Major Jeff Struecker - Liberty University Convocation

[Applause] thank you thank you very much wow thank you thank you folks I want you to know what a great honor it is to be with you today when I found out that n gridge was the speaker that I was going to follow I was intimidated until just a couple of minutes ago when your choir and praise team stood up to sing because I want you to know they can sing amen better than I can preach and that's probably because many of you didn't have a chance to see it they have a choir a choir and a music director that looks like Kirk Franklin I swear that was Kirk Franklin here hey it it's a great honor to be with you I am so proud of this institution and what God is doing in Liberty University uh I'm going to give you a little bit of my story and I want to tell you how God used a few moments to totally transform my life and to send me in a direction that I would have never considered going and in fact the reason why I ended up an army chaplain today is because of just a few minutes a long time ago in Mogadishu somal now to set the stage for you when I was 18 years old old I was in my hometown and I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life so I went to talk to an army recruiter now I had what every 18-year-old guy had on his mind when I was about to finish High School ladies it's not what you're thinking I really really wanted to transform the world and so I went to talk to an army recruiter and I said what is the toughest job in the Army there was two guys in the in the room that day and there was an argument between these two guys and it was an argument about Special Forces versus army rangers and they started going back and forth about which one was Act was actually the toughest and after a few minutes my recruiter convinced me that serving as an Airborne Ranger in the Army was the toughest assignment that you could possibly do so I said okay how do I do that sign me up he said hey here's the deal Jeff if you'll enlist in the Army I was still in high school my senior year he said if you'll enlist in the Army we'll send you to Fort Benning Georgia we'll train you to be an infantryman while you're there we'll send you to the Army's Airborne school and then my recruiter said all you have to do next Jeff is when uh while you're in Airborne School some guys are going to come by and they're going to ask you to volunteer to serve as an Army Ranger he said all you have to do is just raise your right hand we'll take care of everything after that okay a couple of you have talked to army recruiters years before so actually he was telling me the absolute truth after I graduated from high school I went to Fort Benning Georgia became an infantryman i attended Airborne school and then I volunteered and as you heard I served for the next 10 years as an enlisted guy for most of the time as a sergeant in the ranger regiment I told you I really really wanted to transform the world but there was actually a couple of practical goals that I had when I joined the one is that I wanted to see how I would whether or not I had it in me to meet the demands of the toughest assignment in the Army I wanted to know if I had what it took to serve among the best of the best but secondly and this may sound weird to some people in this audience I wanted to go to combat I wanted to be in dangerous circumstances in life or death situations and I wanted to know if I was ready to face my own death I wanted to know how would I respond in life or death circumstances and here's why because when I was a young boy I don't even remember how early this started when I was a young boy I was completely and totally aware of my own death 7 8 nine 10 years old I lay awake in bed many nights knowing one of these days my life on Earth will stop it will end and I was worried about what happens next I went to talk to my family and I asked them hey what is out there after you die and for years I was absolutely petrified as an elementary school child about my own death until I turned 13 years old at 13 years old I was living in uh Tennessee my next door neighbors came by to talk to me they sat down at my dining room table and they explained to me about Sin talked to me about Jesus and they said hey Jeff Jesus Christ has taken your sin and if you will place your life In His Hands he will deal once and for all with your fear of death he will give you security for an eternity as a 13-year-old boy I knelt by the side of my B bed I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ and radically that night God dealt once and for all with my fear of death so though I didn't really tell anybody when I joined the army I wanted to go to a dangerous unit where I would be in danger ous circumstances and where I would be forced to face my own death in December of 1989 I was a sergeant serving in the ranger regiment the United States was getting ready to invade the Republic of Panama I found out about this a couple of days earlier and I I loaded up on an airplane in secrecy flew down to Panama and on the night before The Invasion I provided a search and rescue Force for The Invasion force of over 50,000 us men and women from all branches of service who are about to invade the Republic of Panama Rangers were going to jump in early on the morning of December 20th and they were going to assault two airfields as they secured those airfields other members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division would jump in and then they would be followed by the entire Invasion force on the on the morning of December 20th and there would be hundreds of airplanes in the sky that morning and we expected that some of those airplanes might get shot down so we sent a few people down there early to provide a search and rescue force in the event that any of those aircraft got shot down now for the next couple of weeks in Panama I did just about what everybody else was doing went uh around the country trying to defeat the Panamanian Defense Forces But ultimately trying to find and capture the leader of that country Manuel Nora and bring him back to the United States to stand trial for crimes against his people and against ours now when I returned back from Panama it was I was in difficult dangerous circumstances but I didn't really think that this was a life or death situation so when I got back from Panama there was still a lot about the Army and actually a lot about myself that I wanted to experience but I remember thinking if something happened to me in Panama did I leave any Loose Ends untied I mean did I leave anything undone or would I have any regrets and folks the only regret that came across my mind is that a girl that I've met back in High School my hometown sweetheart I was desperately in love with her but too scared to ask her to marry me and my only regret would have been not having asked Don to be my wife so the first chance that I got I bought a ring and flew back to our hometown and I proposed to my wife Dawn and we set a date to get married a year later how come it's just ladies clapping right now okay um we set a date to get married a year later now if you're a history buff out there you know that a year later the United States is involved in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm Dawn is back in our hometown we're just a few weeks away from our wedding date and she's just about ready to send out the invitations and I'm in Fort Benning Georgia again in the ranger regiment and I had to get on the phone and call her and say Don I can't tell you where I'm going I can't tell you when I'm leaving and I don't know when I'm going to get back but I'm pretty sure I won't be here on our wedding day yeah after a long pause on the phone Dawn could read between the lines of course I couldn't explain the situation to her she could read between the lines and she said Jeff if this is true then you need to fly home and we need to get married right away now y'all I was a big tough Army Ranger with combat experience so I did what any of you guys in this room would do in that circumstance I said yes ma'am and I got on a plane I flew back to our Hometown I literally got married a couple of hours after arriving and a couple of days later I was on my way back to Georgia and not long after that I was on my way to Kuwait as part of Operation Desert Storm now again I didn't think I was in dangerous circumstances there but I didn't think that I would die but when I returned back to uh the states uh there was still a lot about the Army and a lot about the uh myself that I wanted it to experience and all that changed for me in in the summer the fall of 19 1993 when my unit and a couple of others were sent to Mogadishu Somalia now let me try to set the stage for you real quickly because some people who have seen the movie Blackhawk Down or who remember the events because they saw it on TV unfolding many people will ask this question they'll say Jeff I remember the Marines landing on the beaches in 1992 to provide food for the starving people of Somalia and at that point that was one of the worst famines and the worst starvations in human history the US showed up to provide food and to Aid and then they'll say and then I remember in 1993 helicopters shot down and hum bees on fire and bodies being dragged through the streets and most people want to know how did we go from handing out food to the events of Blackhawk Down well as I told you Somalia was facing a starvation hundreds of thousands of people were dead as a result of famine the US showed up to try to provide assistance in the early 1990s and Somalia this little country on the Horn of Africa it is an absolutely gorgeous City but it was totally Lawless at that point there was no government and no control much like it is today well the United Nations United States started to provide food to the starving people of Somalia and most of the country actually was in total chaos the capital city Mogadishu itself was controlled by about seven Warlords they're like gang leaders in our country today and most of those Warlords didn't mind us being there but one did Muhammad Farah idid in the summer of 1993 idid made a decision to start to Target United Nations workers that year in June of 93 idid ambushed brutally murdered 24 Pakistani United Nations workers he killed them in Cold Blood while they were handing out food to his own people the United Nation Security Council met and struck a resolution which basically said there can be no peace in Somalia as long as ided is still in control and something must be done about him so the US responded with Task Force Ranger that was my company of Rangers from Fort Benning Georgia a helicopter unit from Fort Campbell Kentucky and some special operation soldiers from Fort Bragg North Carolina we all met together with just a couple of days notice and we went to Somalia with a very different Mission than everyone else there our mission was to try to find ided and the high ranking members of his CL plan and capture them if possible but if not kill them or bring them to justice for the death of these Pakistani workers folks Task Force Ranger conducted seven missions in Mogadishu Somalia we pretty much had had found captured almost everybody all of the high-ranking members of ID's Clan with the exception of idid himself and two of his high-ranking clan members on Sunday afternoon October 3rd we got a tip that day that these two high ranking clan members were both meeting in the same building at the same time now we knew that it was broad daylight it was the worst possible part of town the the strong the very strongest uh point of ID's control of the city and it was the most dangerous of all circumstances but this was too important of an opportunity for us to pass by so we launched a mission to go get these guys special operators loaded on little bird helicopters and assaulted into the the target building as they were doing that other Rangers from my company loaded on Blackhawk helicopters and slid down ropes we call it fast rope to the four corners of the target building and they held everybody inside the target building and as all of that was going on like I did on every Mission I led a column of Humvees through the city streets we placed Humvees at each of the four corners of the target building that day now my mission was to keep everyone else in the city out of that Target building until those special operators were done inside gra the hostages and put them on our vehicles then the rest of the assault force would jump on our vehicles and I drive them all back to our base it was supposed to take about 30 minutes and actually for the first 30 minutes this Mission went almost exactly like we thought it was going to go with one exception when those Blackhawks were flying in and when they kicked the fast ropes out so so Rangers could slide down those ropes one of the Rangers by the name of Todd Blackburn we don't know what happened to him to this day when he left the Blackhawk to grab the Rope Blackburn missed the rope and he fell about 70 feet and he landed in the city streets head first when I got to the Target building that day my commander was already calling me on the radio saying Jeff we've got a seriously wounded Ranger we need to put him on your Humvees and we need to take him back to the base I rushed up to get to Todd Blackburn he was unconscious bleeding from his nose and his mouth and it didn't look like he survive I put him on a stretcher and I placed him on a Humvee he had a medic and a surgeon working on him just trying to keep him alive but he had no protection around him I placed myself and half of my men on a Humvee in front of him and the rest of my men on a Humvee behind him and I called my boss and I said I'm going to drive Blackburn back to our base and drop him off I'll be about 10 minutes I'll turn around drop him off then I'll turn turn right back around and come right back out of here I'll be gone for only about 10 minutes and I started to dve Drive Away um down a narrow Alleyway now you need to know that there are really no good roads in Mogadishu they're really really poor uh quality lots of potholes and Todd Blackburn certainly had head and neck injuries and I didn't want to hit any of those potholes and make it worse so I told my driver to drive really slow now in the movie it shows me driving but actually I had a guy driving for me we were driving down the road at about 15 M an hour maybe 20 at the most I drove down a narrow alley way next to the Target building and then I made a right turn on the hood dig Road one of the only major roads in Mogadishu and when I turned that corner it seemed like the entire city erupted with gunfire on those three vehicles we were being shot at from about a hundred different directions at the same time from rooftops and from Alleyways and from doorways and windows there were rocket Propel grenades and automatic gunfire from AK4 47s from 20 30 ft away we were driving down the road really slowly and we were being shot at from every direction I had a guy on a 50 caliber machine gun on top of my Humvee who was holding the trigger down and spraying bullets in every direction hoping to hit somebody as we drove down the road but he wasn't being very effective so I told him to take his machine gun and face it to the left side of the vehicle and shooted all the enemy fighters to the left another guy in the back of my Humvee sitting in the back seat also with a machine gun to this day he is the greatest machine gunner I've ever seen in my life named Dominic pill was sitting right behind me I told pill to take his machine gun and face it to the right side of the vehicle shooted all the enemy fighters to the right know the guy in the back seat would shooted all the bad guys to the rear I'd shooted all the bad guys in front of us and together we would take as many of them out as possible just trying to keep ourselves alive on the right side of the road down the road waiting for us hiding in Ambush was a Somali gunman when we got right next to him he saw Dominic pill at the same time that pill saw him these two guys turned their weapons to each other at the same moment and they shot and killed each other at the exact same instant pillow was shot in the forehead just above his right eye he sustained a massive head wound and he was killed instantly and fell over into the lap of specialist Tim Mand who was sitting next to him and then Monahan began to panic and scream my name out sergeant pill's been hit he's been killed and when I turned and looked over my shoulder it looked like the whole backs side of that vehicle had just been painted red with Dominic pill's blood and folks for the first time since I was 13 years old I started to realize that I am going to die and it may be in the next few moments and then I started to think you know what I'm a leader and I'm in charge here and I need to get myself under control if I'm going to get my men under control and so I did the very next thing that came to my mind I told Monahan to take his weapon face it to the right side of that vehicle pick up Dominic pillow sector of fire and engage as many of these bad guys as possible as we made our way back we went through a number of other obstacles and difficulties I don't have time to tell you about all of them tonight or today but when we finally arrived back at our base the Medics were rushing to my Humvee to get Dominic pill's body and to pull it off of the back of my Humvee the surgeon was running to get to Todd Blackburn to try to keep him alive and to bring him into surgery and I leaned over the hood of that humbe completely exhausted thinking God I can't believe that I survived that I can't believe that any of us are alive there were thousands of armed Somali that we just drove through and about that moment my platoon leader Lieutenant Larry Moors walked up to me he said hey Jeff a Blackhawk helicopter's just been shot down and Mike Durant is crashed in the city and we don't have anybody else who can go back out there I need you to get your men put them back on those Humes go back out there and see if there are any survivors as he walked away one of the special operators that came back with me overheard that conversation he walked up to me and he said hey Sergeant if you're going to go back out into the city streets tonight don't put your men in the back of that humbe sitting in all of that blood he said that will have psychological effects on them for the rest of their life if you do that you probably need to go clean that Humvee up so I pulled that Humvee off to the side and I uh sent the rest of my guys to get some more fuel and some more ammunition I took buckets and brushes and sponges there was no running water and I started to clean Dominic pill's blood off of the back of this Humvee as I got ready to go back out into the city streets to Mike Durant's crash site now folks I'm going to be completely honest with you for just a minute I've been scared before this moment and I've been scared since but I have never known fear in my life like I did standing at the back of that hum I was totally completely certain that I was going to die and every fiber of my being was saying no Jeff don't do this this is crazy it's suicide you're going to get yourself killed if you go back out there to make matters worse Don and I had been married for a couple of years we've been trying the whole time to have a child and I got had a letter in the mail just a few weeks before this saying that she was pregnant with our first child and I was thinking I'm never going to make it home to see my wife again my child is going to grow up and he will never know who his daddy is and everything inside of me was saying don't do this as a leader I was thinking if I drive back through that not only am I going to get myself killed but I'm going to get I will get every one of my men killed there will be 10 more body bags tomorrow morning if I go back through that again and everything inside of me was saying no here's the problem folks Rangers are a unique group of men some people would call us weird but we have sworn Our Lives to live by a Creed and one of the things that the Ranger Creed says is that I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy and not going back out there was not an option for me and I knew it and so standing at the back of that Humvee with Dominic pillow's blood on my hands I started to do what any Christian in this room would do I started to pray now I just simply said God I am in big trouble right now and I need your help God I am certain that I'm going to die tonight and at that moment when I was praying in my heart and cleaning the back of that Humvee up I started to think about something i' been reading in the Bible just a few days before this I've been reading the story in Matthew about Jesus in The Garden of Gethsemane now if you don't know that story real quickly what happened is the Bible says the night before Jesus Christ was going to the Cross he knew exactly what he was going to go through he understood the suffering he understood the pain he understood the shame that he was about to endure and that night Jesus went with his disciples and said I need to be alone to pray he went into the garden by himself and as I was standing back of the at the back of that Humvee I started to think about that prayer that Jesus Jesus prayed in the garden and I remember he prayed father if there is any way possible let this cup pass from me at the back of that Humvee I was thinking God if there is any way possible let this pass from me I don't want to go back out into those city streets tonight and then I remember the words that Jesus spoke next like he was whispering them right into my ears he said not my will but your will be done and folks the Bible says that Jes Jesus Christ the perfect sinless Son of God God In the Flesh got up off of his knees he walked into the hands of the enemy and he willingly freely gave his life up so that your sin and my sin could be dealt with once and for all 2,000 years ago on the cross as I was at the back of that Humvee I prayed God not my will but your will be done tonight and folks from that moment on I can't even explain what happened to you but from that moment on at the moment that I was completely convinced that I was going to die God once and for all dealt with that fear for the rest of the night I had no worries about what was going to happen to me because I realized my life was in God's hands and all I need to do is trust him with it but I also realized this I realized one of two things will happen to me tonight in Mogadishu if I survive by a miracle of God and I go back home to my family I will be back home with my family in Georgia but I realized that if I die on the streets of Mogadishu Somalia before my body hits the ground my soul will go immediately to the presence of my Father in heaven and I realize go home to my family in Georgia or go home to my Father in heaven in either case I cannot lose because of what My Savior Jesus Christ has done for me that alone gave me the peace to go back and forth into those city streets repeatedly for the rest of the night I loaded up on those Humvees I was getting ready to go back out there all of the shooters from our organization was already out in the city streets fighting for their life and so anybody else who was willing to jump on those Vehicles went with us I had a cook who got in the back seat and an intelligence analyst went with me and a supply clerk we it was the butcher the Baker and the Candlestick maker but they all all jumped on those vehicles and they were driving through the city streets I I didn't know exactly where Durant's helicopter was but my boss told me if it if you turn your radio to this frequency we have a helicopter flying in the in the sky and he will tell you when to turn and he'll take you straight to the crash site so I led these cooks and clerks through the city streets and the helicopter said Jeff take a left turn here drive down the road you'll see some tires burning in front of you take a right turn at the burning tires and you go straight to the crash sight as I was driving down the road in front of me several Somali gunmen were waiting for me in Ambush when I got right next to them from less than 10 ft away they opened up on my Humvee a rocket propell grenade bounced off of the hood of my vehicle and exploded into the wall next to me and then several gunmen opened up on that Humvee from Point Blank Range with automatic gunfire and miraculously not one dude on my Humvee was hit in that exchange of gunfire I backed out of there and I called the helicopter and said I can't drive cooks and clerks through all of that you need to find us another route and he said well the only other route is for you to go all the way around the city and come in from the backside I said that's fine we'll take it as I was driving around I linked up with about half of the assault Force they were on Humvees completely destroyed shot up there were bodies literally dead bodies hanging off the sides so we stopped this Convoy loaded all these guys up onto our Humvees and I drove them back to our base and I thought we had everybody when I got back my boss said no that's only half of the assault Force the other half is still out there and they're fighting for their lives but we realized that those Humvees wouldn't be good enough so we asked the United Nations to help out the pakistanis showed up with two of their tanks the Malaysians came with their armored personnel carriers they all met us at our base and at about 11:30 that night we drove back out there me and my men stayed on those hum bees until about 9:30 the next morning when the arrest of the assault Force could be loaded onto those vehicles and driven back to safety now folks what I saw the next morning changed my life forever in fact I would still be a sergeant in the ranger regiment today if it wasn't for what I saw the morning after the firefight when I got back in the next morning it wasn't really the blood and the bullet holes that had an imp on me I I'd seen that stuff before but when I got back in the next morning there were men grown men some of the toughest warriors on planet Earth who were walking up to me with tears in their eyes saying Jeff I got to talk to you they said what happened to my best friend who just died last night Jeff what happens to me if I get on a helicopter or a Humvee tomorrow and I don't make it home and almost all of them were saying Jeff there was something different about you last night night than there was about me and I want to know what it was and for the next 24 hours I had guys lined up to ask me about Jesus Christ because they could see the difference that he makes when you're getting shot at and when the bullets are flying it was that moment I can take you back to the very spot on planet Earth it was that moment that God started to show me he had something different in store for me than kicking indoors and sling and lead with the enemies of our country and as a result I am an army chaplain today I have spent most of the last 10 years serving in the 82nd Airborne Division and the very same Ranger regiment with the very same men that I deployed with to Mogadishu Somalia almost 17 years ago folks let me tell you something I really really wanted to transform the world and I thought you could do it through military prowess I thought you could do it through National Power but I realize something in Mogadishu Somalia there is only one force great enough to transform the world and it is the holy spirit of the Living God through the through God's son Jesus [Applause] Christ I realize that you came from all different walks of life to this University and I realize that you have very different goals when you leave here but I have one challenge for you when you leave this institution and this is that you would not be ordinary my challenge is that when you leave here you leave here with a real genuine relationship with God in heaven through his son Jesus Christ and as a result when you leave here wherever you go and whatever you do you will set the world on fire for Jesus Christ folks really what I want to see are men and women who they know Jesus Christ so intimately and he makes a difference so much in in their lives that people will do to you exactly what they've done to me they will say at your workplace or in your uh neighborhoods or in your families or whatever it is they will say there's something different about you I want to know what it is because you have something that I don't have I'm convinced that's exactly what Jesus was calling us to do in the book of Acts that you would live so differently that you would transform the world wherever you go there are thousands of people in this room and when you graduate from this institution you will go all over the world and I want to ask you will you go with a fire and a passion to transform wherever you're at for Jesus Christ I want to challenge you that if you don't know him as your savior that you'd make that commitment today don't wait because none of us in this room have one more day of life guaranteed but I also want to challenge you that if you claim the name of Jesus Christ if you say I am a Christ follower when you walk out the doors of this building you'd be able to say like me and millions of other people in church history I will face my future without fear because I know my God is big enough to handle whatever circumstances life throws at me I don't know what the future holds but I know the one who holds the future and I'm going to trust it all in his hands will you bow your heads with me I'm going to wrap up with a word of prayer I'm going to invite you just to Bow your heads I'm going to wrap up with a word of prayer and then Dwayne's going to step up and you'll be dismissed let me pray for you this morning God you've assembled the people that are in this room the folks that are watching by television God they've come from all over the world and from all different walks of life and God I pray that right now you will do the same thing in every heart and in every life you will challenge them with the Gospel of Jesus Jesus Christ that if they don't know him as Savior they would be able to say today in this room or why they're watching by television God I am turning it all over to you man I've made a mess of my life I've really wrecked it but I believe that Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins and as a result I am giving it all to you I'm turning it all over to you God I pray that people would do this all over this Auditorium that are watching by TV and then they would go find somebody and say hey I've Sur rendered my life to Jesus Christ what do I need to do next but God I also want to pray for the folks in this room who call themselves Christians would you put such a passion for Jesus Christ in their heart and would you create a soul in them that wants to see the world transformed by the power of the gospel and as a result they would live in such a way that people would say man you have something that I don't have and I want to know what it is I want what you've got God would you do this in their heart and lives do something only you can do Holy Spirit show them that Jesus Christ is real that he loves them and that he's ready to transform their life if they will just trust you with them I pray this in Jesus's name and for his sake amen thank you God bless you than you

Channel: Liberty University

Views: 204,430

Keywords: College, University, Major, Jesse, Student, School, Campus, Education, Community, Liberty University, Liberty, LU, Convocation, Convo, Christian, Jesse Stuecker, chaplain, fear, brave, courage, Black Hawk Down, Somalia, humanitarian, aid, mission, Mogadishu, battle, war

Id: Yy7yoNr9d6E

Length: 33min 21sec (2001 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2012