Jerry Boykin & Lynn Vincent

by Never Surrender

  He’s a highly decorated officer, twice wounded in battle, a warrior’s warrior. The former commander of Army Special Forces, Lieutenant General William Jerry Boykin has led or been part of almost every recent U.S. military operation from the ill-fated attempt to rescue hostages in Iran to Grenada, Panama, Colombia, and Somalia . . . But [his] new assignment may be complicated by controversial views General Boykin, an evangelical Christian, has expressed in dozens of speeches and prayer breakfasts around the country. . . . NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin, who’s been investigating Boykin for the Los Angeles Times, says the general casts the war on terror as a religious war.1

  The next morning, the Los Angeles Times story hit. I walked into my office to find it included in the October 16 edition of The Early Bird, a compilation of the day’s media stories published every morning by Pentagon public affairs. As I began to read, my heart sank:

  The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan. . . . [T]he former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army’s top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian . . . and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”2

  Right out of the gate, Times reporter Richard T. Cooper got it wrong. It was not my job to track down and eliminate terrorists, and I never saw the war on terror as a “clash” between my values and Satan. I saw it as a clash between God and Satan. And I was not the only one: Islamic jihadists saw it that way, too—except in reverse—with Allah as the true god and America as the “great Satan.”

  “Boykin’s religious activities,” Cooper wrote, “were first documented in detail by William M. Arkin, a former military intelligence analyst who writes on defense issues for The Times Opinion section.” I kept reading:

  Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

  “We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this,” Boykin said last year.

  On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: “He’s in the White House because God put him there.”3

  Statement after statement, ripped out of context. Now the first hint of anger started simmering in my veins. Yes, I thought the Somali warlord in question—Mohamed Farah Aidid’s right-hand man Osman Atto—served an idol: money. Yes, I thought that we “in the house of God”—believing Christians—had been called to battle, but on our knees, as spiritual warriors as the Apostle Paul wrote, to “put on the whole armor of God . . . take up the shield of faith . . . and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God . . . with all prayer and supplication.”

  But juxtaposed with his discussion of a “Christian nation” and the terror war, Cooper made it appear that I was calling all Americans to fight in the “army of God.” Meanwhile, he buried a fact that would later be lost as the media painted me a Muslim-hater. Way down in the story, Cooper whispered, “In his public remarks, Boykin has also said that radical Muslims who resort to terrorism are not representative of the Muslim faith.”

  Cooper’s selective reporting and ordering of facts struck me as vintage drive-by journalism, and I was furious. But not as furious as when I read the words of the man behind Cooper’s curtain, Times “military analyst” William Arkin. In the same edition of the Times, Arkin wrote an op-ed in which he revealed that he had been conducting “a monthlong journalistic investigation” of me.

  The Times had been investigating me for a month, and no one from the paper has bothered to call me to get my side of the story?

  At least NBC News had called. Aram Roston hadn’t listened to me, but at least he’d gone through the motions. Sitting at my desk, I read on:

  Boykin is . . . an intolerant extremist who has spoken openly about how his belief in Christianity has trumped Muslims and other non-Christians in battle. He has described himself as a warrior in the kingdom of God and invited others to join with him in fighting for the United States through repentance, prayer and the exercise of faith in God. . . .

  [W]hen Boykin publicly spews this intolerant message while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army, he strongly suggests that this is an official and sanctioned view—and that the U.S. Army is indeed a Christian army. But that’s only part of the problem. Boykin is also in a senior Pentagon policymaking position, and it’s a serious mistake to allow a man who believes in a Christian “jihad” to hold such a job.

  For one thing, Boykin has made it clear that he takes his orders not from his Army superiors but from God . . .4

  I finished the piece and set The Early Bird aside in disgust. I didn’t know whose life this clown Arkin had been investigating, but it wasn’t mine.

  3

  LATER THAT MORNING, I had to stand in for Undersecretary Steve Cambone at Secretary Rumsfeld’s regular morning meeting with Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dick Myers, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the other undersecretaries and support staff.

  I had attended many such meetings, but as I waited with the others in the outer office, my stomach churned. Everyone had heard the news. At least one person told me he thought I was getting a crappy deal, though that wasn’t the word he used. From Rumsfeld, though, I didn’t know what to expect. Would he announce during the meeting that he was removing me as deputy undersecretary pending an investigation?

  I didn’t think he would. But I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t.

  “Okay folks,” Rumsfeld said when we were assembled in his office. “Let’s get started.”

  The Secretary always began that way, very casually. With his size, square jaw, and sheer depth of experience, he was a formidable man. But his manner in these meetings was like a friendly uncle. As always, he had a stack of papers in his hand. Sheet by sheet, he went through the information with us, stopping to ask questions and listen to feedback. Then he wrapped up in the usual way, going around the table, asking us each if we had anything else.

  At that point, I realized that the previous night’s newscast was not on the Secretary’s agenda and I relaxed a little. That let me know that his assessment, initially at least, was that Bill Arkin’s allegations were not of serious concern. Still, after we discussed other business, Rumsfeld dismissed his staff and said to me, “You stay here.”

  He also asked General Myers and Larry Di Rita, his acting public affairs officer, to stay. Rumsfeld then peered across the table at me. “I’ve got to get to a press conference in an hour. What am I supposed to say about the controversy that started last night about you?”

  His attitude was offhand, almost amused. Suddenly, I felt even better.

  I hadn’t rehearsed an answer to his question, as I hadn’t known he’d ask it. But given the opportunity, I really spoke my heart. “Well, Mr. Secretary, first of all, you need to understand that I never cast this war in religious terms. In fact, quite the contrary. I’m on the record, in print, as saying that this is not a war between Christianity and Islam. Secondly, I think you need to say that you haven’t really heard what I’ve said. You can’t make a statement on something you haven’t heard.”

  “I agree,” Myer said. “I think that’s the approach you need to take, Mr. Secretary.” Di Rita also agreed.

  At that time, Rumsfeld was just off the successful campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and still on fairly good terms with the press. Reporters considered him combative and difficult—as did others—but in a likeable, curmudgeonly way. He was quick and blunt and witty. Dick Myers always went to the press conference with him, and that morning, they left the Secretary’s office t
ogether and headed to the press briefing room.

  I went back to my office and tuned into the conference on the Pentagon channel on the same set where I’d watched the NBC broadcast the night before. Within moments, with only one side of the story told and zero response from me, the Washington press corps was calling for my head.

  “Would it be helpful to characterize Boykin’s statements as ‘them against us good Christians’?” one reporter said. “Which is apparently what he is doing.”

  “Well, see, apparently works for you,” Rumsfeld said. “Apparently doesn’t work for me.”

  The reporter persisted: “But what he’s saying seems to be contrary to that policy, appears—”

  Again, Rumsfeld cut off speculation. “Okay: ‘Appears’ . . . ‘Seems to be.’ You do ‘appears’ and ‘seems to be.’ I don’t.”

  I thought, This is one tough guy.

  I didn’t know why he was defending me the way he was, but I was glad for it. Still reeling from the unfair and untrue accusations leveled at me on national television the night before, I hadn’t been certain what the Secretary’s reaction would be. I wasn’t sure how much the increasing concern in DoD for political correctness would affect his response. But I should have known better: Donald Rumsfeld was focused on the truth—and he didn’t know what the truth was yet.

  Another reporter piped up: “Why don’t you just fire him and then get someone—”

  The Secretary cut him off: “This is the most bloodthirsty crowd I have ever seen!”

  Asked about my speaking to religious groups while in uniform, General Myers spoke up. “At first blush, it doesn’t appear the rules have been broken. The only thing I would say is there is a very wide grey area on what the rules permit.”

  Myers mentioned a time when he himself had spoken at a Washington prayer breakfast while in uniform. Rumsfeld added that my wearing a military uniform did not erase my First Amendment right to free speech and freedom to practice my religion.

  “We’re a free people,” he said. “That’s the wonderful thing about our country.”

  But it was not wonderful for the free press. Several reporters continued to badger the Secretary into commenting on what they claimed I’d said. He didn’t bite.

  The lift I felt after Rumsfeld’s press conference quickly crashed to earth. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t walk by a Pentagon television where some talking head wasn’t yapping about the nutball general bent on holy war. The same day, David Martin of 60 Minutes came to see me again. “The stakes are higher now, General,” David said. “Maybe we should think about doing that 60 Minutes piece . . .”

  I looked into his eyes and thought I saw the opportunity for a fair shake. Still, I didn’t feel it had come to that. “David, I’m not ready to talk about this publicly yet,” I said.

  Looking back on what happened next, that might’ve been the wrong answer.

  4

  LATER THAT DAY, my office telephone rang. It was Tom O’Connell, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflicts.

  “Hey Jerry, I was just listening to the radio on the way in,” he said. “I understand you’re being fired.”

  I sighed and looked out my window at the Potomac. “Tom, maybe you know something I don’t, but I haven’t been told that.”

  He didn’t. It was more “truth” in media.

  As the day progressed, two different people stopped me on the E-Ring to say they’d heard I was resigning.

  “No, I’m not resigning,” I said.

  That afternoon, I met with Larry Di Rita in an empty office with some of the public affairs people. We talked a little about a statement I would release to the media. In it I would apologize for any misunderstanding, any offense I had given.

  Then I suggested a second solution. “Larry, why don’t I just call for an IG investigation, and see if that will bring some relief?”

  “Secretary Rumsfeld is not asking for an investigation,” Larry said.

  “I know, but I think it might be a good idea. Just get things out in the open, see if I’ve done anything wrong.”

  “Okay, but I just want to be clear that the Secretary’s not asking for this.”

  I said I was clear on that, and Larry said he’d call the IG.

  When I finally trudged into my own living room that night, Ashley had the evening news on. The anchor was busily repeating the same thing I’d heard over and over all day, what I came to think of as The Big Three: One, my statement that God put Bush in the White House. Two, that I’d said my God was bigger than Atto’s god. And three, that I said America’s enemy wasn’t Osama Bin Laden, but Satan.

  And as they had all day, reporters and anchors regurgitated what NBC had reported—no questions asked. That these people, whose stock in trade is supposed to be “facts” would do so without doing even the most basic function of reporting—getting both sides of the story—hit me harder than the triple-A fire in Grenada. I’m not exaggerating. I would rather have taken another .50 cal round.

  I couldn’t stand to listen to another word. I kissed Ashley and retreated to our bedroom, closing the door behind me. Then I lay down across my bed and considered what was happening. This wasn’t some unfortunate rumor in the workplace or a misunderstanding with a neighbor, or even a local news story. I was being portrayed as a lunatic and my humiliation was destined to go global.

  Soon, I began praying aloud. I was past my usual habit of asking God why? Instead another question crept in: How long was this going to last? Suddenly, like a neon sign, the phrase Psalms 13 flashed into my mind. I had not memorized Psalms 13 and didn’t know what it said. But I sat up, grabbed my Bible off my nightstand, and laid it on my lap, letting it fall open to the middle of the book. Paging back a bit, I found Psalms 13.

  How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

  How long will you hide your face from me?

  How long must I take counsel in my soul

  and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

  How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

  I was astonished to see the prayer I’d just said aloud looking back at me from the pages of this ancient book. In my heart, I felt God was saying to me, “Look, you’re not the first man to pray this prayer. I hear you. I’m with you. I have called you for this. I have prepared you for this. Now get up off that bed, put your armor on, and get back in this battle.”

  5

  ON OCTOBER 18, my son, Aaron, called me at home. “Dad, did you hear what Nina Totenberg said?” Totenberg was a journalist with National Public Radio.

  Phone in hand, I sighed. “No. What did she say?”

  “She said she hoped you aren’t long for this world.”

  “You’re kidding. You mean, like she wants me dead?”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  That’s what it sounded like to the host of Inside Washington, too. Totenberg made the remark on the program, one of those televised journalist roundtables, this one hosted by a man named Gordon Peterson. Colbert King, a Washington Post editorial writer, was there, as was syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

  Totenberg said, “Now they’ve got this guy who’s head of the intelligence section in the Defense Department who’s being quoted as telling various groups, while he’s in uniform, that this is a Christian crusade against Muslims. I mean this is terrible, this is seriously bad stuff.”5

  Bad enough that she had her facts dead wrong. But then Totenberg said, “Well, I hope he’s not long for this world because you can imagine—”

  Several people spoke at once, interrupting her.

  PETERSON: “You putting a hit out on this guy or what?”

  KING: “Are you Reverend Pat Robertson?”

  TOTENBERG: “No, no, no, no, no, no!”

  Peterson: “What is this, The Sopranos?”

  TOTENBERG: “In his job, in his job, in his job, please, please, in his job.”6

  That might’ve been easier to beli
eve if I hadn’t found out what Totenberg said on the same program in 1995. After Senator Jesse Helms said he felt a disproportionate share of federal research funding went to AIDS research, Totenberg said, according to the Boston Globe, “I think [Helms] ought to be worried about what’s going on in the Good Lord’s mind, because if there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will.”7

  Apparently it’s not okay for a taxpayer-supported general to suggest that spiritual forces are at work in the world, but it’s okay for a taxpayer-supported journalist to do so—especially if it’s God doing the killing.

  Totenberg’s Inside Washington attack was just part of the national blitzkrieg triggered by William Arkin’s report. An editorial in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution claimed that “for a ranking military officer, [Boykin’s] beliefs are surprisingly benighted.”8

  A letter writer to The Los Angeles Times said, “Boykin, for all of his apparent professional skill, shows the markers of a religious fanatic . . . Let the general retire and find a private pulpit somewhere to preach his intolerant brand of Christianity, and let the fight against terrorism be waged by officials who understand their role and who bother to read the Constitution.”9

  As Arkin’s story burned up cable news and then spread to international and Islamic media, few people outside Fox News and conservative talk radio wondered whether an “analyst” who had foamed at the mouth on the editorial page could be trusted to supply objective information for Page One.

  I began to wonder: Who is William Arkin?

  The first thing I learned was that his qualifications as a “military analyst” seemed pretty thin. Arkin served in the Army for four years during the 1970s. Some bios listed him as a “former military intelligence analyst,” but the specifics remained . . . unspecific. I also learned he is a pedigreed leftist, a former political director for Greenpeace who in 2002, barely a year after 9/11, gave a speech claiming President Bush had declared war on terror in order to “enhance the economic interests of the Enron class.” But I had to wait until 2007 for Arkin to fully reveal himself.