The Warrior Spirit and My Christian Faith

The Warrior Spirit: The passionate desire and determination in the heart to prepare oneself and perfect oneself for the stance against evil in the service of others.

About 44 years ago, I began to ask myself a compelling set of questions. They went something like this…“Does the warrior spirit have a relevant role to play in my Christian faith? If so, how should it be properly identified and integrated into my Christian universe?” Those, and some related questions, set me on a quest for answers. This essay is a condensed version of the result of that quest.

In 1981 I was 35 years old, happily married and had been a naval aviator for 12 years. I had over 500 combat missions under my belt flying gunships with the elite Navy Seawolves, supporting navy SEAL teams, gun boats, and other allied units in Vietnam. I had just led a very successful helicopter combat support mission while assigned to Commander, Middle East Force and, admittedly, walked with a bit of a swagger. The warrior spirit was a very real and functional concept to me, but I was a warrior.

I was a very nominal Christian, if that, when I received orders to, HS-1, the squadron responsible for training all east coast pilots and aircrew flying the SH-3H carrier-based anti-submarine warfare mission. The squadron commander, Cdr. Barry Spofford, was respected as a warrior and widely esteemed for his leadership at sea. He was the type of leader that young men are drawn to and desire to emulate. Later he would be promoted to Captain and become our wing commander for his exceptional leadership skills.

There was something different about him and occasionally you would hear whispers that “the skipper is a Christian” or “he’s a holy roller”. He would occasionally invite some of us aviators to a Bible study…to me that was strange…or to meetings of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International. Several of us went to these meetings from time to time like when the Mayor of Jacksonville, Florida Hans Tanzler or Apollo Astronaut Charles Duke was speaking. These men did not have the aura of “holy rollers.”

My quest as a spiritual warrior began the night my wife and I went to hear astronaut Charles Duke one of only 12 men who had walked on the moon. Charlie spoke in a sincere and compelling manner about his faith in Jesus Christ and his own battle with demonic forces. I was very familiar with the reality of actual combat but Charlie Duke convinced me of the reality of spiritual warfare. He also, without knowing, introduced me to the concept of the reality of spiritual warfare.

Over the next several years I began, with gifted mentors, to exercise my spiritual and temporal authority in a seamless fashion with incredible results. After 3 years I was astonished to receive orders to the “lowest rated” squadron of our type on the east coast, HS-7. The squadron was part of Carrier Air Wing-3 assigned to the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, CV-67. The squadron had a long, long history of mediocrity and so it was not with a lot of enthusiasm that I received these orders.

I remember asking God if He got this assignment right! This was the first time my wife and I had ever prayed seriously about much of anything especially about my orders to a new command. According to the theology of some, I as a “child of God”, should have gotten orders to the highest rated squadron. It was then that I believe I heard “that still small voice” say You take care of the needs of your men and I will take care of your squadron. For me this was all very, very different.

Over the next three years incredible things happened: marriages were healed; two key personnel were healed of depression; an insect bite while in Kenya became greatly infected calling for a foot amputation far out at sea, I went to sick bay, prayed and the swollen, blackened foot was miraculously healed; domestic financial issues were resolved; a suicide attempt by jumping overboard on a dark night in the cold North Atlantic was found by me, guided by a “inspired” heading to fly and followed by a supernatural light around the survivor.

There were many other answered prayers in the lives of our men as daily we were seeing our squadron transformed from mediocrity to excellence. I prayed for our men to have discernment in resolving difficult aircraft maintenance issues and at critical times laid hands in prayer on the aircraft. We won awards and set new records in several areas: Arleigh Burke Award as Most Improved Air Squadron in Atlantic Fleet; aircraft maintenance readiness awards; set a new probability of closure rate for the MK-46 torpedo; and finally won the coveted Battle “E” as the most combat ready squadron of our type in the Atlantic Fleet. It was unprecedented to win Arleigh Burke and Battle “E” during the same period.

Perhaps the greatest miracle was that this high achievement began under the most adverse of circumstances. During the first year we lost one aircraft in a crash at sea which was shortly followed by a second crash, which was also unprecedented. I really did ask, “God what’s up with this?” Fortunately, God was “taking care of” the squadron and there was no loss of life or even any injuries.

One aircraft, with the commanding officer as pilot, was hovering over the aft end of a destroyer for a personel transfer when the number 2 engine failed. The aircraft moved slightly aft and crashed violently onto the aft gun mount causing an extremely dangerous situation. Spinning rotor blades impacted the ships superstructure sending metal debris in all directions and the fuel cell ruptured. Again, no injuries.

The second crash involved a tail rotor failure in flight which creates the need to land immediately due to the spinning of the aircraft. To properly execute this maneuver over water requires great skill and, I believe God’s hand. The aircraft successfully ditched at sea and, although the four crew were all safe, this second crash precipitated a major internal morale crisis.

There is always an element of healthy friction between enlisted aircrew and maintenance personnel. However, this second crash raised serious doubt in the mind of many air crewmen. They questioned if the aircraft were actually “safe for flight” and visibly shook the confidence of maintenance personnel of their own capabilities. I was the Maintenance Officer and, as such, was personally responsible for the aircraft. I had previously been the Operations Officer and had trained all the aircrew and knew them well. However, doubt and fear gripped our squadron, and there was a discernable heaviness in the air.

Our commanding officer was a good officer, he just did not have a clue about spiritual warfare and we were in, what seemed like a 48 hour do-or-die battle. With aircrew refusing or reluctant to fly the entire mission of the battle group was greatly diminished because none of the other aircraft could launch without The SH-3 being airborne first. The skipper was in jeopardy of losing the command. It was an intense spiritual battle and I retreated to my state room to pray. After a few hours there was knock on my door by one of the young aircrew leaders, AW2 Stethem. I knew him to be a Christian and I invited him in.

He began to share with me that the aircrew, himself included, were “afraid to fly”…they did not trust the maintenance workers capability. With the unprecedented loss of 2 of our total of 6 aircraft that was understandable. Later the accident investigations would find that “mechanical failure”, not maintenance procedures, were responsible for the crashes. Though I suspected that to be the case, my opinion was irrelevant in this emotionally charged environment.

I told Ken that I understood their concern and reminded him of 2 Timothy 1:7 that “God had not given us a spirit of fear but one of love, power, and a sound mind”. I let that truth sink in for a moment and then asked him if he “wanted to fly?” He responded “yes sir…I want to but I am afraid”. I then asked him if he believed that God was greater than his fear and he said, “yes sir!”. So then I told him that I believed God would deliver him of all his fears and suggested that we pray…right now! And so we did…and God’s truth did free him from fear! The tension was no longer on his face…he smiled, we stood, he thanked me, we embraced and he departed to talk with the other air crewmen.

Ken was the type of young leader that everyone, those junior to him and those senior to him, highly respected. I’m not sure what he told his shipmates, but shortly thereafter, normal flight operations were restored. The commanding officer had no clue what had happened or how…he was just very pleased. I later recommended Ken for Navy SEAL training, and he went on to serve in the elite SEAL Team Six.

I learned in the crucible of intense carrier operations that spiritual warfare should be a vital part of every combat unit. God had certainly been faithful to his Word…“take care of the needs of your men and I will take care of your squadron”. When you think about that word it is really sort of “pastoral”. I then had this question…Will this spiritual warfare stuff work in the less hectic, mundane realm of shore duty?

God really does have a sense of humor. I had begun to get interested in the ministry of Prison Fellowship about 4 years before while in HS-1 in Jacksonville, Florida. So now I get orders to Washington DC as Head of Navy Corrections. Is that cool or what! The navy corrections system was not really a system but 21 separate brigs and 13 correctional custody units spread out around the globe from Spain to Guam. There were some 2000 prisoners and several hundred staff, antiquated facilities, and not too much going on except a lot of basketball. Here’s what my God did.

He gave me a couple words like He had done before, so I knew His voice. One was, “study Proverbs 6:6-8”, so I became an amateur myrmecologist, an ant expert; two was, “total program for the total person, body, mind and spirit”; and three was, “a hand up not a hand out”. Part of my daily routine was to go in early and pray over the 9 men in my chain of command, beginning with the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, e.g., and then over all the units and then over all of my staff. I had our arts department make me a wall chart with the 21 brig locations from Guam Island to Rota, Spain.

In the course of my duties I came across a powerful lobbyist, John Forehand, and we became friends. I was able to lead him and his family to a faith in Jesus Christ. John had a serious heart issue and was scheduled for cardiac surgery by the head cardiologist at a prestigious local hospital. As John laid on the gurney they checked his heart function one more time. To his amazement the Head of Cardiology looked down on John’s gurney and said that he could not explain how, but John had the heart of a young man.

Washington DC is a center of power and you have to almost experience it to get a true sense about it. However, the spiritual warrior does not measure probability of success based upon size of the opposition but, like young David, upon the size of his God. In the process of time we saw countless miracles such as: $250k was funded for a navy wide study of navy corrections; John Forehand took me over to meet the House Majority Leader’s staff; $47 M was approved in 1987 and $30M in 1988 to build a large new concept facility on each coast and rebuild a totally new system of smaller short term facilities in many locations.

These designs all included significant industry, vocational, religious and educational programs and as a bonus, the efficient designs enabled over 200 staff positions to be eliminated. All of what God spoke to me about was included in the design and programs. An ant hill is really an amazing operation. They are clean and neatly ordered in design, all movement is purposeful, all activity is in its proper season, no king is required to maintain order, and compliant, even industrious behavior seems to rule the day.

I was selected to go to Charleston to supervise the construction of the $15M facility and get the new staff trained for this new navy mission. As the founding commanding officer we selected the motto, “Bearing the Standard for Correctional Excellence”. Today, some 36 years later, Naval Consolidated Brig Charleston remains the national standard bearer for correctional excellence. The command has received eight consecutive 100% compliance ratings on American Correctional Association tri-annual audits. This record far exceeds any other prison in the United States and Canada!

ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED!

Barney Barnes, Warrior Spirit Ministries, 03-15-2025