Faith, Freedom, and War: Jerry Boykin’s Incredible American Story

Join WallBuilders’ American Story host Tim Barton for a powerful conversation with Lt. General Jerry Boykin — one of America’s most respected military leaders and founding members of Delta Force.

From the battlefield to today’s cultural challenges, General Boykin shares unforgettable stories of courage, faith, leadership, and the fight for America’s founding principles. Hear firsthand accounts from decades of military service, and why America’s history still matters now more than ever.

This episode dives deep into:
🇺🇸 America’s founding ideals
⚔️ Leadership in times of crisis
🙏 Faith under pressure
🛡️ National security & cultural battles
📖 The stories that shaped a nation

If you care about faith, freedom, and the future of America, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're gonna go back into combat, or were you always determined going, this is the one thing I care about and I'm going back? What was your thought process along the way?

SPEAKER_01 0:10

They wanted to take my arm off. They wanted to take this arm off because they said you got so much rabbital in there that uh you're probably gonna get infected if if we don't take it off, you know. And I said, Well, I've been talking to the Lord, and he told me if if I will trust him, he will heal me. So you just do the best you can. The rest of it's up to him.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Welcome to the American Story Podcast. I am honored today uh that I get to spend time with someone who is a hero for my family. He's been a friend for many years. It's General Jerry Boykin. He's a two-star retired general, uh, one of the founding members of Delta Force that has actually several incredible books. Uh his accolades go on for a long time, and he decided that he would take some time with me today to tell us part of his story, but also thinking as we're getting close to Memorial Day to talk to them about Memorial Day. So please join me in welcoming General Boykin. Thank you for spending time with me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Uh thank you very much, and I appreciate you having me all.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Well, General Boykin, I would love for for all of our audience who doesn't know your story, maybe hasn't read any of the books or the things you've written. Will you walk us through some of your story, uh, your your military career and wherever you'd like to go? And and I might have some questions along the way, but will you tell us part of your background?

SPEAKER_01 1:51

I came into the Army out of uh Virginia Tech, where I had uh had a football scholarship and I was in the core there. So as soon as I graduated, I went straight into the Army. And I will tell you that uh I don't I haven't said a whole lot about this in my as I speak to people, but I uh one of the major reasons that I went in the Army was I wanted to make my dad proud of me. And my dad was a uh wounded warrior, he was uh wounded on D-Day, and and uh I wanted him to be proud of me because I looked up to him and and uh and so I went in and I stayed in 36 years. And uh it was it was a wonderful feeling to know that I was doing something that made him proud. And uh now I probably could have done it in less time than 36 and a half years, but uh nonetheless. Uh but I you know I went into uh the infantry to start with, and then I went into special forces and the rangers, and uh I uh I was wounded a couple of times uh and went through some some other things that were uh pretty difficult, uh one of which was uh the what we know as Blackhawk Down. Uh when I lost uh I lost some people there at Blackhawk Down and and I got so angry with God, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, I'm telling the truth. I got so angry with God because I said, Lord, this didn't have to happen. Why why did you let this happen? And then the answer came to me, and I said, There is no God. That's why. But the minute I said that, and this is what I want I want the people that are watching this to understand this. The minute I said that, I heard the voice, an audible voice of the Lord. You can say, You're one of those, huh? Well, I guess I am, yeah. And a voice of the Lord said to me, if there's no God, there's no hope. And I began to weep. I broke and began to weep, and and uh and I I was just you know, I was just so upset that I had actually thought that for a moment. And then what I what I say when I'm talking to men uh wherever I'm speaking, I say to them, the moment it was in my heart to repent, I would I repented and God God gave me peace and let me know that He had washed away that sin. And you've never done anything that God won't wash away, that God won't forgive you for, and that's what I try to tell men. So in all of the that uh what I've I've I wanted to say was uh the uh the army was a spiritual battleground for me, and uh but it's also a place where I was able to really minister to people, even though I wasn't uh you know one of the chaplains there, I always had an opportunity to minister to other people, so I can tell you more, but uh that's that's the bottom line there.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Well, it's so general, the fact that you were in for 36 years, uh that that is almost two careers in the military. Um, and you if if we can jump ahead, and then I do want to go back because I want to ask you about some of your earlier experiences, but you were in the military all the way through President Bush, and then what caused you to get out of the military?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Well, it was 36 and a half years, you know. There was uh there's a point at which you know it's time. And and quite frankly, I had been working on uh setting up a ministry. I I wanted to get out of the army, not because I didn't like the army, I loved the army, but I wanted to get out and go into ministry. I wanted to talk to men especially, not exclusively, but primarily men. I wanted to travel the country and talk to men about what it means to be a man in God's kingdom. And uh so that was a big part of why I got out when I did, but uh, it was also 36 and a half years was was enough. And uh, you know, I had grandchildren and I I wanted to have more time to to be with them and and uh to enjoy time uh on the river or out in the woods. And so that's that's why.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Well, General, as as someone that loves the outdoors, I remember one time you came and visited us at our ranch, and and we have uh among some of our our firearms, we have some old 22s that are uh pump action 22s from like the old gallery gun circus kind of days. And I vividly remember you having one of those 22s, and we were going down to the pond and you were hitting targets at 40 and 50 yards away with this 22 open sight. And I remember thinking, this man is not only an impressive shot, this is still kind of a dangerous man to this day. And obviously, because of your self-control and your faith, you've harnessed that danger and you've been able to control it, but certainly the fact that you were so well trained, you must have shot more than just tens of thousands of rounds in your life and career. It seemed like you'd probably shot millions of rounds. It was just second nature when you picked up that 22 rifle and you were hitting targets at 40. And then when I say targets for everybody watching and listening, we're talking about the size of like a quarter. He was hitting tiny targets that were so far away. So, General, in the midst of your military career, if if we can back up and talk a little bit more about that before we get into some of the ministry things you you have done and are still doing, in your military career, you certainly led a lot of men, but you also were, as you mentioned, you were special forces. So you did a lot of training and a lot of shooting. What were some of the lessons that you learned along the way that if you could impart to some of the young men, and I'm saying this because I know you started a ministry, you wanted to reach men and encourage them to be the men God made them to be, but partly you had learned a lot of lessons along the way that you wanted to encourage and challenge men. What were some of the lessons you learned in the military that would be worth passing on to people today?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Um I'll start with this. Know what you believe in and know why you believe in it when you go into the military. Because there are a lot of things in the military that that uh are designed by our enemy to pull you away from Jesus Christ. So you need to know what you believe, but you also need to know why you believe it. And now that's an important thing as far as I am concerned. I uh and that's what I said to my children and grandchildren. You need to know what you believe, and don't believe anything just because somebody told you that. So the other thing is that uh from my perspective, uh you are frequently um determined to get with the wrong crowd if you're around them. And you're gonna find that your reputation, about fifty percent of your reputation is gonna be about who you hang out with. And I know I'm talking to uh not just children right now, I'm talking to the men. And uh you you gotta be careful because people will judge you by the people they see you hold hanging out with, and that's uh from my perspective, that's very important. And ultimately you're gonna get yourself in trouble and do something stupid if you stay around those kind of people.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Well, as someone who not only had one career in the military, again, when for everybody listening, you can go for 20 years and retire having a full career of the military. General, the fact you were in for nearly 40 years, that's nearly two full careers in the military, but you also uh you said it and then breezed right by it. I want to go back and talk about it. You were one of the founding members of Delta Force. What was that like when you joined as an infantry, you're a ranger, and they somebody in the military has an idea. We actually need a a more specialized unit. We we need to bring some of these elite soldiers together, and we need something different and special. What happened to bring about the founding of Delta Force and what was it like to be one of the founding members of Delta Force?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, uh this we'll have to go back to uh 1977. And uh there was a uh hijacked aircraft that went into Mogadishu, Somalia, and uh and the uh Germans, it was a you you it was one of their airplanes, so they had to go in there and uh take that aircraft down and get their hostages out, and they did it, and they did a good job of it. So Jimmy Carter said, Can we do that? And obviously the answer was well uh no. He said, I wanted that capability, so he said, set it up. So it took about two years to get everything rolling, and uh I uh was one of the first ones, uh, and I was very blessed. I I consider that a blessing, that I was able to be one of the early ones there that came on. And uh I uh I was there 13 years, and I will tell you that every day of it was a good day, even when I was in combat and getting shot or shot shot or shot at, either one. Uh I I just uh really enjoyed my time there and felt like I was really making a contribution, you know. Now let me say something based on something you were talking about earlier. We uh we in the Delta Force shot more ammunition in one year than the 82nd Airborne did. Now you think about that. That was thousands of people, and we were less than a thousand. But that's what we did. Because what the last thing we wanted to happen was for us to shoot somebody that we were there to rescue. Because our our our you know, we weren't quite up to the task. So we were out on that range just about every day and uh learning all kinds of shooting, you know, uh, and every we could shoot any weapon that was out there because we knew there were gonna be times when we'd have to we'd have to use uh a foreign weapon when we were trying to go in undercover, if you will. And uh and uh you know we uh we really put a lot of emphasis on that and it and it paid off for us. And and even today, and you see what happened with Maduro and all that, you know, it's just getting better. It's just getting better. I just wish I was 30 years or younger. I'd go right back.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Well, I I I have some friends that are are part of some special force units, and and and they've told me before, when you do some of these schools, some of the training, that there are there are times that if you miss one shot, you're disqualified, you're removed. If you have a shot off target, you might get one redo. But if you hit something you're not supposed to, you're done. And I'm saying that again, for everybody watching and listening, the the standards are so incredibly high. And to be able to achieve the standards, you have to have shot thousands upon thousands of rounds a week at least, if not a day, as you are doing this training. And the fact that y'all shot more rounds than the 80 second Airborne is a crazy thought. But I also want to back it up because, General, you said this no nonchal or so nonchalantly. It you said it like it was no big deal that you were shot a couple of times. That is crazy to me because I know this knowing part of your story, I know this is on more than one occasion, and it seems like for for some people, and I know that special force guys are they're you're just a different breed. The fact that you get shot and you're like, I'm ready to go back, I want to get back with my brothers, I'm ready to get back in combat. But but I would love if you would take a second and and maybe tell us, if you don't mind, what what were some of these stories or operations? Because the one that I'm thinking of specifically, there was one in a helicopter, and you pretty much shouldn't have survived. What if if you don't mind, could I impose? Would you tell us about some of what led to you getting a purple heart?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, the uh my the first purple heart uh was in Grenada, a spice island, and uh we were sent in there to uh kick the Cubans and the Russians out because they were building airfields that would put them within range of the U.S. coastline. And as we came up on our target, uh I was sitting in the uh door of a Black Hawk helicopter. It's the first time we'd ever use Blackhawks in in combat. And uh and all of a sudden we got up over the target and they started hammering us, and I could hear them going through the rotor blades, I could hear them coming into the body of the of the uh the aircraft, and then all of a sudden, boom, boom, and I knew I'd been hit. And then it hit me right up in the in the side right here, and then up through my armpit. And uh and they went around, tried to get in a second time, didn't make it. So they took me out to a uh to a little, I don't even know what kind of ship it was. I'm not in the Navy, but they took me out to a ship, put me on the off the ship, and um the helicopter flew off. And uh, and all of a sudden I heard the radio. It said, Medevac, Medavac, Medevac, we need a Medevac. We got a man that's expectant. Well, I knew what that meant. It meant we expect him to die. So um I'm laying there saying, God, have you have you just totally abandoned me? Have you just totally forgotten about me, Lord? What? And I and and just as I was saying that and laying there and bleeding pretty bad. And they're they're taking me out on a stretcher up to an airplane, a a Marine Corps airplane, and I'm Army, right? And I'm taking me out towards that. And I look up, and the guy that was flying the helicopter was hanging out the window of the helicopter. He was he had landed on the deck, and he was giving me a thumbs up. And when I uh I looked, I realized that he was a guy that grew up 35 miles from my home. And we had just spent two weeks earlier, we had just spent a week with our families. He didn't know who he was going to pick up. He didn't know. But he was the one to pick me up and that's when God said, No, I didn't abandon you. I sent your I sent your brother to you. So sorry about that, but I I can't tell that story without getting a little emotional, you know. But uh and then uh I got hit by mortar and logadissue and I'll tell you a little bit of the story of that because it's it's going to be General.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Can I can I ask a little bit of a follow-up question? So when you land on board that ship, they obviously take you in to do surgery. How long did it take in your recovery? And at what point was there ever a question of if you're gonna go back into combat? Or were you always determined, going, this is the one thing I care about, I'm going back. What was your thought process along the way?

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Um they wanted to take my arm off. First of all, they wanted to take this arm off. Because they said, you got so much shrapnel in there that uh you're probably gonna get infected if if we don't take it off, you know. And I said, Well, I've been talking to the Lord, and he told me if if I will trust him, he will heal me. So you just do the best you can. The rest of it's up to him. And six months later, after I had been shot, I made my first parachute jump. You know, so I I you know, I I don't know what to say. I mean, God is good.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Six months So so I've I've I've read your book, Never Surrender. I've read some other things you've written. Um and so I've seen and heard some of this testimony before. It still is amazing to me the amount of resolve you had, and certainly your faith throughout this whole thing, that in the midst of it all, you trusted God, and within six months, you are back in the fight. In my mind, that is nothing short of a miracle. And certainly you talk about it, God's faithfulness in your life that you have seen so consistently.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Absolutely. And uh I I would I'd just tell you that uh when you know that you're putting uh everything on the line, uh what you'll find is the people around you, if if if you live your faith, if you live your faith and you're going into that kind of situation, the people around you are going to come to you and and they're they're going to seek you out to pray with them because they may be uh coming back in a body bag or they may be coming back wounded as I was.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

So it's uh it's important for for people, for people in the military, especially, to remember, live your faith. Live your faith. Yeah. Because the guy that started the Delta Force, I thought the guy hated me. I honestly did I thought he hated me. He was just but it finally figured it out. When we went into Iran to rescue the 52 Americans there in Iran, uh the night before we launched, and I was still thinking he hates me. He comes up to me and he's got a real uh almost a I don't know what to say. Uh he had a perplexing look on his face, and he came up to me and said, Jerry, before we launch this tomorrow, I want you to get on, get to get these men together, and I want you to pray and ask God to go with us. Wow. And I did the next day. But that was when I figured out what was wrong. He had seen so many Christians, so-called Christians, that did not live their faith, they compromised on their faith. And he was to he was putting me to the test to see what I was made of. Am I am I really a Christian? I gotta know who I got here, you know. Am I really a Christian? And uh so I say that to everybody, live your faith because you're hurting other people when you don't. Not just yourself, you're hurting other people if you if you don't stay to it.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

What I would love to do is if you will tell maybe just a little bit about you you're back now jumping, but then you you had another purple heart. If you'll tell some of that story, but then I do want to get into how you transitioned really into ministry and and what you're doing and and how that's going. But I I don't want to cheat people that we've already teased. Uh, you have more than one purple heart. So if you don't mind, I would love for them to hear more about part of your experience.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Uh we'll start with that then. Um in Mogadeshu, uh during the Black Hawk Down events, that most people know it as Blackhawk Down, um we got in that 18-hour fight, and uh the next day we got our wounded and dead evacuated, and we had a memorial service, and just as the sun went down, I was talking to two of my guys, and uh one was a lieutenant colonel, and the other one was a master sergeant, and there was a huge explosion. And I went down and they went down, and and uh when I finally got back up to my feet, I was on wobbly feet because I'd been hit by the mortar. Four mortars were fired, three of them went over us and out into the ocean, and one landed right behind us. I'm talking about within five five feet of us. And the two that were standing between me and and the uh the mortar, it killed my master sergeant, and my uh my lieutenant colonel was uh chewed up pretty bad, and then there were some others that had been hit, so I started yelling, find the doctor, find the doctor. And I'm I'm wobbly because I've got you know, both legs have been hit. But uh I didn't realize it, but the doctor was hanging, it was right here next to me. He walked up to tell me something just as the mortar went off, and he it hit him in the femoral artery, and he was yeah, he was uh in a bad situation. So they took me and him and put us on this stretcher and took us into a little tent where they uh they had a little medical section set up there in this tent. And I reached over and I took his hand and I just squeezed his hand and I said, Rob, I said, You hold on now, you hold on, you're gonna make it. Hold on, Rob. And he did, he wasn't, his eyes were not open or anything, and I just kept praying, Lord, spare him, God, spare this man in Jesus' name I pray, spare him, and and uh and then he opens his eyes, big, you know, dilated eyes, and he looked right into my eyes, and he said, Tell Barbara that I'll love her. And uh his eyes rolled back and he was gone. The nurse came over and said to me, sir, let him go, he's gone. Let him go, sir, he's gone. She took my hand and tried to pull my hand off of him. I said, I'm not letting go. She kept saying, he's gone, sir. Don't you understand? He's gone. Let him go. Well, I'll come to the punchline. In 2014, that doctor was the number one doctor in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He runs a a station right on the interstate there. He it's a truck stop, and he's got a he's got a station there that he can do just about anything you need.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

And so he survived.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

And everything So it sounds like the the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. That's what it sounded like.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

That's exactly what it was. I'm not a righteous man.

unknown 29:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

But uh but I know heard your prayer. In spite of all my frailties, wow, uh, he's always there.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Wow. Okay, General, so I I don't know which which one you would rather do first, because I I want to talk about uh just for a couple minutes, because I know you you have stuff you have to I have to let you go, but I would love to hear what the ministry stuff you're doing now, but also we're we're coming close to Memorial Day, and and as someone who understands what this day is about, uh as Americans, how do we honor and and appreciate the people that have have paid this ultimate price? And how do we appreciate our veterans and active duty? Um and so whichever one you'd like to do first, I I want to give you the opportunity because I just asked you to tell some really hard stories, but I would love to hear about your ministry, and then I would love to hear your thoughts on Memorial Day.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah, my ministry, it's a speaking ministry, so I'm not a pastor and don't ever want to be. Uh but I uh I uh I go around and speak and I love to speak to men's conferences, but I don't uh probably less than 50 percent of my uh things are are for uh men. But I uh I go around and try to encourage people to be warriors in God's kingdom. That's the whole focus of my ministry. Is you know, when we come to Christ and when we come to Him in a relationship with Him, we're expected to be warriors. And that's why Ephesians 6 is so important, you know. We've we've got to understand what it means to be a warrior in God's kingdom and fight spiritual warfare, putting on the whole armor of God. So I uh I emphasize that as much as I can and and to get people to understand, you can't just sit back and do nothing. You gotta get in the fight. There is no such thing as a spectator anymore. You're either in or you're out. And uh so that's what I've tried to do with the ministry, and uh and I've uh I've enjoyed it and uh you know met a lot of really good people. Um and then Memorial Day. I told you that uh I came in the army to please my dad. Not he didn't he never asked me to come in the army. I mean that wasn't but he was wounded on D-Day at Normandy and lost the left eye, and of course he was a disabled veteran as a result of that. Um and um I really wanted to to make him proud of me, and that's what we need to do on this on this holiday, is we need to be proud to be Americans. We need what we've done wrong, you you and your dad and and some of the others that are working with you, you're doing something that has got to be done, but so few people are doing it, and that is sharing not just the gospel of Jesus Christ, but sharing history. History. And I mean, you go back and look at at the uh the uh founding fathers, you know, how many of them actually gave a history lesson to their people? Several of them did. Even Stephen did, didn't he? Yes, sir. Stephen gave well when you got a country that uh you can graduate from high school and graduate from college without ever taking a history course, that doesn't make any sense to me. And I think that we need to take a take a lesson from those that went before us and make sure that our children and our grandchildren and those people that we care about have been able to see and understand for themselves the great contributions that this country has made on the world affairs.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Yes, sir. Well, General, I I I am so grateful that you took time to be with us. I I want to be respectful of your time because uh our our teams agreed to not make this uh super long, but uh from the bottom of my heart, from my entire family, we love you and we are so grateful for you. We're so grateful for the testimony of your life, for your continued courage in the midst of a culture and world that has rejected basic truth. It's men like you that have stepped up to the plate, that have towed the line, courageously defending the freedoms that we've enjoyed in America, first of all, in the military on those front lines, but also now you're in the front lines of culture, encouraging and challenging the men of America to step up and be the leaders of their homes, to be the leaders in their churches, and ultimately to be the leaders in the nation. And we are so grateful for you and your service and sacrifice. General, thank you for being with me today.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Thank you very much, Tim. It's good to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Well, I'm I'm so grateful for General Boykin. And I do want to say when when there have been movies made about your life, for example, uh Delta Force and Chuck Norris is the star, when Chuck Norris is the hero of the movie about your life story, that's just really cool. Blackhawk Down, another significant movie, General Boykin's life has long been a testament and testimony of the faithfulness of God. And his encouragement and challenge to us was that we need to be people not just that have faith, we need to, but that live our faith. I'm reminded of James, uh, the epistle in the Bible, the New Testament, where James asks the question, what good is your faith without works? Can faith alone save you? Because even the demons believe in God and they tremble. The thought that James is pointing out is that our faith in God should stir us to action. And General Boykins' story is the example that even when people around you might not be totally pleased with you all the time, but they recognize you're the person of faith. And before this Delta Force operation, his commanding officer comes over and says, Hey, why don't you lead the team in prayer? Why? Because it was evident his faith was real. We need to be people that courageously and boldly live out our faith. And then also, as we think about Memorial Day and the whole weekend, this is a time that a lot of Americans, we enjoy family time and connectivity. But for people like General Boykin that that's been part of the military and they've lost a lot of friends along the way, this day is something that we we don't celebrate Memorial Day. We we honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice on Memorial Day. We have a memorial remembering them in their honor. And so on Memorial Day, if you see a veteran, appreciate the veteran. Thank that veteran. If you see someone active duty, thank them. This is a day that we want to appreciate those military men and women that have put everything on the line for our freedom, and certainly we want to remember those that have paid the ultimate price, that died so that we could live and appreciate and enjoy our freedoms. And we are so grateful, General Boykin, that you took time to be with us today. Everybody else, thanks for hanging out with us on the American Story Podcast.