Gateway Church's Podcast
From Tragedy to Triumph
A Gateway Sermon
So great to be back in the south where English language just spoke proper. I got to tell you something. I don't know if those music people are back in here or not, but somebody can get the word to them. That's about the best Sunday morning worship I've ever heard. Whoa. I just, that turned me every way but loose. I tell you, it just, I try not to cry but I always, I'm afraid I look ugly. That's all right. You're glad. I like that feasting fasting thing. Lord said that to me too, so I ate fast. Oh, you are a happy crowd this morning. This is a great church you guys. I hope you know what a wonderful impact you're having on the entire state and around the country. My pastor and I've been friends a long time and I think he is just the apex of pastoring. He has the vision and he has the people around him to make it happen and then to see you and following that great leadership. This is really a super day for me. I feel wonderful. I didn't have much sleep yesterday when I spoke and I can't remember what I said. But I'm back awake this morning and boy it's really been a wonderful year for our ministry and for our team. We've been around the world and ministry to our troops and throughout Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Iraq and then throughout the hospitals where our troops are recovering from devastating injuries. The body armor is great to protect the vital organs and it's saving thousands and thousands of lives but they're losing their limbs and it just hurts so bad to walk into their rooms and see them all strung up and it brings back a lot of memories I have to be honest with you and I have a little more difficulty going to the burn ward but I do and I don't hesitate. It's just difficult but I don't shrink from it because I know what it meant to me to have people come and had a wonderful Air Force pilot who had gone through a devastating crash in his fighter jet and was terribly burned and he came to my bed and I never will forget him. He was in his full-dressed uniform and as sharp as a tack but he had no face and he had no fingers but when he walked up to my bed and he said to me, "Sailor, you're strong and you're going to make it." He snapped me a salute without those fingers and I tried to saluting but I couldn't get my hand to my head and I never forgot it, never. I was surrounded by people who gave me memories. One was the most wonderful African American man. He was six foot seven, 350 pounds and his arms literally were bigger than my legs. He was just massive and he played for the Dallas Cowboys but not on the playing field, on the practice field he played and he was the whole front line I think for them to work out against and he was a male nurse and just had the most gentle touch and a precious man and his name was Rosie. 350 pounds of Rosie. You'll never forget it. He had a big tattoo on his arm, it was just amazing and they came to take me to debridement and that's when they put you in the water and splash water up on you and then they rip your skin off. They literally skin you alive and if you've been burned, you know what I'm talking about. It's the thing you lay awake all night knowing it's coming the next morning. You can't go to sleep because you know the pain is going to be something you can't talk about. There are no words. But you couldn't talk about it, it's just that if there were words to say it and there aren't. Well, the first day they did that, I thought I had no pain from being burned but what they did in that tank hurt worse than ever being burned and Rosie came next morning the second day and he pushed the gurney back in the nurses and he put his big old forklift arms under me and picked me up. He personally carried me down that hall and put me in that water and they proceeded to continue to skin me alive. This has to go on many times until they get all the skin off of you that's dead and it continues to die so it doesn't just stop when they get skin off one day and think oh they got it all off. Well, some more dies the next day. But they were in their skin. I mean I look over and there's big old arms and that little rose on that arm as flexing as Rosie was weeping praying for me standing over against that door sill and I said to myself, you know, if he cares that much, I'm going to get through this and he carried me back to put me in my bed and I'm still dripping wet and just in pain I can't describe and he kept saying to me, over and over, walking back he said, you'll be fine big man. You'll see, you'll be fine and I looked up in his face and tears were running down that beautiful ebony skin reflecting from those tears that looked like fire would sparkle off of the lights reflecting and it was like an angel carried me that day. He got me in my bed and pulled those big huge arms out and reached up and I had a little tougher hair left and he pushed that little hair back bit down and kissed my forehead and he looked me right in the eyes and he said, you'll be fine big man, you'll see. I'm fine because somebody believed in me. He was there when I needed him most. That's what Christianity is all about. I never knew what happened to Rosie but I got a feeling when I get to heaven, this angel with a rose on his arms will come up laughing at me saying, you're fine big man. Now here I went and got all emotional. Can't do that on Sunday morning, can't we? Who needs hairspray, huh? I'm 58 years old as of last two weeks ago, whatever. I've never had more fun in my life than I'm having serving Jesus today. It's so fun being saved. I've been on a tour this last week with the U.S. Air Force and I'm speaking of military bases all over the United States and I'm just falling in love with the military since 9/11. I slammed my hand in my face. I said, God, don't you leave me out of this war every time I saw those repeats of that horrific day in New York at the Pentagon. I went ballistic. I remember turning. I screamed at my wife and I said, I need an M16. She said, you need to sit down before you have a stroke. I've got this really practical wife. Thank God her. I've been dead a long time ago. I'm like the redneck, his last four words were, hey, y'all watch his. I don't live on edge, I am the edge, I think. Oh, Lord. But boy, I just got so upset and I got, at the end of two weeks, I had 20 military installations calling and saying, we need you to bring your story to our troops and encourage them. We know we're going to go to war. That's starting out to get their mindset to take and make it no matter what they face and I said, I'll do it. I just got one question. If you got an M16, they said, yeah, I said, well, bring it. You bring the M16 and I'll bring the John 3/16 and we'll go find the Taliban together. And so we did. And I ended up over in the Middle East, ministering to our troops and I'm headed back again right after the first of the year. So I would like to know that if I come to your mind during the next months after January, after the first year, I hope you'll pray for me. But I brought some pictures I thought you'd like. Just real quick with you all, okay? There's a terrible price to be paid though. And there it is. Thank you and I both know that we are sitting in this room today free without Taliban rolling hand grenades down this aisle or al Qaeda driving up truck bombs because these people have put their life between us and those who would murder us. And my prayers that this church will be leading the way, gateway, you'll lead the way in the Metroplex to pray for the troops and remind this community and all of our nation that we owe them a debt and we will never be able to pay it all back. God bless them. Amen. Amen. I went up, I went up into concrete and I took the picture of what I had not seen in Vietnam. I took a picture of a chaplain in the war zone and not that the chaplains weren't in Vietnam, but they weren't permitted to come where we were. Not a chaplain came in the entire eight months I was in that jungle. I didn't get a preacher, pastor, teacher. I didn't even get Bob Hope or the Dallas cheerleaders and I would have remembered them. This guy's out there where they are. This is concrete. It's the hole that Saddam was brought out of the day before this picture was taken. It's an amazing experience to be with our military and to see our chaplains at work. We have the greatest chaplains in the history of our military today and God bless our chaplains. Amen. Well, they brought it in with 16 there it is. Yes, these are the guys that drive the convoy and the vehicles that I travel in when I'm on the ground. Most of my times in black are helicopters, but this is with the most wonderful young men that I tell you and not one second did they hesitate to put their life on the line and protect me. Next shot. This is a wonderful new friend I made over there. He is absolutely a spectacular Christian just loves Jesus, flies that magnificent machine sitting there behind us. He gave me a grease pencil and wrote on and he said, write a message on this bomb to Osama, an idea, and I hope he gives it. That's not nice in the church I bet, but oh well. This picture is wonderful for what you can't see and I apologize they wouldn't let the camera take the picture of the other direction in this very secured area, but I had a thousand men in that room with me and 350 gave their heart to Jesus in that town in Iraq. Isn't that wonderful? This is on the way back. This is actually in a C-130. These four magnificent human beings, I tell you every time I look at them I just fly the tears back. They bring home my dead. They bring home the war heroes that have given their lives for our country and in flight back to IUD Cutter from Baghdad we took this picture. I just wanted to have that picture. Here's what CNN won't show you. That precious lady looking straight into the eyes of that soldier saying thank you, you will not see that on CNN. It may not be a big parade, but in the mind of that woman she's got her life on the line just to do that because you never know when one of those stinking al-Qaeda or some Saddam loyalist or foreign fighter will see her do that. But you look in the background they're all saying thank you, they're all smiling and there's a reason why I'm excited about our men and women serving us because the next picture will show you the future of Iraq, right there it is and they're going to hear about Jesus because of our troops giving those people freedom to live their life. God bless the children of Iraq. Aren't they beautiful, look at that. This is one of Saddam's 74 palaces built with oil for fruit, whatever. I preached in that, by the way, that castle or whatever you'll call it, I preached in it and we baptize them and the kids that give the heart to Christ, we baptize them in the Saddam swimming pool. Just turn it into a baptism, why isn't that cool. This is at the hospital at the green zone, more about this later, but the man on the left is Colonel Carver, one of the most outstanding chaplains and was over all of the chaplains throughout the entire country of Iraq in the army. God bless him and the other chaplain as well. She flies that thing, that's an apache. No, no, not her, the helicopters and apache helicopter, I don't know what she is, she's beautiful, I'll tell you that. Most wonderful lady, but I can't remember her name because I gave her a new name. Now remember, she flies that apache helicopter. No wonder Saddam gave up, we've sent our women. I figured out when we got a real war, we put our women out there. She flies that thing, I called her Captain Casey, K.C., Killer Chick. She liked that, so she kept it. I'm sorry to be, this ego, ladies and gentlemen, forgive me, but I just had to slip that one in. That's me in a YouTube spy plane, they told me you can sit there, but don't touch anything red. I didn't even lay my head back. But if you don't talk ego, you'll like the next picture, oh Lord, you know what? That is Saddam's throne, his crown and his sword, and I sat there grinning like a possum. What's beautiful is, now you got to know, that throne was built, he was going to send it to Jerusalem when he conquered Israel, and he would rule the world, he said, from that throne. I sat on that throne and said, Jesus rules this world, and he's Lord over our rag. Give the Lord a clap offer this morning. Oh man, well it's kind of fun to do that, and you got to understand that for me, it's beyond fun, this is like, I'm on a mission, you know, it's not to be sitting on Saddam's throne, I sat on his sword too, it's a big deal, you know, it's solid gold. You were too, just for the fun of him, I mean, man's got to do what a man's got to do, you know what I'm saying? But it was such an important part of my life because I honestly felt as Esther spoken to by Mordecai, who knows, what you've come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And I'm saying to you, God didn't blow me up in Vietnam, he didn't shoot me, he didn't burn me, but he didn't stop it from happening because he had a bigger picture in mind, and he knew that I could relate to those troops hurt better than if I'd never been hurt. Again, God didn't do it, say this with me, God does not do evil, say it. God does not do evil. Sometimes he doesn't stop things from happening to us because he wants to trust us with it. He's trusting you with something. And he allows you to go through certain things in life so that you can become a living witness, a living witness to those around you who are going through the same problem. This summer I ended up losing my entire colon, it was shocking, not this summer, but a year ago this summer, and I lost six feet of a test, and I said, Lord, I'm just a gutless preacher now. Yeah, I've never had anything, everything that happened is on the outside. But the doctor said, there's a mastoid malignancy, and I was going to die and scared my wife to death, and I said, I'm not going to die, and he said, you are going to die, and Brenda said, well, are you going to die? I said, no, she said, well, how do you know? I said, because I'm not, and she said, well, they have an education. I said, who side are you on? Well, they ended up taking out the colon, the doctor said, good news is you'll never die of colon cancer. Oh, wow, and you think sometimes you've been through enough bad luck, you've got nothing but good luck left. Well, it's not luck, it has nothing to do with luck. Read what's left of these lips. Life is not fair. That's not even a question. The question in life is, how are you going to deal with it? That's the big question. How are you going to deal with it? You're going to go through life hating God, shaking your fist in his face. Why may God? What if he answered you? I don't know, Bill, something about you I don't like. Sorry, Bill, I was trying to hit your wife, but you moved. God is not evil. You said it, and you believe it, don't you? So God takes tragedy and turns it into triumph, and whatever you go through in your life, God can use it if you'll surrender it to him, and I did. And I started out with no problems, to be honest with you, other than the fact that my mom was very invalid. Personally, I was in good health, and I had no problems. But I watched my mother suffer, and I never saw her ever blame God, even when so-called smart Christians, and I'm saying so-called smart because they're children in here, and you're not supposed to use some words, but I have words for Christians that do this. They came up to my mom and said, "Repent, and God will heal you." It's like, you're sick, and God's punishing you, that's the most godly woman I ever knew. I had one group of guys get it, walk out while I speak, and they were from a particular school of thought. They got it, walked out while I was preaching, and on the way out, the last guy turned around and said, "Get the sin out of your life, God, take those scars off your face." I was stunned. My knees buckled, if I hadn't had a podium motor falling down, and the Lord just spoke to me and said, "Well, if I did that to you because you sinned, why did they crucify Jesus?" Jesus was crucified because I sinned, and he paid it all, and God didn't have any response but to take it out on me, Jesus already paid for it. Do you believe that? Say amen. And that thought just hit me so hard as the guy walked out, it was too late. I could have nailed that sucker with the love of Jesus right there, man. He was out before I could catch him. God does not do evil. He's not out to hurt you, and God did not wound me in Vietnam. That's war, and that's life. I grew up without that kind of stress, without pain in my life. When I was 11, 16 asked her to marry me. I did. I asked her to marry me when I was 16, my high school sweetheart. She slapped me. She's 13. I said, "But you have the body of a 14-year-old." I thought that was good, but she slapped me again, and she said, "If you love me, you will wait for me." I said, "I love you," and I waited for her. I said, "I'll pick you up at 10," but I knew what she meant, and I was saying this for all the young people in the house. We got married. We were both virgins. You can clap. All right. That's part one, part two is 37 years later, we're still married. Hey, you thought I was going to say virgin, didn't you? I could see it. Oh, you did, too. You thought it. Well, I got two kids, and I got four grandkids, and aren't grandkids awesome? They're God's rewards for not killing your kids. My little granddaughter sat in my lap and squeezed this mutilated old face in her tiny fingers, and she said, "Pap-all," which is southern speak for mighty man of war, holy man of God. I knew you knew that, but I wanted to remind you. She said, "Pap-all," and I said, "What little angel?" And loving music, like she does, she'd already learned this song. It's one of the favorite love songs of all time. She sang to me, holding my face, "You are so beautiful to me," and she bounced to give my brother. Can't you see, I couldn't see, I was crying and blowing snot bubbles. You know what? May not sound like it has a lot to do with you, but if I can model for you this morning, I want to show you that no matter what you've been through, you can still be happy in Jesus Christ. And He gives you what's important in life. There's some things that are taken away, so what? But what God gives back, "Oh, my goodness, it's good to know Jesus. Isn't it fun being saved? Aren't you glad you know Christ?" And if you don't know Jesus, look what you're missing. You could be like me, oops. Oh, well, I hate that oops, especially when it's the brain surgeon. So I ended up going to Bible College, married to my wonderful sweetheart. Life is on a roll. And I was working at General Dynamics, making more money than I had good sense, because I wasn't studying hard, my check went up, my grades dropped to below sea level. I hate that. They told me to go take my physical and I was being inducted in the Army, and I took my letter with me. I couldn't believe it. I took my physical zoning exam, I passed that semester. They told me I was going to be inducted in the Army, and I didn't show up the next morning. Don't look at me like that. I was a preacher's kid, I didn't want to go to war, I was too proud to go to Canada, too chicken to go to Vietnam, you know, where does a proud chicken go? Kentucky. I just thought that. Actually, I joined the Navy, that way I didn't have to serve in the military. Sorry, Navy types, that was all-in fun. I joined the Navy my second day in boot camp. They said, "You went to college?" I said, "I was flunking out of Bible school." He said, "No problem. Your leadership material." That's called Naval Intelligence. They sent me to NAB, Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, California, where three groups trained the U.S. Navy SEALs, the brown water black berry, and the special dive vehicle teams. I was in the brown water black berry before I knew what hit me. I'd never been around people like that in my life. All we did was run, and fat men shouldn't run. My philosophy on running is, "Why?" "Why run when you can walk, why walk when you can ride, why stand when you can sit, why sit when you can lay down, why run when you can lay down?" I figured life out, it's simple. I played football in the ninth grade, one down. It hurt so bad I quit and joined the band to watch the other kids get hurt. So that's the total, I mean, that's my physique, do you understand me? I am not physical. They ran me to a lot of skinny as a rail and had to tease the hair of my legs to keep my socks up. That's real bad. And you know something? It worked. They changed my mind on things I never thought I'd be changing on. They took a simple little preacher's kid that loved everybody and turned him into something he didn't know what he was. Sent me to war. Hardest thing I ever did was kiss my wife goodbye at the airport. People said, "How could you do it?" I said, "I puckered my lips." Now, I understand what they're saying. How could you fight in such an unpopular war? Well, I don't know. I wasn't thinking from now on, I'm fighting popular wars. I want to have fun in this war, I'm not fighting it. I hate war, and you can see why, but I love freedom more than I hate war and make no mistake. This is one Vietnam veteran, proud to be a Vietnam veteran and proud of my country. I'm proud of my scars and strife, yes sir. I mean it, I'm proud of the men I served with. God bless America. Thank you. And I can tell you, that's forever veteran in the house today. That's forever and I know you're just doing that because you mean it. God bless you. Well, they ended up sending me to Vietnam and they flew me by helicopter into the jungle throughout my, what they call a sea bag, it's a big round tubular bag, I don't know what you call it in other services, but in the Navy it's a sea bag. They threw it out and pushed me out in that rice paddy. I slogged over and got into a jeep waiting on me. I'm this little narrow dam of dirt and I'm thinking as the wheels are straddling it and they're working their way in toward the little village, I'm wondering, boy, where are they taking me? I would never see another city in Vietnam during that tour of duty. I never came out of the jungle. I was eight months in there. I was wounded twice and the second time was immense, it left me horribly disfigured. I was trying to throw a hand grenade and a sniper open fire and the bullet hit my hand with a grenade just inches from my right ear with a white fossil grenade for you military people and when it was right here it blew and that's why this out of my face remained. It only received second degree burns off my clothing, but the right side of my face was stripped right down to my skull, it took one second, I looked down, my face was on my boots and when I looked down I saw it, I could see my heart beating, my back was on fire, my skin was dripping, my right hand was severed in half. These three fingers and thumb were hanging by skin on the back of my hand and one finger was left that works, my preaching finger, repent. These don't straighten out, but they make a good mic stand, repent. My left thumb was blown off completely and that really bothered me. I couldn't hitchhike, I'm kidding, they made this out of my hip. I don't know if it's a thumb or a hip, I don't suck it, I'll tell you that. I call it a "thip", well I blew my hair off, it did, this isn't my hair, it's mine but it was someone else's first. He was slow and he was old too, I'm not near as old as my hair piece, I'm 58 but my mind I'm, I'm, I say 40 but it's really about 19 and I have artificial parts, I've got this plastic here, I put all my parts on the bed the other day, my wife said good night and I was in the other room, that, now that is a joke and I don't tell a lot of jokes but that's a joke. I was speaking one night, this is true now, I was in Jamaica and I was preaching there thousands and thousands of people gathered just a huge crowd and I'm speaking, sharing my story and at the same moment they all did the same thing, they covered their mouth, pointed at me, sucking air like a Hoover, I hate it when that happens, something was wrong. I don't mean to be crude but I checked my fly first, you know, I don't know, well my, it was fine, I look over, my ear had fallen off, my ear was laying on my shoulder, the glue had separated in the heat and Jamaica and my ear was laying in plain view, they couldn't speak their eyes with this big, they got voodoo down there, I didn't know what to do, what do you do when your ear falls off, well I picked it up, I said my ear fell off, I died in the sweat and I stuck it back on, that's worse, now they think it's a miracle and they all got saved. I couldn't tell them it's not a miracle, it's an artificial ear, then they'd stoned me, I wouldn't be the first guy to go to Jamaica and get stoned out here, oh good second thought. I tell you what, you're about the quickest audience I've talked to in a long time. Pastor must make you think when he preaches because you guys listen really well, but anyway, that grenade exploded right beside my ear and it blew off half my skin, I jumped off the boat in the water, I burned in the water because phosphorus is a chemical and it burns in water, my skin was all around me, I was beside myself, I needed to pull myself together. You know it's really wild, I'm telling you about this devastating injury where laughing our heads are, you know why, you know why you're laughing, you're laughing with me not at me, you know why you're laughing because you know I'm more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ, you know it, you know I overcame by the power of the gospel of Christ that he'd never leave us so forsake us and though I make my bed in hell, he is there with me, it's good to laugh, it helps me laugh, I love to laugh, I think laughter is a good medicine and you know what the reader's digest is, well we overdosed this morning, well they, I slammed upon the bank of the river and I was looking at the damage and helicopter landed to pick me up and they rolled me on the stretcher and the stretcher caught on fire, it ripped open, I fell through on my head, you ever had one of those days, it got me to Saigon and then Japan I asked for a mirror and they brought it, it was stupid to both of us, I shouldn't have asked and they shouldn't have brought it and they held it over my face and I looked up in the glass and I saw what was left, this side of my head was skull, this side was swollen to the width of my shoulder, I can only see with one eye, I looked in there and I said you know what, she's not going to love me and my face start talking, in the mirror I was hallucinating on the drugs they gave me and my face start talking to me and the mirror said kill yourself, you're half headed freak, you're wife's a beautiful teenage girl, get out of her misery and a terrible thing I did, I'm so ashamed of it, I want children to hear me, suicide is not the solution kids, brother they made a terrible mistake that day and I can blame the drugs or whatever but it was in me to do it because I tried it, I pulled the tube, I had no gun and knife, I pulled the tube and laid my head back and I waited to die and I got hungry, wrong tube, I pulled out my lunch to, you can die that way but it's going to take a while, they sent me to America to Brook Army Medical Center San Antonio, Texas, put me into a little room with 13, 12 others, 13 of us all together, and the bed next to my mind burned 100% third degree, no skin, his wife walked in the room through her ring on the bed and said you're embarrassing, I can walk down the street with you, he was the first to die, no one's ever survived 100% third degree, never, half my skin was gone and I was considered fatal at 30% of my skin, enough walks this beautiful, beautiful girl, most beautiful female I've ever seen in my life, she read the chart on my bed in the tag of my arm whom she was finally convinced I was her husband, burned a bit down and kissed all his left of my face, she looked me in my good eyes, she said I want you to know, I love you, welcome home, Davy, and when she says Davy, hey, hey, hey, I said I'm sorry I can't look good for you anymore and she said Davy, you never were a good-looking, oh, it's her way of saying I love you for who you are and I want you to look like thank God, men, thank God that women don't judge us by our looks, you'd be a bunch of bachelors out there, I can say you're not very pretty to me and thank God, pretty men, make me nervous, people say what do you do when you feel self-conscious, I say hang with the guys, I feel normal, don't look at me like that fellow, you're the youngest guy in here, he got the prettiest wife, don't you, you know why? Because she didn't judge you by your looks, she judged you by your character, you opened that door for her and you pulled that chair back and let her sit down first, that's why she loved you, you bought her flowers, all you boys out there sing a listen to me flowers, 1-800, that's better, it's better than that another concave, hairless, chest of yours, so button up your shirt and if you're broke and don't have the money for flowers, go to the cemetery, they're everywhere. I opened the door for my wife and I left that hospital, I opened that door for her, I had to get on my knees and use my wrist to turn that knob and she let me because she knew it was more important for me to have the dignity of being a gentleman to her than for her to open her own door and show that she didn't need me, what she doesn't need me but she wants me and that's why I love her. Drove my car in a man staring at me, drove his car through a Dairy Queen, he hit the plate glass when it said drive in, I was laughing while I was left in my head off, the light kept changing colors and got behind me honking and doing strange things and I took off when I did, I saw the light was red and it hit my breaking, it hit me, knocked me across the intersection, I got out to apologize, everybody dear queen thought I was drunk, then they saw me, they thought they were drunk, I only had one eye one ear, one nostril and the guy behind me, I'm trying to apologize, he's rolling up the window, I thought I'm going to tell him, look what you did to my face, but I was nice to him, I stood there kicking pieces of our headlights and taillights mixed together in a green soup out of his radiator thinking is this what life's going to be, is this all it is, I'm going to cause wrecked scare kids, is this what life's about, it was no easy task, if you wonder why I look up I'm watching my clock up here, I want to tell you something, that day was the turning point of my life, not the day I pulled the tube, not the day of my injury, standing in that intersection was the turning point of my life, that's when I said God I refuse to bury my head in the sand and pretend this didn't happen or go hide my face because I'm ashamed of my scars, I've fought for our liberty and I'm going to enjoy it, and I walked away from that intersection that day vowing I'd do something with my life, when I landed in Baghdad this year they rushed me to the green zone trying to beat the IED casualties, those roadside bomb casualties, five of them were arriving as I walked in, actually ran in with those two chaplains you saw earlier on the screen, when I walked in the doctor looked up at me and he said he knew my name, he said Davey I knew you would come only to discover he knew who I was because one of my CDs of my story had gotten to Iraq and he saw the picture of my face on that and he said I knew you would come, do you think I'm not on a divine mission then, bubba I knew I was where God wanted me, he said pray for him and I dropped down beside the gurney, 100% 30 degrees swollen twice his size, they were making two inch deep cuts from his shoulders to his toes, letting his body swell and split open, trying to save his life but no one has survived it neither did he, and when I knelt down beside him his breath was shallow and I saw his head turn slightly and I said to him I said son you know this is not a hospital don't you, I said you're in a sanctuary and you're not on a gurney son you're you're on an altar I told him and you're on an altar not because you're a great soldier but because you're a sacrifice for freedom and I told him I said son I came to say thank you I've come from the United States of America to tell you thank you and I saw as his breath slipped through the last of his nostrils his chest rose not again and he gave the price for freedom people have said to me with the way God's allowed you to have platform you've got today you do it again wouldn't you I want to hit him I tell him I didn't want to do it the first time much let's do it twice but today I stand before you and I flatly declare if that's what it took all that I've been through to be able to wish for those two magnificent words to a magnificent hero thank you and it's the last thing he heard on earth I would do it again in a New York minute so help me God I would do it again I mean I love you in sign language but my thumb got blown off I speak sign language with a list it means I love you I've enjoyed being with you I'm Dave Rever and I approve to this message thank you. (applause)