That February, on his blog on the Washington Post’s Web site, Arkin whined about an NBC story in which some soldiers serving in Iraq expressed frustration with war protests and asked for the support of the American people:
I’m all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn’t for them to disapprove of the American people . . .10
When I read that, I thought, The soldiers are the American people. Arkin continued:
These soldiers should be grateful that the American public . . . [does] still offer their support to them, and their respect . . . Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order . . .11
Those behind Abu Ghraib and Haditha were investigated and punished, not indulged. Was Arkin hinting here that Abu Ghraib and Haditha were the American military standard?
So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?12
Then Arkin refers to the comments of soldiers who, in an NBC report, asked for the support of American citizens as:
. . . an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary—oops sorry, volunteer—force that thinks it is doing the dirty work . . . America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform.13
So this is the “military analyst” who engineered the L.A. Times hit piece. A man who apparently believes that the American military is riddled with rapists and murderers. Who divides the American people and American soldiers into “us” and “them.” Who believes that American soldiers are mercenaries and that despite the Twin Towers, suicide bombers and video-taped beheadings, the terror war is about money.
After a seven-year investigation, I have concluded that William Arkin is an anti-military, leftwing conspiracy nut and a religious bigot. I did not call him to ask whether this is true.
6
AS THE POUNDING IN THE PRESS CONTINUED, the nasty e-mails started rolling in. One person wrote to tell me that I had insulted every Jew in the nation. He went on to say that I should leave the Army, since I clearly did not value soldiers of other faiths. An Arab group sent me a Koran and told me that I was an “intolerant extremist.” Many people wrote to Secretary Rumsfeld, urging that I be disciplined or fired.
And as the bullets flew, the firepower of the folks doing the shooting increased. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner and Democratic Senator Carl Levin wrote to Rumsfeld, urging him to launch an inspector general probe.
“Remarks by a senior military officer denigrating another religion could be exploited by America’s enemies,” they wrote, “and even endanger U.S. troops serving in Muslim nations.” Had anyone noticed that I hadn’t denigrated Islam, but had specifically said on tape that a radical wing of Islam was to blame—a wing that was to Islam as the Ku Klux Klan was to Christianity?
Congressmen Barney Frank and John Conyers circulated petitions calling for my ouster. Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, both still vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, trashed me. “Our cause in the war on terror isn’t helped when we have army officers like Lieutenant General William Boykin speaking in evangelical churches and claiming this as some sort of battle for the Christian religion,” Kerry said. “That’s wrong. That’s un-American.”
If I hadn’t been under so much stress, I might have laughed out loud at that one. I guess Kerry felt it was more American to come back from Vietnam and testify to Congress about American war atrocities—testimony that was later shot full of holes.
On Sunday, October 21, national security advisor Condoleeza Rice was asked about me on a national news program. “I think the president is very clear here on what [the president] means here,” she said. “This is not a war between religions. No one should describe it as such.”
Rice had just put the first measure of distance between me and the Bush administration.
7
I WASN’T SLEEPING MUCH. Each new accusation, each new twist on the truth stacked up on my shoulders like another lead weight. But as I prayed—moaned and groaned to God, really—I sensed Him saying to me, Lift up your head. Open your eyes and look at what’s going on around you.
When I got my eyes off myself long enough, I realized that I was getting calls and e-mails every day from friends who said, “We’re behind you. We’re praying for you.” Similar calls and letters poured in from my family and church in North Carolina, and from people I had never met before in places all over the world. In the Pentagon, people would walk up to me in the halls and say, “I know you don’t know who I am, but I want you to know that I’m praying for you.”
I had congressmen calling me to offer private encouragement, including Robin Hayes of North Carolina. “I’m standing with you, Jerry,” he told me. “All you need to do is call me.”
Twenty-seven members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter to President Bush saying, in effect, “You need to stand by this man.”
Conservative commentators like Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, and Ann Coulter stood with me.
In WorldNetDaily, Pat Buchanan wrote, “Lt. Gen. William G. ‘Jerry’ Boykin, the former Delta Force commander, seems to be exactly the kind of warrior America needs to lead us in battle against the kind of fanatics we face.”14
But the mainstream media continued their shelling until finally Ashley got fed up. Desperate to let people know what I had really said and what I really stood for, she called Gary Bauer, a Christian activist. He immediately used his radio program and newsletter to urge conservatives to support me.
Then Ashley called Focus on the Family.
We didn’t really know anyone there, but when she told the switchboard who she was, they quickly connected her to Focus president James Dobson. After Ashley explained our position, Dobson immediately took up my cause. First, he issued a press release: “Since when does a man not have the right to express his private religious views in the company of fellow believers? Does a man forfeit his freedom of speech when he becomes a military leader?” he wrote, adding that my remarks with regard to spiritual warfare were made to audiences comprised exclusively of Christians who clearly understood the meaning of my message.
The following week, Dobson devoted an entire radio broadcast to my situation. At the end, he urged listeners who wanted to express their support for me to call the White House and the Pentagon. Dobson also provided two telephone numbers, one of which, it turned out, connected callers directly to Don Rumsfeld’s office.
Problem was, Dobson has millions of listeners. In the first couple of hours after the broadcast, thousands of callers swamped the Secretary’s private line. Finally Rumsfeld’s junior military aide, Steve Bucci, a Special Forces veteran and a man of strong faith, called Focus.
“First, the Secretary gets the message,” Bucci told Focus. “Second, can you please call this thing off? It’s kind of an emergency. We’ve got to be able to keep some lines open to the Secretary’s office.”
“Sorry,” came the message from Dobson: “Once it’s out there, I can’t turn it off.”
8
A WEEK LATER, the inspector general’s office called me in for questioning. I wound my way from the E Ring to the C Ring, where two guys waited for me in a room with a conference table. Both were civilians and had that tightly wound, self-important “I’m an investigator” air about them—dark suits, white shirts, pagers on their belts. One was dark-haired and he
avyset. The other was thin and wiry. The skinny one introduced himself as a lawyer.
We all sat down at the conference table. A microcassette recorder sat in the center of the table. The big guy reached forward to switch it on, and a quiet hiss spun up from the table. Then he read me my rights.
My rights. That immediately pissed me off. Not because they did it—I knew they had to, and expected it—but because I was being read my rights over unsubstantiated allegations reported in the media. As though I was a criminal suspect. My anger might have passed, but then the suits started treating me like a criminal suspect.
“We’ve looked at tapes of your speeches,” the big guy said. “What do you mean the real enemy of this country is Satan? Who authorized you to wear your uniform while giving these speeches?”
Then Skinny chimed in: “Did you have your JAG review your planned speaking activities?” He meant the judge advocate general, or command attorney, at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School where I had served at the time of my talks.
The interrogation, as I quickly came to think of it, went on for two hours. The big guy kept worrying with the cassette recorder, checking it to be sure the tape was still documenting my evil deeds. I tried not to let my frustration show, but I’m not sure I did a very good job of it.
Finally, Skinny said, “That’s all we have for now. We’re going to go down to Bragg and speak to some people. We’re also going to talk with people at those places where you spoke. We’ll contact you when we’re ready to talk to you again.”
I was dismissed.
On October 28, I watched from the secretaries’ office as President Bush held a Rose Garden news conference. He had just returned from a trip to Asia and Indonesia, and was set that night to meet with Muslim leaders at an Iftaar dinner, a breaking of the fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. During the press conference, the president called on reporter Tom Hamburger.
“I wondered if you could tell us your reaction when you encountered Muslim leaders in Indonesia,” Hamburger said. “I understand that some of them brought up specific comments made by General Boykin—”
“Yes, they did,” the President said.
Hamburger continued: “I wondered if you would address those comments and whether you think that General Boykin ought to be disciplined or resign.”
The President didn’t answer that last question. Instead, he said three Muslim leaders he met with wanted to know why Americans think Muslims are terrorists.
“My answer was, it’s not what Americans think,” President Bush said. “Americans think terrorists are evil people who have hijacked a great religion. That’s why Mr. Boykin’s comments were—General Boykin’s comments don’t reflect the administration’s comments. And by the way, there’s an IG investigation going on inside the Defense Department now about that. He doesn’t reflect my point of view, or the view of this administration.”
I was crushed. How could my commander-in-chief say that to the whole world without first finding out the truth? And how could he spin the IG investigation to make it look like the administration was taking action against me? I was the one who requested the investigation.
“Our war is not against the Muslim faith . . . ,” the President continued. “We welcome Muslims in our country. In America, we love the fact that we are a society in which people can pray openly—or not pray at all, for that matter.”
I had defended that right for more than three decades. I had defended Muslims against their enemies and persecutors in two different countries. And I never said or implied that America was against the Muslim faith. Now the President of the United States was reinforcing the idea that I had.
That moment was the lowest of my Army career.
9
THE MEDIA FIRESTORM CONTINUED. On October 31, Bill Press of WorldNetDaily joined the ranks of columnists who decided it was acceptable to judge me without getting my side of the story. “A 30-year veteran, Boykin does, indeed, have an impressive resume . . . The problem is, he comes to his job as an intolerant, religious zealot . . . Gen. Boykin is the American echo of Osama bin Laden.”15
Press wasn’t alone. By month’s end, the American news stories that came out following Arkin’s attack were being reported this way: “Gen. Boykin . . . has been quoted as saying the war against terrorists, such as those who killed and mutilated U.S. soldiers in Somalia in the name of religion, is a battle between good and evil with terrorists representing ‘Satan.’ ”16
The media got a lot of mileage out of the whole “Satan” thing. As soon as you start mentioning Satan, people start calling you a crackpot. It’s okay to talk about him at church or a Bible study. But let it come out in the public square that you believe there is a real devil, and people start to wonder whether you’re a little odd. And if you take the next logical step—that if there really is a devil, his influence in the world is real—people will put an index finger to their temple and twirl it.
I thought about that a lot. Am I crazy? Am I the problem? The crisis caused me to examine my beliefs regarding the God spoken of in Scripture, the same God whom something like ninety percent of Americans say they also believe in. The same Bible that talks about God talks about Satan. Was the Bible some kind of salad bar, where we just pick out the things that make us feel warm and spiritual, and reject the rest?
Apparently, for Arkin and company, believing in God was one thing. But to have Him be real in my life as a soldier, and to talk about that publicly, was some kind of war crime.
10
SOON, THANKS TO ARKIN and his media acolytes, more than my career was at stake. The worldwide news stories brought me to the attention of radical Islamic organizations, and information about me started to appear on their Web sites. For example, Adam Pearlman, an American citizen who joined al-Qaeda and now goes alternately by the Islamic names of Adam Yahiye Gadahn or Abu Shhayb al-Amriki, began calling for my assassination.
Another Islamic Web site posted this ominous question: “Does the position of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense warrant a personal protection detail? The discernment at the time of this report is no.”
I had faced down violent men before, but another development truly struck fear in my heart: Islamic sites began posting maps to my home, and listing the names of my wife, my son Aaron, and my friends.
In February, the IG investigators called me in for a second interview. We set up in a small conference room again, and the big guy switched on his pet tape recorder. In the three months since we’d last met, both men had received an attitude transplant. And not for the better. Where they had been grim before, now they were overtly skeptical—snide, even.
“Let’s talk about this JAG thing again,” Skinny said. “We can only find one written opinion from your JAG on your speaking engagements.”
“I told you last time that he only issued a couple of written opinions.”
“How many different JAGs did you have?”
“Well, see, that’s part of the problem,” I said. While I was at Special Warfare Center, I had three different JAGs. One left the Army and the guy who replaced him was deployed to Afghanistan. That paved the way for a third attorney—three different JAGs within just a couple of years.
“Hopefully, you talked to all three of them,” I said.
“Yeah, we did. But they don’t remember any of the details,” Skinny said. “The question is, how much information did you really give them about these speaking engagements?”
Again, they had pissed me off. As though I had been withholding some kind of dark secrets about my speaking on the Fourth of July and Memorial Day at churches. I wanted to laugh: The darkest secrets at these very public events were probably what kind of pig parts were in the hot dogs.
“I’m going to tell you again,” I said slowly, enunciating each word. “In most cases, I didn’t give them much information. That was my secretary’s job. She gave the JAG the details, gave him the invitation—”
“That may be part of the problem here,�
�� Skinny interrupted. “You didn’t give them sufficient information for them to give a legal opinion on what you were doing. Do you have any proof that you told the JAG what these events were about?”
Suddenly it became clear to me that in this room, the principle of innocent until proven guilty had been turned on its head. In this room, it was You’re guilty unless you prove you’re not.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “As I have told you before, there were only a couple of times that I personally sat down and talked to the JAG.”
Now they zeroed in on a specific event, the patriotic observance in Daytona Beach, Florida—the one where my talk had motivated David Martin and his wife to go back to church. “What made you think you could wear your uniform to this event?”
“It was a public event,” I said.
“Do you have any evidence of that?”
“Why don’t you call the pastors of the churches that put it on?”
“We have.”
Then why are we having this conversation?
The big guy switched horses. “While you were down there, you visited a friend of yours from Special Forces.”
“Yes, I did. He works for a company that does simulations and I was running a school that wanted to use simulations. It was a business meeting, scheduled in advance.”
Another new horse: “On another trip, you spoke at a church and to a law enforcement group and claimed that was the reason you were there. We have evidence that the law enforcement speech was an after-the-fact decision.”
“There are plenty of people who will provide you with evidence that it was planned ahead of time.”
The investigators openly traded disbelieving sneers.
Then Skinny said: “What made you think you could wear your uniform in the church down there?”
Jerry Boykin & Lynn Vincent Page 30