June 7, 2024 Show with Pete Hegseth & Ed Boyle on “The War on Warriors”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arntzen. To be free!

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this seventh day of June, 2024.

And today we have on the program a real warrior. His name is

Pete Hegseth. I'm sure that name is not unfamiliar to most of my listeners.

Pete is returning to the program today for a second interview. He is a real warrior who is a combat veteran now waging war on the woke movement, seeking to destroy our military.

Pete is co -host of Fox and Friends Weekend on the Fox News Channel, and he is also a

Fox Nation host, a number one New York Times best -selling author, and Army combat veteran.

It's my honor and privilege and joy to have you back on the program. Pete Hegseth. Hey, Chris.

Thanks so much for having me. You know, this subject is quite chilling. We've all heard hints about how all of the branches of the military seem to be increasingly going woke, at least in their public image, at least in the publicity material they provide, at least in advertising and so forth.

But it goes way deeper than that, from what I understand, hearing you talking about your new book.

Tell us, when did you begin to realize how the woke movement is really beginning to dominate and control our military?

Yeah, again, thanks for having me, and that's a great question. I don't know that there was one immediate moment, but I do think it really started to crystallize in 2020.

That was, you know, you had the George Floyd riots, you had what happened throughout the summer of love, mostly peaceful protests across the country.

And I was involved in the D .C. Guard with some of that. But you started to see the way in which the military started bending itself to the conventional left -wing wisdom on things like CERT and DEI.

And you already had women in combat. That debate had been not resolved, but Obama had had his way on that.

And so I was still serving during a lot of that, and I was seeing it. And you mentioned the PR -level stuff that the public has seen.

And those moments when the Pentagon started to look for extremism in the ranks and then define it as patriot extremism, and then it affected me personally with how

I left the military, it just became clear that what Obama did for eight years would be on hyperdrive under Biden.

And we've definitely seen that with a social justice set of priorities, a politically correct compass.

And they've installed even more of their people throughout the military to push these real

Marxist ideologies into the ranks of our units. And so to affirm my own suspicions, in writing this book,

I spent days and days and hours and hours interviewing dozens and dozens of actively serving guys and gals to make sure that what

I was perceiving comported with what they were seeing on active duty. And it more than validated my thesis that this was prolific, that it was affecting morale, that it was affecting good order and discipline.

It was affecting readiness, and it was making people far less likely to stay in or want to join.

And that ends up having a compounding effect on what kind of military we have.

And intentional from this administration. And it's it's bad news.

So I felt, hey, now's the time to write this book and hopefully a new administration can can chart a new course.

Now, when you wrote that excellent book, Battle for the American Mind, Uprooting a

Century of Miseducation, you did a superb job going back into history, tracing the roots of how the education system in America became so corrupt and rooted in evil.

Can you trace as far back as you have come to know when this started to occur in the military?

It may have apparently been comparatively tame in its initial stages, not like we're hearing about today.

But do you have any idea? Well, that's the that's the right question. And that was where I started is how far back does this go?

And there's little signs here and there. You can point to the Vietnam era or you can point to, you know,

Cubie Carter. You can point to even Clinton. But this story is very different than the K through 12 education story.

That, as you aptly pointed out, was a 100 year left wing takeover of our

K through 12 education system. But, you know, at this point, we're surrounded.

The Pentagon was a was was much more recently. I mean, it really there's a few small things that we include before, but it really is, for the most part, an

Obama Biden story. This is a because before that, you know, in your Clintons and your others, you didn't have the rampant left wing ideologues in the

White House the way that you did with Obama and you do with Biden. And those ideologues can't tolerate a giant meritocracy in the middle of Washington, D .C.

that is patriotic and masculine and strong. And so Obama started placing political appointees into the

Pentagon, including at the very top, who would do their bidding. And their bidding was the same stuff you see in woke universities and woke corporations, just more or less applied to the military.

And to me, the biggest and you had the debate over don't ask, don't tell. And that was that was out there and it was used deceptively to create an opportunity for trans soldiers to serve.

But but the real inflection point was late in Obama's second term or middle of Obama's second term when they pushed for women in combat roles in his second term.

And they purported they weren't going to lower standards and that they wanted to see the studies of what would happen.

And then when the Marine Corps shared the studies that all male units performed much better than male female integrated unit, they put those studies in the garbage and they told them we don't care.

Wow. You're going to integrate. And that to me was the moment that our generals sort of really started caving in a significant way to the ideologues when they should have pushed back and said that doesn't make us more prepared.

It doesn't make us more lethal. It hurts our ability to fight and we won't stand for it and, you know, resign or be fired while trying to resist it.

That didn't happen. And so once that once they were able to do that, they said, hey, there's a lot more we can do here.

And that's what Biden has done. DEI is prolific throughout the military. The climate change obsession is prolific with what kind of weapons we're trying to, you know, procure in the future, electric tanks and dumb stuff like that.

And and gender lowering standards on the gender role is prolific, too. So it's it's not a good story right now.

Now, what would what would be practical reasons why transgendered soldiers being in the military would basically jeopardize not only the mission of our military, but even the perhaps safety and well -being of all the soldiers who are serving in the midst of such soldiers that are transgendered?

I mean, first of all, just the just the mental challenges of gender dysphoria are something are of a category that if it was any other diagnosis, you would be not allowed to join the military.

So that's just a standard medical practice that if you're if you have are having those types of views or thoughts, that's that's a red flag.

Second of all, and I hear this, heard this from multiple guys in my preparation for the book, what happens is these days you have men or women joining the military in order to transition, which means they get in the military and they initiate a gender transition, which immediately makes them non deployable because they're going through physical or physical alter alterations or chemical alterations which change their body, which require more medications, which means they can't be deployed.

Now, you might say, well, why can't they deploy? Why couldn't they be? It's it's as simple as something like inhalers for people who have asthma.

Or when I deployed to Iraq, they were pulling teeth of young privates who had had dental work because you can't have a toothache in combat where there aren't any dentists.

And so they're going to get rid of that tooth, pull it so that you don't have to rely on medication, just like you can't use your inhaler at basic training, because what if you're in combat and you don't have that inhaler, you still need to be able to to fight.

So if you're trans and you're reliant on chemicals or medical attention to maintain your viability, that's not available on the front lines.

And as a result, you are, by definition, non deployable. So if you're bringing people in who ultimately won't be able to do their job, what are we doing here?

And it certainly doesn't have what we're doing is we're trying to be inclusive. We're trying to be diverse, which is a whole nother set of priorities.

And if you want to do that at Harvard or you want to do that, your corporation, that's one thing. But don't do it in the middle of the a life or death organization that's charged with defending our nation.

And that's a big difference. Yeah, I have a close friend who had a dream to become a police officer in Baltimore, Maryland.

It's crazy as that sounds. But the violence over there. But he was very enthusiastic.

And you're talking about a young man who is very physically fit. He has his son involved in boxing at a gym, and he's helping the trainer to train this young man, very, very physically fit young man.

And he he failed the tests to be enlisted in the police force, not because of any of the physical activities required of him.

It was because of a medicine that he needed for a certain condition he has. And he couldn't be in the police office, the police force because of that.

Now, this whole deal with transgender people, what's seemingly multiplied a thousand times or more, isn't it?

Exactly right. You just provided an excellent example. And there are scores and scores of American boys and young women who are disqualified from military service for any number of challenges.

And if you're in the midst of changing your genders with physical and chemical alterations, that creates challenges that units should not have to cater to.

And not to mention all the pronoun training and which bathroom do you use and what about when we're in the field, which which bathroom do you use and what barracks are you in?

And I've just talked to time and time again to folks who just said it just create it breeds resentment.

It breeds animosity. It breeds confusion. It brings anxiety and frustration inside units.

And one or two members of a battalion, you know, of a battalion of 600 soldiers, one or two trans soldiers makes can force a whole command to have to comport how it operates to cater to that constituency.

And that's just not how you effectively run a fighting force. Yes. And this issue that you have written about is not something that you have written from the outside looking in after you are not overseas actually involved in combat anymore.

This began happening to you personally while you were still serving our country. Yeah, it did.

I was in the National Guard charged with guarding the inauguration. I was in good standing with my unit.

I had orders to this was after January 6th. I had orders to defend the inauguration of Joe Biden along the parade route.

And everybody you remember that after January 6th, everybody in the D .C. Guard was in Washington and other state guards were there.

I mean, 25000, no one was not going. And so I was going to be there.

And I got a call a day before I was supposed to go from a member of the unit.

They said, Major, you can stand down. We don't need you. Your orders are revoked. Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it. And they tried to make it sound like it was no big deal. But it was because no one was standing down or not going.

Everybody was there. And I tried to ask why, but they wouldn't say. And it was clear, though, I was not wanted there.

And I had an inkling, but I didn't know for sure. So a few weeks later,

I resigned from the National Guard and got out. And I'm now a civilian. But in during the writing of this book,

I was able to get a hold of a member of the unit who was willing to speak candidly with me about what happened.

He was in the room. He was involved in the discussions. And members of that unit had looked at my social media page and found a tattoo that I have.

It's a Christian tattoo, the Jerusalem cross. It's a very, very well -known

Christian tattoo or Christian symbol. And it had it on my chest for years.

And they flagged me as a white nationalist. Wow. As an extremist. Yep. And then the chain of command supported that.

And ultimately, this was not a full -on Pentagon thing. This was more at the sort of the

D .C. National Guard level. But yeah, and they made the decision that I was to be in Washington, D .C.

for the inauguration. And by inference, that means they thought I could be a threat. So here's a guy who's served three tours, been in the military since 2001, more or less.

And my own unit considered me a threat to guard the incoming president of the United States. And winner of two bronze medals.

Yeah. I mean, I've been over there. I got the, you know, did the thing, got the T -shirt. You know,

I've dedicated my life in large part since 9 -11 to service to the nation and this institution.

And but if it was happening to me, then it definitely happened to other guys. And I know it did.

And they didn't have to give me a reason. And they didn't. And the only reason I found out later is because I asked for the book. And a lot of guys never get that reason or they're quietly pushed out or they're quietly not promoted or they're quietly moved on.

And, you know, after in the Biden administration, we, you know, leaked documents show that there are new categories for what they deem to be an extremist.

And one of those is patriot extremism, which is this Orwellian sounding term about, you know, you're so patriotic, you're an extremist.

It's it's not good. There's there's a political bent to the entire thing. And it's certain members of the military are clearly the message is being sent loud and clear, whether it's stated boldly stated clearly or not.

You know, if you have certain beliefs, you're not really welcome here, at least not under the current regime. It seems utterly suicidal to be punishing, penalizing people in the military for having a strong sense of patriotism.

It doesn't even make sense. Well, the inference is that you're you're a

Trump supporter or you're Jay Sixer or you're, you know, a radical white nationalist or Christian nationalist.

When you know it that what you what these simply are are, you know, Christian conservative patriots who've long filled the ranks of our military.

I mean, who do you think won? Who do you think, you know, stormed the beaches of Normandy? It wasn't a bunch of, you know, atheist communists.

It was a bunch of God fearing patriots. And that's what we've what we've always filled our ranks with.

But these administrations have decided those types of views are a threat. And Donald Trump is really because of their derangement with him accelerated.

I mean, when you when you read the words of what of the guy put in charge of the extremism working group at the

Pentagon, his name is Bishop Garrison. When you read what he has tweeted and said about Trump supporters, about patriotism, about how they're all racist, and he's the guy in charge of defining extremism and rooting it out of the military, you realize this is not a fair game.

They're not actually looking for like skinheads or Antifa, or they're looking for a certain subset of Americans who have traditionally made up the core of the military.

And and that's why you see the recruiting challenges we see right now, too, is those same young men, same young women are hesitating and whether they want to serve the nation.

And how can you blame them because of the signals that are being sent? Now, you lay the the root cause of this problem, or at least the the factor that enabled the military begin to collapse under the weight of wokeism at the feet of the generals.

Do you not? I do. It's not a book. The book is not about how the military went woke.

The book is about how the military allowed itself to go woke. And I blame that squarely at the feet of the general class of the two, three, four star generals over the last two decades, because you know what?

I don't I expect woke garbage from Democrat politicians, from Obama, from Biden.

That's who they are. That's what their base is. That's that's what they're advancing. We know. But what

I expect from my military leaders is to be a shield against that nonsense. Yes, there is civilian control of the military.

I understand that. But and you serve at the pleasure of the president at some capacity. But if you disagree with something that's being done to your institution by ideologues, it is your responsibility.

You swore an oath to the Constitution to defend that institution. And you should stand up and say, no, no.

Integrating women into combat units and lowering standards to do it. That's a hard no. I won't be a part of it.

Bringing trans soldiers into the unit. That's a hard no. I won't be a part of it. You know, teaching

DEI and CRT inside our units. Hard no. I won't be a part of it. Instead, the easiest way to get promoted under Obama and Biden was to go along with it.

And if you disagree, you certainly don't speak out. You just go along with it and maybe try to manage it on the margins.

But all the while, the political appointees and the other generals who do believe this nonsense are getting promoted and gathering power.

So I can't find a single example of a general. Take after Afghanistan, even just the debacle in Afghanistan or any example that has stood up and threw their stars on the table and said enough is enough.

I won't be party to this. And that's a failure of the general class, which is more interested in having a comfy job when they when they retire than they are in, you know, standing up for the institution that they purported to commit their lives to.

So you've really just answered another question I was going to ask that this is not necessarily the fact that we have a multitude of generals who are ideologically leftists.

It's fear that they are going to lose all the respectability and financial gain that they are looking forward to, especially after retirement.

So, yes, I mean, yes, they're cowards. They're cowards and they're careerists.

And I'm not saying all of them, but too many of them. And they realize if they speak up or speak out, they're not going to get promoted or get fired or they're or they'll be forced to retire.

And then they don't get the cushy job at Lockheed Martin afterwards where they're making a bunch of money, kicking the contract back to the guys that are still in.

And so it's no, don't get me wrong. There are some straight up ideological generals who have done a really nice job rising to the ranks because they'll actively advance the nonsense coming from left wing politicians.

They're they're they're out there. And then there are the ones who have morphed. Mark Milley is a great example of that sort of followed the currents of the of the political chattering class and along with a healthy dose of anti -Trumpism found his way into defending absolute lunacy under the guise of being a defender of the of democracy.

And the people that served with him when he was a major or a lieutenant colonel don't recognize at all the man who's the chairman of the

Joint Chiefs because he's changed to fit the political winds. And unfortunately, the political winds inside the

Pentagon under those two administrations have been hard left. So there are some, but they're mostly opportunists or careerists who just see what what the

Pentagon is turning into and they cater themselves to it. Now, what are the legal prohibitions for an active duty member of the military to be as outspoken on these issues as you are?

Well, I I couldn't be this outspoken unless I was out of the military. So I am officially off off of active or reserve status.

I was in the individual ready reserve, which means you're basically on a list until January 1st of twenty twenty four.

So I am now completely out. I have no obligation to Uncle Sam. I've done all my time.

I've turned in all my gear. I'm I'm good. And so there's no limitations on what

I can say. But when I was in the military, when I was in the National Guard, I could speak pretty openly.

You can't you can't really disparage openly or actively the commander in chief or you shouldn't or you should do it respectfully.

But you're a civilian who, you know, in your civilian capacity can act like a civilian. And then when you're on reserve duty, you can't do any of that.

If you're on active duty, then you are pretty restricted. You can you can vote. You can have your own particular points of view.

You can discuss those things, but you can't openly advocate for them, which which leads a lot of generals and others to to sort of just zip their lips when when they see this nonsense.

Except you don't have to make a political statement. You have to you have to preserve the integrity of your institution.

And that's where they miss the boat. They think, oh, I'm not being political. I'm just doing my job. Well, the politicians are pushing political things into the ranks that make it far more difficult for you to do your job and are hurting the institution that you say you love.

You need to speak out. Now, is the military treating those liberal or even leftist enlisted men and women with the same harshness if they are outspoken about their opposition to Trump or even their opposition to Biden because they do not believe that he is as friendly and protective and helpful to the

Palestinian and Hamas movements? Are they getting any kind of flack?

I think for the most part, you don't get a lot of soldiers. And I say that as a as a all encompassing phrase for people who serve, you don't get a lot of soldiers speaking out politically.

It's just not part of the DNA while you're actively serving. So you might have some frustrated soldiers who who are at odds with Biden over Palestinian and Palestinian Gaza, but they're probably only talking about it inside their unit.

And they're certainly not holding a press conference to talk about it or going on CNN. That's just not something you do.

Which is why this is a topic that's so difficult for most to access is that if you're not given been from that world and been in it and around it and know how it operates, it's hard to write a book called

The War on Warriors where you're critical of it. Very critical. The book's very critical, but it comes from a point of love and reverence for the institution and hope that we can turn it around.

And the the subtitle is very powerful as well. The war on warriors behind the betrayal of the men who keep us free.

Explain that a little bit more fully. Yeah, I mean, that's what it is.

I mean, you've got the obvious battlefield manifestations of betrayal where, you know, you under Obama, ISIS flags flew across Iraq for territory that we'd fought for.

You have the battlefield example of Afghanistan where it was abandoned and we left in shame and retreat and Americans were killed and equipment was left behind.

But then you have the betrayal of those still serving those who will serve in the future because you're handing them a unit, a military that, you know, is far less capable that, you know, is lagging in recruiting because of the approach that's being taken.

And so you're betraying the trust you want to establish with these young men and young women when they put the uniform on that we have their back all the way.

And then, of course, there's the betrayal of those who have served, who's who they turned their backs on.

And now, I mean, I'm an easy example. I signed 20 years ago. I signed up to fight extremists.

And 20 years later, I was dubbed an extremist myself. It's there's example after example in the book of guys who went, you know, you fight the war, you come home and then you're criticized for the manner in which you fought it.

And all of those things feel like betrayal to those to those who serve. And yet the ultimate betrayal also, too, is to their oath, to the oath that these leaders took to the

Constitution, that they're not standing up for it. And that's that that is a by definition of betrayal.

Now, this is this is without hyperbole or exaggeration. It's really putting the safety of this nation and our citizens in great peril.

Is it not? And in fact, even though we're not supposed to be the world's police force, either, it's put the puts the world in jeopardy, doesn't it?

It does. I mean, what other militaries who else you call a 9 -1 -1 for? I mean, we whether we like it or not, it's the

American military, the guarantor of freedom in the world. I mean, it should be first and foremost focused on our own security and our sovereignty in our nation.

But if not America, then who? And so if you weaken that, I mean, and then that's where you kind of step back and go, well,

I couldn't do it any better if I was trying to do it on purpose. And, you know, maybe neutering the military is the point because you're less likely to use it.

And if people that are doing the neutering are the ones who don't like the country in the first place, then why would you want

America to succeed? I mean, it's it's scary if you if you dig down too deep into what the attention intentions might be.

Yes, a weaker, a woker military is a weaker military and a weaker military means America on its heels and America on its heels means that the ideologies, whether globalism or communism or Islamism, are going to be on the rise in the coming decades.

And that's bad for everybody. Now, you've already mentioned that this leftist ideology is slowing down the enlistment of new recruits into our armed services.

So this may be it may sound like a counterproductive question, but people who are parents in my audience are asking me all the time, do you have any friends in the military who can honestly answer the question?

Should my sons enlist in the military? Yeah, that was the operative question of really the entire book, because I get the same questions all the time.

So I wrote the whole book and then when I was done, I wrote the epilogue, which is the letter to my five sons and whether sort of explaining whether I would recommend that they serve.

And I didn't know what I was going to write. But at the end of the project, it became clear that even with all its imperfections, we need patriots in the ranks.

And the key question is, if not the Hegseth boys, then who? If not me, then who? Who's who's going to join?

And we this is not like the issue of education or tax rates. You can't move away from it. We only have one military.

If we lose it, we're toast. And so I reserve the right to change that recommendation.

If you have if we have four more years of Biden or some other nonsense where it's just so far gone that it can't be reclaimed.

But I think a new commander in chief with a new set of priorities, firing people, changing the ethos could create the kind of environment

I'd be proud for my kids to serve in. So my recommendation right now is that I hope they'll consider it. But I know a lot of veterans who have said adamantly, there's no way

I would recommend military service. And I understand. I understand where they're coming from. Well, Pete, it has been a joy.

I look forward to your return to the program again. And maybe one of these days we can have you on for a longer period.

But I know you are a very busy man. And I thank God for the time that you carved out of your busy schedule for me today.

I loved emceeing that fundraising event where you were the keynote speaker for Grace Christian Academy.

What that was a blast. I look forward to an opportunity like that if it ever arises. And a shout out to Steve Schultz from Grace Christian Academy in Merrick, Long Island, and also your former pastor,

Chris Durkin at Colts Neck Community Church in Colts Neck, New Jersey, who wanted me to extend to you their warm greetings.

And go ahead. Sorry. No, wonderful. And just thank you for having me back. I really appreciate your willingness to share your platform.

And I want to remind our listeners that you could get an autographed copy of the War on Warriors by going to, is it waronwarriors .com?

Yep, waronwarriors .com. You can get a personalized or signed copy. Otherwise, you can get it anywhere books are sold.

Well, Pete, it's been a joy. And I look forward to your return. Thank you so much. And God bless you, brother. Thank you, sir.

Likewise. And don't go away, folks, because we have joining us momentarily after our commercial break, my friend

Ed Boyle, who is a veteran himself. And he's on the same page as Pete Hegseth on this issue that we have been discussing.

And if you have a question for Ed, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

Not only is Ed a veteran, but he is the pastor of Trinity Christian Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, a conservative, independent, biblically faithful church that pulled out of the most leftist and woke and apostate church in Protestantism, the

United Church of Christ. So please continue to join us. And we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with my second guest today. Ed Boyle served in the 101st

Airborne Division Air Assault in Operation Desert Storm, the 5th

Special Forces Group Airborne as an anti -terrorism operations officer for the

United States Army Europe in Germany, and later served as the operations officer

S3 for a multifunctional logistics brigade during the

Iraq War. Today, he pastors Trinity Christian Church in Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, a conservative, independent, biblically faithful, theologically reformed congregation that withdrew its membership from the leftist, woke, and apostate denomination, the

United Church of Christ. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Ed Boyle. Thanks, Chris, good to be here.

And first of all, let me thank you for attending yesterday's

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon that featured Dr. Joel Beeky, the founder and chancellor of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary as my keynote speaker.

I was blown away by how wonderful, how absolutely extraordinary and phenomenal that whole event was, not only the fellowship between those who were in attendance and seeing old friends, some of whom

I haven't seen in decades, one particular, my friend David Morris, who came all the way from North Carolina to be there, a retired pastor who is now an itinerant evangelist, and meeting new friends, even one that has pledged to become a sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

He was so thrilled with how the event turned out, but please share with me your thoughts on yesterday's event.

Those pastors' luncheons, the men in ministry luncheons, are always a good time, Chris, but it's not just a good time, as enjoyable as the fellowship is, but it's the identification from the first -rate speakers that you bring, the chances pastors and other men in ministry to be able to receive some of the book selections there that are donated by various publishers whom you contact, and it's just a blessing all around.

I think all of us are always glad that we made the trip and were able to be there, so we appreciate the work that you do in your hospitality and hosting us like that.

I think it's a much -needed thing for men of God to come together as ministers of the gospel and see that we're not alone, because sometimes it can be a lonely occupation, a lonely vocation, but to see a bunch of other brothers there, equally committed, reinforcing one another is a wonderful thing.

Well, those events would not be the same without you being there, and I was thrilled that you were able to carve out a chunk of your busy schedule to be there, brother.

And now, if you could, I've already given our listeners a taste of Trinity Christian Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, but tell us more about this fine congregation.

Trinity is an elder -led, non -denominational, strongly Reformed, conservative denomination, as I think you touched on.

They had left the United Church of Christ about a year or so before I got here, and we still have a handful of folks who have faithfully remained with the church since I came here, because a lot of folks sadly left not long after my arrival within the first year or two here for various reasons.

And so what we have here right now is just a wonderful, strong congregation that's hungry for the things of God and eager to be faithful to Him, and we're learning and growing together.

And we're in a small town in a rural community here in Perry County, but the

Lord is doing good things here, and I'm grateful to be a part of it. Amen, and what is your website for those of our listeners who want to get in touch with you?

Oh, the website... I should have pulled it up.

I'm the host. I'm sorry about that. I have it saved as a favorite there. I never have to look it up.

It's tccnb .org, for trinitychristianchurchnewbloomfield .org,

tccnb .org. Well, first of all, I would like for you to respond to what you heard my first guest,

Pete Hegseth, have to say about not only his book, The War on Warriors, but the whole terrifying, disturbing reason he wrote the book.

There's just a million strong amens, or at least a hundred I could have given just during the 30 minutes that you had

Pete speaking there. Uh, I absolutely agree with his thesis.

I haven't read that book yet. I've seen reviews about it, and uh, but I strongly, strongly, absolutely, unequivocally agree with his assigning direct responsibility for woteness in the military at the feet of our senior leaders, and that is the general and flag officers, the people's stars on their collars.

That's where the responsibility lay. Yes, we have civilian leadership of the military, but as Pete stated so well, we, the lower ranking officers, non -commissioned officers, and junior enlisted soldiers, look to our senior leaders and expect not only physical, but moral courage in withstanding the spirit of the age, and there are things, obviously, even though we certainly enthusiastically support civilian control of the military as per the constitution, which we swore an oath to uphold and defend, but part of that loyalty there is the fact that leaders need to stand against the things that would destroy our nation.

That's what the armed forces is here for, not to be, as you mentioned, the world's policemen. We're here to fight and win our nation's wars, period, and anything that detracts from that needs to be challenged, but all we've had here in recent years has been distraction and detraction, one after another, from our war -fighting mission, and I would take the responsibility, and Pete's right in that it really germinated quite rapidly in 2020, but I would take this before Obama, his two administrations, back to the

Clinton era with the establishment of the don't ask, don't tell policy regarding homosexuals.

That in itself was a compromise, which a whole lot of us, the overwhelming majority of us at the time, were very unhappy with, but...

In fact, it's ironic, isn't it, that the leftist pro -homosexuals hate that now because they don't think it's strong enough at all.

In fact, they look at it as an insult. But at the time, many of the rest of us saw the trends and where this would lead, is we have to have enough wisdom and discernment to be able to understand the consequences and implications which naturally and necessarily flow from sacrificing a principle, and so our senior leaders did see this, and I remember

I worked for one, when this was under discussion, I worked for one commander at the time who, he'll remain nameless, but he was selected above his peers for promotion at least three times that I know of, retired as a general officer, but at the time, he, although being raised and being at the time, he claimed to be a practicing

Catholic, but he saw no issue with this, and we had lengthy discussions in his office, me stating that this was a moral issue and that the military had been right all those years to prohibit this.

I mean, once upon a time, if you were homosexual, it was seen not only as a moral defect, but as a psychological defect, and you didn't hold a security clearance.

You could not serve in the military, you didn't need to be holding a weapon, so something was seriously wrong with your thought processes and your judgment, and here the military we see right now is unrecognizable to those of us who came of age many years ago.

Well, when you were actively serving overseas and so on, was there anything going on at the time that was overt in nature that made you uncomfortable, that made you question whether you had made the right decision to enlist and all those kinds of things?

How bad things were they when it comes to wokeism, social justice warrior ideology, etc.?

I'll tell you from early on from during the 1990s,

I came on active duty in 1989 and I stayed in for, I was three and a half years in the guard prior to that in the

Army National Guard here in Pennsylvania, then 25 years regular army, and so, but I began to see in the early 1990s changes within the military itself regarding the warrior ethos, and so nobody called it wokeness at the time, but what

I mean by that warrior ethos is a combination of things that began to take us away from our core mission of fighting and winning our nation's wars.

The fact that the military existed to kill our enemies and blow things up, and that's just what it is. It doesn't, people can think they joined for the college fund or this or that, but that's really why you put on a uniform.

That's what we're all about, and as Orwell noted many years ago, or at least it's all commonly attributed to him, people sleep easily in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf, and that was true, and we all understood and accepted it, but during, prior to Clinton, the administration of George H .W.

Bush, he sent the military, including some elite forces, to the

Horn of Africa nation of Somalia, and so that was for humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance.

Many of us discussed that at the time within our units, thinking that this is crazy, we don't need to be doing this.

It was on the heels of Desert Shield, Desert Storm from 1990 to 91, but there we were launching troops into Somalia, and one, and things went from bad to worse, and we know, obviously, people are familiar with the

Black Hawk Down incident from October 3rd, 1993. I was our unit staff duty officer at the time.

We had folks deployed, and the reason I was not there with other elements of my unit was because we had lost a baby, and so I had taken a little bit of leave, and I was home.

Somebody else had gone over in my stead, but that was part of the change in the warrior ethos, where it was redirecting us from what we do for a living, what we're here to do, to something else entirely, nation building, all those sorts of things.

I would argue that some of that stuff, psychologically and by way of policy, helped to lay the groundwork for the later encroaches of it was an incremental thing, but the left is expert at playing the long game and building the groundwork for these things, and then accelerating them when the moment is right.

Well, we're going to our midway break right now, folks. Please try to respond to as many of our advertisers as you can to further ensure that our advertisers will be pleased with how they're spending their money, and they will be further compelled to renew contracts and so on, because we absolutely positively depend upon our advertisers and the finances that come through them to exist.

To further ensure that you will successfully contact our advertisers, please write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can that they provide in their commercials.

And of course, send in your questions to Ed Boyle, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

We'll be right back. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in a tie in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards. And Dr.

Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

Hanover Presbyterian built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

Protestant reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.

That's HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com or call 678 -954 -7831.

That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them

Joe O 'Reilly, an Ironsharpens Iron radio listener from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland sent you.

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the

ReformRookie .com website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Ironsharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

Apple's iTunes app by typing Ironsharpens Iron radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Ironsharpens Iron radio show at any time, day or night.

Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnzen has on the show.

Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CBBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's Word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

God bless you. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

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Thoughts for Young Men by J .C. Ryle, a phenomenal book for any parent or young man to read whether they are in the military or not.

But it just so happens that a brigadier general who's a friend of mine,

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He has purchased dozens and dozens of copies of Thoughts for Young Men. So if he thinks that highly of it,

I think that it's well worth your consideration. You can get these books and many, many, many, many others at solid -ground -books .com,

solid -ground -books .com. Please make sure you tell Mike Gaydosch, owner of solid -ground -books .com,

that you heard about his fine publisher from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Before I return to my guest today, Ed Boyle, we have some very important announcements to make.

If you really love this show, folks, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, I'm urging you please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click support, then click, click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card and if you prefer snail mail, sending a physical check to a physical address from your post office the old -fashioned way, there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com

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Never do that and if you are really struggling to survive and make ends meet, wait until you're back on your feet and more financially stable before you send us a gift.

But if you really love this show and you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to support church and family and you have extra money for benevolent recreational and trivial purposes, please share some of that money with us if you really want us to continue to exist.

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful, theologically sound,

Christ -honoring, doctrinally solid church like Trinity Christian Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania where my guest

Ed Boyle is the pastor, well I have extensive lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe and I've helped many people in my audience all over the world find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

So no matter where on the planet earth you live, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful church, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in an email to Ed Boyle.

We are continuing the topic of Pete Hegseth and his book that began the program when

Pete was on the first half hour of today's show, The War on Warriors, Behind the

Betrayal of Men Who Keep Us Safe. And so you could send in those emails to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

We have an anonymous listener who has a question for you, Ed. And the anonymous listener says, dare

I ask you the same question that Chris Arnson asked Pete Hegseth.

Would you send your children into the military? The question answers itself.

My stepdaughter Katie, along with her husband, is an Air Force Tech Sergeant in Okinawa. I have a son,

Sean, who's in the Army Reserve. Another son, Brendan, who is in the

National Illinois Army National Guard and is currently deployed to the Middle East right now. So they have already, three of the four, have already joined and are serving.

Now, did I encourage them? Yes. Although, of course, with certain reservations, because I think the question is very legitimate.

Given the current climate in our nation's military, do I want my children serving under the feckless leadership at the highest levels?

No, I do not. However, just much like in any other vocation, Christians cannot withdraw from the battlefield, so to speak.

We must be salt and light across the professions, legal professions, obviously. I'm not talking about things that are unethical or immoral, but Christians need to be there.

We need, we cannot abandon the military anymore. We could abandon politics or the arts, what have you.

So can I recommend it without reservation? No, of course not. I cannot, because of what has happened within the military.

But if someone feels led of the Lord to serve there, then may they serve well, and I pray that the

Lord's hand will be upon them. Great. Do you know, I don't even know if you could say this publicly, but do you know if those folks, those dear loved ones in your family that you mentioned who are in the military, are they having a rough time with the leftist worldview and ideology becoming more and more dominant in the military?

Yes, to some degree. You'll find a lot of things within the military, and I think

Pete Hegseth already alluded to this. I mean, some things you're just going to get some mandatory training that you can take it for what it's worth, and much of that training is absolutely worthless to a warfighter, what is often called training.

I mean, you have things like about extremism. I'm certain, not having read Pete's book, but I'm certain he probably cites numerous examples of this to where in the last several years in particular, the

Department of Defense has gone towards identifying so -called extremists within the ranks. And so the funny thing about this funny in an ironic way, not in an amusing way, is that almost without exception, the so -called extremists that are mentioned that are called right -wingers just simply seem to be conservative organizations or conservative viewpoints.

The leftists are virtually never mentioned, and there were briefings on BLM, the

Black Lives Matter movement, and the aftermath of the George Floyd incident, all these sorts of things, and people in the chain of command encouraging soldiers to support these things, but soldiers would be prohibited from putting up a

Make America Great Again flag because that would be too political, but you could have

BLM flags out. It was nonsensical. It was so obviously partisan, it's hard to believe that the military would countenance this sort of thing, and yet here you had leaders up and down the chain of command supporting that.

So yeah, to some degree, yes, Chris, they have their issues with it, and they have to have a filter for it, and hopefully with the raising they got at home from me and my wife

Dawn, who's also a veteran, we pray that the Lord would sustain them through that. Okay, we have

Tommy in Rochester, New York, and Tommy said, please do not take offense by anything

I'm about to ask you, but you've already mentioned that there are women in your family who are involved in the military.

Is it a part of your worldview where you believe women should be permitted into combat, even though they already are?

No, I mean, I met my wife when I was on active duty. She got out, we got married, she got out, and she stayed home and homeschooled our children all the time that they were with us at home.

They're all grown and gone now, but do I believe women should be in combat roles? Absolutely, unequivocally, no, never.

That should not happen, and that, as I mentioned previously, that is part of the emasculation of the military, was the gradual erosion of the warrior ethos and the idea that men and women are interchangeable.

We are not interchangeable. The Lord designed us for different things. Can women do a lot of things very, very well within the military?

Certainly. There are a lot of positions, but should women be assigned to combat roles in combat formations with men?

That should never happen, and anyone who tells you that it has no effect on combat readiness is a liar, because it certainly does.

Standards change, standards are dropped down, and this cannot help but have an effect on combat readiness and fighting ability.

The entire dynamic of a unit changes when you go from all -male to gender -integrated, so no, that is not part of my worldview.

As I may recall, hopefully I'm not misremembering this, but from what

I understand, your wife Dawn was in the 101st

Airborne during Desert Storm as a UH -1 Huey helicopter pilot.

Wasn't that considered combat? Yes, she was not in a direct combat position.

It was in an aviation maintenance battalion. She was an aviation maintenance test pilot. Couldn't she have seen it? Well, sure.

Anytime you're in a combat zone, you are subject to possible combat operations. During the convoy, for those of you who remember this, old enough to remember it, once the air war started prior to ground operations in Operation Desert Storm in early 1991, there were numerous convoys that moved many of us up to the border with Iraq at that time.

And so, yes, the Iraqis were firing Scud missiles at us, and you could hear them going off, and we weren't sure if there were chemical agents involved.

People would be putting on their protective masks, donning their chemical protective equipment, all sorts of things. So, yes, anytime you're in a combat zone, you are potentially exposed to combat.

But that is a different thing from assigning people to direct combat roles in the combat arms branches, such as infantry, armor, field artillery, attack aviation, those sorts of things, and not even to mention the special operations community.

Now, having said that, do I respect not only my wife, my stepdaughter, and many others with whom

I've served, do I respect their service? Absolutely. I respect their patriotism, because many of them, like my wife and stepdaughter, stepped up because they love their country and do want to serve.

But do they share your worldview about women not being in combat? My wife does.

Yes, she understands where I come from on that. And if she's not here, she could certainly speak for herself.

She's quite capable of articulating her own position. But yeah, she understands my rationale and just how that can impact combat readiness.

It's a tremendous distraction. Now, we've heard for years about the alterations of training and testing, physical feats of strength and agility that are required for candidates in the police force and in the fire department.

And we have heard over the years that, I don't know if it's in all cases, but in some cases, at the very least, these tests required have been lessened in their severity and made easier for those who are of the female gender, which is really a frightening concept because you want somebody who is the most physically fit as possibly can be when they are defending your life, whether it be a police officer or a fireman climbing through your burning house.

But what, in your knowledge, is the military doing that not only for women, but perhaps for transgendered people?

And for weak men, yes. Yes, yes and yes. Wow. Even for just for weak heterosexual men?

Yes. Why even have those tests? Why even have standards?

It does beg the question, does it not? Yes. And you can tell that I feel very passionately and strongly about this just because I lived it and I've seen it in action.

It's part of what, it's part of the leftist's overall denial of reality. And that holds true with transgenderism, which is just a phony, made up concept for sexual deviance, so -called gender dysphoria.

And then you have within the military, the same sort of thing has taken hold and boy, has it taken hold.

The roots are now very deep in a relatively short time. But if we can do that with the so -called trans people, then we can do it with men and women.

We can just simply wish away reality. The problem is, and we'll see those sorts of things, we can get away with that in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but against a peer or near peer competitor, so to speak,

China, et cetera, those things aren't going to wash because the Chinese are training with bayonets and with live ammunition.

And we have people going through classes on consideration of others and the use of proper pronouns while our enemies are training to kill us in combat.

So when we meet, who do you think is going to win? That's a rhetorical question, but it should sober people.

These are not abstract things that are going on somewhere, echelons above reality.

This is actually happening and has happened to our armed forces. And it's been fed from the top down.

And it's disillusioned a lot of people, many people who would otherwise be naturally motivated to serve because we love our country.

We're thankful for what the Lord has given us. We're willing to put on a uniform and carry a weapon in defense of what the

Lord has given to us in this nation. We are the ones who are being told that we're not welcome anymore.

It's a brave new military out there. Now, that doesn't negate the fact that there are a whole lot of outstanding people serving in uniform right now.

And my children are among those. And there are many, many others out there.

But the senior leadership has changed the military from the top down. And this is where Barack Obama really succeeded.

And I said this for years, including while I was still wearing a uniform. I retired in 2014.

So it's end of July will be 10 years for me. Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform

America. People were looking at different areas where he was looking to initiate change, his so -called hope and change strategy, where he really succeeded, where it was where a lot of people weren't paying attention.

He succeeded in fundamentally transforming the armed forces of the United States. And I don't know how we're going to get back to barring the

Lord's hand of revival and reformation upon this country. We have

Chuck in Islip Terrace, Long Island, New York. And he asks, from your own experience, were the soldiers with whom you served more ideologically conservative or left leaning?

And I don't know if you know of any statistics that cover the entire United States military on those percentages, but I'd love to know that as well, if you have that knowledge.

No, you know, I tend to be naturally suspicious of polls and a lot of the statistical analyses that go out there, because a lot of them are just hopelessly tainted, just much like the so -called fact checkers on the

Internet and and on the on the news programs. But much of many of these so -called fact checkers are just left -leaning ideologues who are going to paint things in a way that is motivated.

I will say, just from anecdotal and personal experience, that when I enlisted in the Army National Guard in 1985,

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the president. Things were very different. Our nation was very different, and therefore so was the military.

It's been said that any nation's military is simply a reflection of the society which it represents.

And there's a lot of truth to that. But there's another sense in which the military should transcend constant societal and social changes, and we should stand for something greater, something timeless and enduring, the principles of loyalty, duty, honor, country.

We should stand for that regardless of what social winds are blowing, leftist currents, what have you.

We should be holding fast to the eternal verities and the things that matter, first principles, if you will.

But as far as my own experience, when I entered active duty in 1989, by then George H .W.

Bush was president, my conservatism was unremarkable. Most people with whom

I served, I think, I believe, shared my general convictions. Some people feel

I believe I'm more conservative than average. Well, once upon a time, I don't think I was.

But I will tell you this, that during my last duty assignment, there was a small group of us who would talk together, trusted one another, right, or similarly minded.

And I said to them, I said, gentlemen, take a look around this command, this headquarters. When we all came in, some of them were retirees who were working there,

Department of Defense civilian capacity. I said, look around the command right now, we conservatives are now in the minority in the military.

And it was a striking thing. I don't think all of them had thought about it, but I do. I think about it all the time.

And I thought about it even then. We are now no longer the majority where people like me, instead of having a world view that is generally unremarkable, most people would agree.

I am now an outlier. The me and men like me. And that is true in the officer ranks and to a large to a growing degree in the junior enlisted and non commissioned officer ranks as well.

It's just it's a heartbreaking thing for me, for those of us who truly love our nation, just to see the leftist infiltration and the way our senior leaders, the general and flag officers, generals and admirals have not only allowed this to happen, but have pushed for it to happen.

Wow. Is that a question? I have a question about how you believe your experience and service and training in the military has further equipped you, not only as a

Christian in general, but specifically as a pastor.

Well, considering how the scriptures are full of martial references and you see the spirit and even beyond the spiritual warfare and the armor of God passage in Ephesians six, you find martial references throughout the scriptures.

And Paul, Paul exhorting us just to be good, to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ and just the hardships that are anticipated.

And I think there are tremendous parallels between uniform military service and the

Christian walk for all of us, because we have an enemy. He uses certain tactics, techniques and procedures against us.

The Bible lays those things out for us as a training manual, so to speak. And we need not only to read and be familiar with the tactics the enemy employs, we need to be familiar with what we do as well, how we operate against this enemy and the weapons of our warfare, as Paul also says, are not carnal, they're not worldly or fleshly, they're spiritual for the pulling down of strongholds.

So I think the principles of leadership that I learned in the military and had to exercise translate very well into the

Christian life in general and in the pastoral ministry in particular, the idea of being a servant leader for one.

You lead, but you lead by serving the Lord and serving your people. You lead by example.

You lead from the front, not from the rear. You show loyalty to your people.

You try to equip them for the tasks that they will be given and the enemy that they will face. There are a lot of examples

I can give in that area, but it has translated very well. And I have often thought and thanked the Lord for the experiences he gave me, because even though I've only been a pastor now for just about seven years, the

Lord has given me a lot of life experiences, which hopefully have prepared me for what he's called me to do now.

Okay, we have another listener named Carl in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and Carl asks, is it true, from your knowledge of history, that many of the great civilizations that are now extinct began to crumble because of the pervasiveness of homosexuality in their militaries?

You know, that has been argued, and I've seen that asserted, and I think there's probably some use to that.

But I think the homosexuality is simply the manifestation of a moral and spiritual decline, even among pagan nations, because we are all created in the image of God.

So even pagan nations around the world and throughout human history have exemplified, even if they would not acknowledge it, the image of God within them, so that certain moral and ethical standards are common across human cultures and civilizations.

But yeah, I think that's a good question, because I think that the spiritual and moral decline that often happens in the lifespan of a nation or an empire tends to manifest itself near the end with, first, the sexual revolution, and then the homosexual revolution.

And we've seen that in our country just pick up pace in the last couple of decades at a speed which has left a lot of people breathless.

But the seeds have been sown for a long time. So yeah, I think there's a valid point to be made in that question.

Well, we have to go to our final break, and if anybody wants to join us with a question of your own, please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

You may have a son or daughter in the military, and you have a question regarding that, and you don't want to make your identity public.

We understand things like that would compel you to be anonymous. You might be enlisted in the military yourself already and have some questions that require you remain anonymous.

All of those are legitimate reasons. I'm sure there's many more legitimate reasons. So we will honor your request to be anonymous.

But if you have a general question, please give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Send your emails to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chris Arnson at gmail .com. We'll be right back.

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But today I want to introduce you to my senior pastor Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

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God bless you. Welcome back. This is Chris and if you just tuned us in we initially for the first half hour of the of the program had

Pete Hegseth who is co -host of Fox and Friends Weekend on the

Fox News channel and also a host of Fox Nation and he is a number one

New York Times best -selling author and army combat veteran. Pete was discussing his new book,

The War on Warriors, Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, and to follow up that interview we have had for the last hour and 15 minutes my friend

Ed Boyle on the program and he is also a combat veteran and currently pastoring

Trinity Christian Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, an independent conservative theologically reformed congregation, and we have been continuing the theme that we began with Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors, Behind the

Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. And one thing that I wanted to ask

Pete before we ran out of time, and we unfortunately did run out of time and I didn't get a chance to ask it, what are your thoughts on what those who are listening to this program could possibly do to make any kind of change in the direction that the military is heading on, in fact it's more than just a direction, it's something that's already enveloping them and dominating them and endangering the lives of countless citizens of our nation as well as those in the military themselves.

What can the average person do and what can the person who is enlisted do?

I think it's a profoundly important question Chris and I grappled with that myself while I was on active duty.

I was pretty outspoken on active duty, only by the grace of God was I able to stand long enough to retire.

I was probably fortunate to make it past lieutenant after I was commissioned as a young enlisted soldier as a private.

But I think with regard to that question, what can we do? It's one thing to sit here and wring our hands and just say and talk about the doom and gloom of it, but is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

Well, besides the fact that we know the Lord is sovereign over all things and the battle belongs to the Lord, that also means that there's no excuse for us not to prepare the horse for the day of battle and so we need to get on it.

So a couple of things we can do, I think. Number one, as citizens right now, we need to be involved in the process of contacting regularly our elected officials and telling them our concerns.

There are some who serve on House or Senate armed services committees, et cetera, things of that nature.

That's not the be all and end all. We put not our trust in princes, but we have a responsibility to be engaged and to engage our elected officials, especially here as Americans.

If you're serving, you know, I could not be more proud and pleased about our children who are serving.

Just the fact that they love their country enough to step up and serve in the manner that they are. But like I told one of my sons here recently, when

I used to promote someone from the junior enlisted rank to the first MCO rank, the rank of sergeant, or from sergeant up to staff sergeant,

I used to, one thing I would regularly say is, don't be someone who complains about higher headquarters or about the

Army, the Army's stupid, the Army, don't be a complainer. It's easy to complain.

Anybody can gripe and moan. My challenge to you is you fix your part of the Army. If you're a sergeant now and you're in charge of five people, you make that the best section or team in the

Army. If you're a staff sergeant and you're in charge of a 10 or 12 man squad, make that squad, fix your part of the

Army. You can't control everything else around you, but what you can impact directly is are those things and those people for which and for whom you are responsible.

So start right there. Keep yourself squared away. Don't fall for the propaganda. Read, read the right things.

Be grounded in the scriptures primarily, but read the right things and understand what the other side is arguing and be able to counter their arguments with the scriptures and with logic and plain old sanctified common sense.

But don't withdraw and disengaged. Be in the fight because this is a spiritual war which is being waged.

Part of it, part of the war on the military is a war on men. This is one aspect of it.

I'm convinced of it. And that's why I point back to the fact that this started many years ago.

But the thing is, we can't raise the white flag of surrender or just tuck our tails between our legs and run.

That is not the way of the warrior. We must engage where the Lord has placed us and do so in his strength and in his might.

The results are in his hands. And the phrase pray for this, that has become known to many, unfortunately, as a trite saying.

It's become in the minds of many meaningless.

And unfortunately, many Christians have not helped that situation because we have come to express ourselves with that phrase.

I'll pray for you almost just like we're saying hello or goodbye.

How are you doing? I'll think good thoughts about you. Yeah. And but but we believe you and I in a sovereign

God. And we believe that he uses the prayers of his people as a means, as a vehicle with which he fulfills his own will and brings it to be.

And we should be bringing this up, this this deterioration of the military, this satanic hold on this institution that was considered sacred.

The the thing that, other than the fact that God is sovereign, the thing that allows people to rest their heads on their pillows with an extra measure of safety and peace of mind, the corruption of this institution and the dominance of a satanic worldview should be something that we're regularly bringing up in prayer daily and in prayer meetings and in gatherings where the saints, even outside the corporate gathering of the worship service, this this really needs to be one of the primary focuses that we have in our day and age, because it's really if you really contemplate what the consequences may be, it's a terrifying notion.

No, if I fully agree, Chris, and you're exactly right. The scriptures are saturated with calls for the

Lord's people to pray. And we see how even though the Lord has ordained all things, he knows the end from the beginning.

He is also pleased to respond to the fervent, unceasing, unyielding prayers of his people who are praying for the right things in the right way for his honor and for his glory, because his name is being dishonored in all this.

And I think of Rod Dreher's recent book, Live Not by Lies. And of course, he took that from a speech by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the famous Soviet dissident, many years ago.

But the idea of living not by lies was was don't partake in the lies that are being perpetrated around us.

Challenge those lies. Speak up against them. Live your life for the truth, the truth of God's word.

But you're right in that we need to be consistently and fervently praying for the Lord's hand upon this nation, the military being one part of that, but upon the heart and soul of this country.

We need to be people of prayer. Amen. Let's see. We have another listener question from, let's see, from June in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

And June asks, I tuned in late, so I'm not sure if either

Pete Hegseth or your current guest mentioned this, but other than the fact that those who are so -called transgendered might be hindered from performing their duties as a member of our armed forces because of the physical nature of what they are going through and the drugs that may be involved in pursuing and maintaining the so -called becoming of an opposite gender, in addition to all that being a threat to the safety of our enlisted men and women in the armed forces, what about the psychological aspect of those who serve alongside these so -called transgendered folks and even homosexuals?

Does that not somehow affect the way soldiers think they are preoccupied with having, how am

I supposed to react or behave in the midst of these people, etc.? Isn't that also a part of the danger?

It absolutely is, and that is part of the social engineering that has been occurring, and it has been very systematic.

None of these things are accidental. This has been systematically imposed upon the military, and what you're describing there is a deliberate changing of the way people think.

It's classic psychological manipulation. Well, I want, before we run out of time,

I want to make sure that you summarized everything that you want primarily etched on the hearts and minds of our listeners about this topic today.

Yeah, thanks, Chris. I appreciate, once again, just the honor and privilege of being on your show here briefly, but I want to impress upon people that a lot of our folks, some of my own children, of course, and people that I know who are still serving are absolutely great

Americans, and they joined for the right reasons, and they have been let down by their chain of command from all the way to the top, but that does not negate the honor of their own service and their own sacrifices and willingness to sacrifice, so we need to be in prayer for our service members who are in the midst of this social engineering and re -engineering project, and we need to be in prayer for our nation's leaders, that the

Lord would change their hearts, especially those who are seeking to impose this wicked agenda of wokeness upon our military, and we need ourselves to be engaged and have our own hearts right and make sure that we are walking the walk and not just talking the talk.

We are living lives that bring honor and glory to the Lord, and we need to understand that all of this is a part of a greater spiritual war being waged against our

Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, but He will prevail over all, and we pray that we will be found faithful on that day when we stand before Him.

Amen. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all the information that they need to benefit from the ministries of both of my guests.

First of all, we have the guest on with me right now, my friend

Ed Boyle, pastor of Trinity Christian Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania.

His website is tccnb .org. That's tcc for Trinity Christian Church, nb for new bloomfield .org.

And also, if you want to get an autographed copy of Pete Hegseth's book that we were discussing in great detail in the first half hour,

The War on Warriors, Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, you can go to waronwarriors .com,

waronwarriors .com, and you can get an autographed copy of Pete Hegseth's book, and it's also available anywhere where books are sold.

And don't forget about Pete's Fox Nation special on The War on Warriors.

You can go to nation .foxnews .com, nation .foxnews

.com, and if you haven't already enrolled in Fox Nation or subscribed to it, you can do so there.

And if you already are, you can find out more about how to view The War on Warriors, a very, very important topic in the 21st century.

I want to thank Pete Hegseth so much for carving out a half hour from his extremely busy schedule.

I want to thank my friend Ed Boyle for doing the same. Pastors are very busy, and I appreciate you taking 90 minutes of your time to be with us.

And I want to thank you most of all for your friendship, brother. It means a great deal to me. I want to thank everybody who listened, and by the way, folks, if you're a man in ministry leadership, we are now already publicizing the next

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon. This is a free luncheon. It's going to be held on Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Lloydsville, Pennsylvania. And the next luncheon features

Joseph Boot, Dr. Joseph Boot, the founder and president of the

Ezra Institute. And I hope that you will register if you're a man in ministry leadership.

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives, Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.