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Host Jim Nicklas continues the interview with Jeff Struecker on raising his boys to be men, his service in the Army Rangers, the Battle of Mogadishu, and his calling as a chaplain and a pastor.Resources:
Jeff Struecker on LinkedIn
JeffStruecker.com
Jeff Struecker’s Unbeatable podcast
Jeff Struecker’s Amazon Author page
The Battle of Mogadishu
Black Hawk Down
Dusty Davis
Fort Benning, Georgia
Columbus, Georgia
The Munga, the toughest race on earth
Three Rangers Foundation
Raising a Modern-day Knight: A Father's Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood, by Robert Lewis
Bar Mitzvah
Walkabout
Jeff Bruckheimer
Ridley Scott
Mogadishu
Mohamed Farrah Aidid
Major General William Garrison
The Road to Unafraid: How the Army's Top Ranger Faced Fear and Found Courage through "Black Hawk Down" and Beyond
Todd Blackburn
Dominick Pilla
Mike Durant
Summary: One of Jeff Struecker’s sons got very serious about a young woman while he was a junior in high school. By the time he was a senior, it was obvious that she was the one. Jeff asked him if she was the one that God wants him to spend the rest of his life with. His son said yes. So Jeff told him to go buy a ring and propose to her. Right after graduation, he bought a ring, proposed, and they got married a year later at age 19. All of Jeff’s friends asked if Jeff was crazy! Jeff replied that his son was man enough to marry this woman and not to judge Jeff’s son by how their sons act. Jeff’s son has been carrying a man’s responsibility for years, at this point. He’s ready. 100 years ago, most men were married at 19 because society treated them like men. If a 29-year-old is not ready to get married, it’s society’s fault.Jim contrasts Jeff’s life at age 18 with his son’s life at age 19 and how the Lord has worked in Jeff’s life. Jim affirms Jeff as having one of the marks of a Man in raising men in his family who were ready to start their families.
Jeff shares his experience of accepting Jesus Christ. Jeff didn’t grow up in a Christian home. Jeff never saw his parents read the Bible, pray, talk about Jesus, or go to Church. One night when he was 13, his neighbors came by and shared a message about Jesus with him for the first time. They explained the basics of the faith. After they left, Jeff was lying in bed and it was like the light coming on. Everything they said just clicked and made sense. Jeff got out of bed, knelt, prayed, and asked Jesus to change him. There was something really different about Jeff the next day. He got up on Sunday and walked to church and started attending pretty regularly. He learned what it looked like to follow Jesus by stumbling and through trial and error.
Jeff joined the army, got married a couple of years after joining the Army, and realized he needed to learn how to lead a family spiritually. He started getting serious about reading the Word, he plugged into a church, and he got baptized. He learned about being a disciple. He was a Sergeant in the Ranger Regiment when he started to figure out what it looked like to walk with Jesus. He has been continuing to walk with Jesus and to help other men to walk with Jesus.
Jeff joined the Rangers when he was 18 in 1987 and retired in 2011. Jeff shares his advice on how to become an Army Ranger. Jeff knew he needed discipline and a challenge so he asked the recruiter what was the toughest job in the Army. The recruiter pointed Jeff to the Rangers. Jeff joined in high school and a couple of months after graduation, he went to basic training and infantry training back-to-back in Fort Benning Georgia. Then he went through the Army’s Airborne Course at Fort Benning. Right after the Airborne Course, Jeff went to the Ranger Regiment Assessment and Selection Program, also at Fort Benning. The program is designed to see if you are smart enough, tough enough, and mentally and psychologically prepared to be a Ranger. They look into your background, family, finances, and everything. They’re about to give you unprecedented resources and missions that are highly important to the future of our country. There s a huge attrition rate. More than 60% of the guys who start do not finish. Jeff made it through the program and was assigned to the Rangers in Fort Benning. They have battalions on the West Coast and the East Coast, as well as at Fort Benning, which is their headquarters. Jeff started there as a private and spent the next ten years there. He left as a platoon sergeant, ten years later. In those years jeff took part in the 1989 invasion of Panama, Desert Storm in Kuwait in 1991, and was one of the sergeants on the ground leading the Humvees. Jeff loves Jesus, he loves America, and he loves being a Ranger. Those three things never conflicted. Although Jeff expected to remain on active duty, God put him on a path to ministry.
The movie Black Hawk Down, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Ridley Scott, is based on the book Black Hawk Down. The book is very accurate. As far as major motion pictures go, the movie did a good job of presenting the firefight. Eighteen hours of fighting was condensed to two and a half hours of movie. In the end, instead of drawing a political conclusion, they let the viewer decide what to think. Jeff says the actor portraying him made it as realistic as possible. Jeff didn’t want the movie to be made, but he believes they couldn’t have done a better job of it. Jeff explains the events behind the movie starting with drought and famine in several countries, most notably, Somalia. A warlord in Mogadishu, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, targeted and killed UN forces distributing food, blew up U.S. supply convoys, shot UN workers, shot down UN helicopters protecting the food, and did a lot of damage in the Spring and Summer of 1993. In June of ’93 Aidid killed a huge contingent of UN workers from Pakistan while they were handing out food to his people. That’s what prompted the UN Security Council to target Aidid. It was a Kill or Capture mission. The Army Rangers were notified in late June of ’93 that they were going over there to take down Aidid and his top-ranking leaders. A planned six-week mission turned into months. Jeff explains how it went wrong, culminating in an unprecedented daylight raid. In an 18-hour firefight, five of the six troop-carrying Blackhawk got shot down that night. Two crashed in the city, the others were able to get back to the bases in UN territory. Everyone Jeff was with felt like they were going to die in the next few minutes. The mission became getting to the Blackhawks and getting the crews alive back to the base. That’s what turned the mission into an 18-hour firefight. Jeff wrote about this mission in his book, The Road to Unafraid. Jeff’s job was to lead the Humvees through the city streets. He took wounded soldiers out of the city in the middle of the shooting.
Jeff had been on site for a few minutes when he was dispatched to get Todd Blackburn, a critically wounded Ranger, and take him to get medical attention, and then come back for the rest of the force that went in by helicopter. On the way back, he drove through an intense gunfight, and Dominick Pilla was shot and killed right behind him. Pilla was the first soldier killed in action in the operation. Jeff still had to make it back to the base. When he did, he learned that two helicopters had gone down in the city. Jeff went to Michael Durant’s crash site to find anyone left alive there. On the way out, Jeff’s Humvee was shot multiple times again. He grabbed more Rangers from his unit and took them back to the base. He got ready to roll out a third time and realized that going out in unarmored Humvees was too dangerous. They asked for UN help. Pakistanis came with tanks. Malaysians came with armored personnel carriers. At about 11:00 p.m. they rolled back out. Jeff’s men stayed on the same two Humvees all night long until they made it back to the base at 9:30 a.m. The Somalis kept shooting and never ran out of ammo. The Rangers were resolved not to leave anyone behind. Special operators are committed to the mission and each other. Jeff was concerned he was going to get everyone in his command killed. He also knew that those at the crash site needed to be rescued. Jeff had to dig deep to find what it took to go back out. That was the moment where his faith made all the difference. When he was 100% certain that he was going to die, he just put it all in God’s hands. He prayed and told God that if that was the night, he was ready to go. That gave him a sense of peace with no words to describe it. All he could do was go back out for his men. When he got back to the base, all his men were lined up to talk to him. When they had heard him over the radio, they had heard his voice was totally calm while everybody else was freaking out. They knew he had something besides their Ranger training that kept him at peace. They all wanted to have that peace. The next day he started to tell his buddies about Jesus. Jeff had an overwhelming sense that God wanted him to transition and do something different. That’s what set him on the path to becoming an Army chaplain, and now, pastor of a church right outside the same Rangers where he served when he was 18 years old.
Jim affirms that Jeff had been given peace, not of this world, and everyone could see it. That is a great indication of what a Christian is supposed to be. Let your light shine so that people may see you and give praise to God in heaven above.
Call to Action: Thank you for listening to this show in its entirety. Mash that five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Share the episode link with others that it may benefit. If you want to leave a productive comment that can help others, please do so. If you have a sincere question about how we can improve our content, or you want to introduce us to other guests, please reach out to us at [email protected].
Marks of a Man podcast is a continued production of Men Build Men. Find out more at www.menbuildmen.com. Email any questions to Jim at [email protected].
See our Website: MenBuildMen.comEmail: [email protected]
Men Build Men on Facebook
Jim Nicklas on Instagram
4.8
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Host Jim Nicklas continues the interview with Jeff Struecker on raising his boys to be men, his service in the Army Rangers, the Battle of Mogadishu, and his calling as a chaplain and a pastor.Resources:
Jeff Struecker on LinkedIn
JeffStruecker.com
Jeff Struecker’s Unbeatable podcast
Jeff Struecker’s Amazon Author page
The Battle of Mogadishu
Black Hawk Down
Dusty Davis
Fort Benning, Georgia
Columbus, Georgia
The Munga, the toughest race on earth
Three Rangers Foundation
Raising a Modern-day Knight: A Father's Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood, by Robert Lewis
Bar Mitzvah
Walkabout
Jeff Bruckheimer
Ridley Scott
Mogadishu
Mohamed Farrah Aidid
Major General William Garrison
The Road to Unafraid: How the Army's Top Ranger Faced Fear and Found Courage through "Black Hawk Down" and Beyond
Todd Blackburn
Dominick Pilla
Mike Durant
Summary: One of Jeff Struecker’s sons got very serious about a young woman while he was a junior in high school. By the time he was a senior, it was obvious that she was the one. Jeff asked him if she was the one that God wants him to spend the rest of his life with. His son said yes. So Jeff told him to go buy a ring and propose to her. Right after graduation, he bought a ring, proposed, and they got married a year later at age 19. All of Jeff’s friends asked if Jeff was crazy! Jeff replied that his son was man enough to marry this woman and not to judge Jeff’s son by how their sons act. Jeff’s son has been carrying a man’s responsibility for years, at this point. He’s ready. 100 years ago, most men were married at 19 because society treated them like men. If a 29-year-old is not ready to get married, it’s society’s fault.Jim contrasts Jeff’s life at age 18 with his son’s life at age 19 and how the Lord has worked in Jeff’s life. Jim affirms Jeff as having one of the marks of a Man in raising men in his family who were ready to start their families.
Jeff shares his experience of accepting Jesus Christ. Jeff didn’t grow up in a Christian home. Jeff never saw his parents read the Bible, pray, talk about Jesus, or go to Church. One night when he was 13, his neighbors came by and shared a message about Jesus with him for the first time. They explained the basics of the faith. After they left, Jeff was lying in bed and it was like the light coming on. Everything they said just clicked and made sense. Jeff got out of bed, knelt, prayed, and asked Jesus to change him. There was something really different about Jeff the next day. He got up on Sunday and walked to church and started attending pretty regularly. He learned what it looked like to follow Jesus by stumbling and through trial and error.
Jeff joined the army, got married a couple of years after joining the Army, and realized he needed to learn how to lead a family spiritually. He started getting serious about reading the Word, he plugged into a church, and he got baptized. He learned about being a disciple. He was a Sergeant in the Ranger Regiment when he started to figure out what it looked like to walk with Jesus. He has been continuing to walk with Jesus and to help other men to walk with Jesus.
Jeff joined the Rangers when he was 18 in 1987 and retired in 2011. Jeff shares his advice on how to become an Army Ranger. Jeff knew he needed discipline and a challenge so he asked the recruiter what was the toughest job in the Army. The recruiter pointed Jeff to the Rangers. Jeff joined in high school and a couple of months after graduation, he went to basic training and infantry training back-to-back in Fort Benning Georgia. Then he went through the Army’s Airborne Course at Fort Benning. Right after the Airborne Course, Jeff went to the Ranger Regiment Assessment and Selection Program, also at Fort Benning. The program is designed to see if you are smart enough, tough enough, and mentally and psychologically prepared to be a Ranger. They look into your background, family, finances, and everything. They’re about to give you unprecedented resources and missions that are highly important to the future of our country. There s a huge attrition rate. More than 60% of the guys who start do not finish. Jeff made it through the program and was assigned to the Rangers in Fort Benning. They have battalions on the West Coast and the East Coast, as well as at Fort Benning, which is their headquarters. Jeff started there as a private and spent the next ten years there. He left as a platoon sergeant, ten years later. In those years jeff took part in the 1989 invasion of Panama, Desert Storm in Kuwait in 1991, and was one of the sergeants on the ground leading the Humvees. Jeff loves Jesus, he loves America, and he loves being a Ranger. Those three things never conflicted. Although Jeff expected to remain on active duty, God put him on a path to ministry.
The movie Black Hawk Down, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Ridley Scott, is based on the book Black Hawk Down. The book is very accurate. As far as major motion pictures go, the movie did a good job of presenting the firefight. Eighteen hours of fighting was condensed to two and a half hours of movie. In the end, instead of drawing a political conclusion, they let the viewer decide what to think. Jeff says the actor portraying him made it as realistic as possible. Jeff didn’t want the movie to be made, but he believes they couldn’t have done a better job of it. Jeff explains the events behind the movie starting with drought and famine in several countries, most notably, Somalia. A warlord in Mogadishu, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, targeted and killed UN forces distributing food, blew up U.S. supply convoys, shot UN workers, shot down UN helicopters protecting the food, and did a lot of damage in the Spring and Summer of 1993. In June of ’93 Aidid killed a huge contingent of UN workers from Pakistan while they were handing out food to his people. That’s what prompted the UN Security Council to target Aidid. It was a Kill or Capture mission. The Army Rangers were notified in late June of ’93 that they were going over there to take down Aidid and his top-ranking leaders. A planned six-week mission turned into months. Jeff explains how it went wrong, culminating in an unprecedented daylight raid. In an 18-hour firefight, five of the six troop-carrying Blackhawk got shot down that night. Two crashed in the city, the others were able to get back to the bases in UN territory. Everyone Jeff was with felt like they were going to die in the next few minutes. The mission became getting to the Blackhawks and getting the crews alive back to the base. That’s what turned the mission into an 18-hour firefight. Jeff wrote about this mission in his book, The Road to Unafraid. Jeff’s job was to lead the Humvees through the city streets. He took wounded soldiers out of the city in the middle of the shooting.
Jeff had been on site for a few minutes when he was dispatched to get Todd Blackburn, a critically wounded Ranger, and take him to get medical attention, and then come back for the rest of the force that went in by helicopter. On the way back, he drove through an intense gunfight, and Dominick Pilla was shot and killed right behind him. Pilla was the first soldier killed in action in the operation. Jeff still had to make it back to the base. When he did, he learned that two helicopters had gone down in the city. Jeff went to Michael Durant’s crash site to find anyone left alive there. On the way out, Jeff’s Humvee was shot multiple times again. He grabbed more Rangers from his unit and took them back to the base. He got ready to roll out a third time and realized that going out in unarmored Humvees was too dangerous. They asked for UN help. Pakistanis came with tanks. Malaysians came with armored personnel carriers. At about 11:00 p.m. they rolled back out. Jeff’s men stayed on the same two Humvees all night long until they made it back to the base at 9:30 a.m. The Somalis kept shooting and never ran out of ammo. The Rangers were resolved not to leave anyone behind. Special operators are committed to the mission and each other. Jeff was concerned he was going to get everyone in his command killed. He also knew that those at the crash site needed to be rescued. Jeff had to dig deep to find what it took to go back out. That was the moment where his faith made all the difference. When he was 100% certain that he was going to die, he just put it all in God’s hands. He prayed and told God that if that was the night, he was ready to go. That gave him a sense of peace with no words to describe it. All he could do was go back out for his men. When he got back to the base, all his men were lined up to talk to him. When they had heard him over the radio, they had heard his voice was totally calm while everybody else was freaking out. They knew he had something besides their Ranger training that kept him at peace. They all wanted to have that peace. The next day he started to tell his buddies about Jesus. Jeff had an overwhelming sense that God wanted him to transition and do something different. That’s what set him on the path to becoming an Army chaplain, and now, pastor of a church right outside the same Rangers where he served when he was 18 years old.
Jim affirms that Jeff had been given peace, not of this world, and everyone could see it. That is a great indication of what a Christian is supposed to be. Let your light shine so that people may see you and give praise to God in heaven above.
Call to Action: Thank you for listening to this show in its entirety. Mash that five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Share the episode link with others that it may benefit. If you want to leave a productive comment that can help others, please do so. If you have a sincere question about how we can improve our content, or you want to introduce us to other guests, please reach out to us at [email protected].
Marks of a Man podcast is a continued production of Men Build Men. Find out more at www.menbuildmen.com. Email any questions to Jim at [email protected].
See our Website: MenBuildMen.comEmail: [email protected]
Men Build Men on Facebook
Jim Nicklas on Instagram