Yeah, it's funny how he brings us around, but it's true.

Speaker 01: 14:14

And then, yeah, and then uh I love how you said, you know, you you chose to hang on to a false identity. The real identity is Jeremy Stallnecker. You've always been Jeremy from day one, and like you said, that time in the Marines was a chapter in life, and how you chose to gain a better understanding that that wait a minute, the reason my belief system is causing a lot of turbulence, and I need to change it. And there's so many folks that struggle, like they don't get to that point. What do you believe got you to go? I am going to make a decision to change my belief system on my what identifies me and my purpose.

Speaker 00: 15:03

The first thing, and then this, you know, this isn't spiritual or anything else. It's just the first thing was some people who were really frustrated with me that I respected, coming to me and saying, Look, man, you are out of control. I mean, that was it, it was a pastor, it was a dad, it was some other people that were in my life that were older than me that I did respect, that had sat back for a while to see how this was going to shake out. And finally they had enough, right? And they came to me and said, This is not okay, what you're doing. The way that you're behaving, the way you're talking to people, the way you're treating your family, it's not okay. And that was really important for me because I was in my mind justifying my behavior because of where I came from and what I had done and what I had seen. And remember, in 2003, there weren't a lot of people that had been in combat and come home and then transitioned into the civilian world, right? Right. I mean, there were a handful, but there weren't very many. So I felt really unique in that too. And so that was the first thing was being confronted lovingly but firmly by people I knew had my best interest in mind. They weren't just mad at me, they had my best interest in mind. So that was one thing. And then really getting back to a faith understanding that God created me with purpose, and God created me with direction, and God created me with an identity that is bigger than a job. And it's almost sacrosanct to say it, but the Marine Corps is a job, it's a special job, it's a unique job. It's not like other jobs, but it's a job. It's a stage or a phase of life that some of us have the honor of being a part of. But that's not who I am. It's just something that I did. And I had to get back to a faith understanding that God's plan for my life involved being being a kid, being a college student, being a Marine, being a husband and a father and a friend. And there are a lot of aspects to what I was created to do and to be, but fundamentally, I had to find my identity and who he is and what he has called me to do. That was a process. It began with confrontation. It began with someone, you know, kind of putting the brakes on my reckless behavior and giving me the space to start to work through those things.

Speaker 01: 17:26

Well, Jeremy, I would tell you, I am thankful for your wife and all of your network of friends and family who have the courage to think through their emotions and go, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's put some happy plates on. Give me the give me the armor of God before we go to this guy. I'm pretty sure you're not five foot two like me. So you know, and they're like, All right, there's a tall guy here. So and then and I love how you know you became more aware of you. Um, and and the funny thing too, Jerry, and I'm glad you said that, because one of the things I tell people, I'm like, and especially in the employment workshops, I said, you know, the Marine Corps hires and fires. It is a job. I said, Now I'm the marine being marine is a belief system, it's a culture. I was like, but but the corps will will hire you and fire you. So yeah, don't get them confused. Right, right, right. And um you know the show. It's uh I man, I tell you, I wish I wish I could. You got all of the guests are amazing, including you. And look at what you have done through through church and through uh Marty Oaks Foundation and more. Looking back, looking back, going back to when you was adamant, I would not be a pastor. And now letting God lead you through spirit and faith, what advice would you give yourself if you could?

Speaker 00: 19:02

It's hard to give people advice before they hit the wall, right? Sometimes you need to hit the wall before you're willing to listen. But I have seen this in people that transition out of the military, people that transition out of relationships, transition out of other jobs in the corporate world. Um, people who, and we struggle with this in the veteran community, people who lose hope and take their lives. What's what's the the common struggle? I think the common struggle is identity and purpose. Identity and purpose. And so, as a father of four kids, one thing I've tried to continue to instill in my kids is your identity is not in a job or a person, a relationship, even your parents. Your identity is found in who God is and who he created you to be. And your purpose is in living the life that he has called you to live. So that's using your opportunities, using your giftings, um, you know, serving other people. So if I could go back, and my parents did a good job with this, which I think is why my curve was quick, right? A lot of people that this is a 20-year turn. It was quick for me because I had these things, they were just buried. But understand your identity, understand your purpose, understand your identity, understand your purpose. And then when you hit these various transitions, difficulties, challenges in life, you can always fall back on I know who I am and I know why I'm here. And that carries you forward regardless of what happens in your life. It's not a job, it's not a career, it's not a location, it's not a person. You can continue to move forward. And this is why you see some people who transition so well the various stages of life, and others who don't. What's the difference? One understands their identity and their purpose, yeah, and the other one's struggling to find that.

Speaker 01: 20:51

Yes, and you everyone, you heard it identity, purpose, gain a better understanding of the person in the mirror, and you have to open up your mind for feedback. There's people that's right. There's people that love you, and when they give you feedback, stop defending, stop defending.

Speaker 00: 21:12

Right, yeah, that's good. That's good.

Speaker 01: 21:15

Uh Jerry, you said it. I'm just summarizing all no, you're right, though.

Speaker 00: 21:19

Yeah, it's the and but that feedback part is so important, right? Because it's easy to get a hold of this like ethereally, right? It's out there, like identity, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you need some people to come along and go, look, you know, you need a Cal Worth while you're in the Marine Corps trying to figure this out to go, hey, this is not all there is, there's more out there. Like, go pursue that, right? He's like a Marines Marine, but he's got it figured out and he helped me. I need a you need a wife or you know, a partner, you need men in your life or women in your life. You need people who can come alongside, but then you need to listen when they talk, and that's critical, critical.

Speaker 01: 21:59

Yeah. No, I I appreciate it. And before I let you go, because I will I will keep you on this show forever because you're inspiring the hell out of me. Um, shout out to General Worth. General Worth, thank you. You see, I'm gonna make sure he gets this episode and General Dave Odom. You guys are I'm gonna use this metaphor, cut from the same cloth. You are humans who love humans, and uh and now you're seeing the effects of this with this senior pastor, CEO, and co-founder of an amazing organization. Again, you guys, Mighty Oaks Foundation, get on that website, support them, donate if you can. And more Jeremy, if anyone wants to connect with you, what's the best way for them to reach out to you, my friend?

Speaker 00: 22:42

Use my name, Jeremy Stolnecker, on any of the socials. You can find me that way. Um, or go to our website for Mighty Oaks, Mighty Oakprograms.org, MightyOaksprograms.org.

Speaker 01: 22:53

Nice. Well, thank you so much. God bless you, your family, your wonderful four children. And I tell them, tell them I'm this Sergeant Major, sorry, for uh uh you know getting you on the show for a few minutes and taking you away from them. But it's been a pleasure, Van. And uh love your brothers, simplify, and thank you so much for coming on the show.