On this episode of Our American Stories, whether armed or unarmed, the medics and defenders of the Free Burma Rangers stand with those trapped in the middle of war zones - and stand their ground. Telling of this intense mission is founder and former Green Beret, Dave Eubank.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from a man who truly puts his faith in
action combat zones. To be exact. Dave U Bank's main
mission with the Free Burmer Rangers is to deliver aid
in areas of the world where bullets are literally flying
overhead and the risk of death is high. He also
(00:31):
brings his family and children along for the ride. Here
he is to tell his faith story. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
So this is how I felt called to be a missionary.
I don't know if I was born a soldier or
I just decided to become one so young that I
can't remember the difference.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
But I was naturally attracted.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
To action and combat and testing myself and going forward
and trying to face evil and win from a very
early age. Went to University at Texas A and M
was commissioned there as an officer in the US Army.
Was in the infantry down in Panama and doing different
missions all over central South America. Then I went to
the second Ranger Battalion and I was an attuned leader
(01:18):
there as a first lieutenant. And then I tried out
for Special Forces and I became a a team.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Leader for the Special Forces of Green Berets.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Altogether, I spent just under ten years nine points something
years in the army and felt the call.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
To get out. Military has all its challenges, but I
liked it. I liked the action.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't like all the rules and time use, but
I love the action. I love the people in it.
But I remember when I rededicated my life to the
Lord in my thirties, when I had a crisis of
really following Jesus and decided to follow full on. After
a lot of failures, Well my way down work, Jesus,
I'm going to go back to your way. And I
(02:02):
felt God say, stay in the army.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I'll bless you.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Put God first, your men's second, and you last, which
is not the order it was. Put God first, your
men's second, you last. You be effective for me in
the army. I'll bless you. Or get out and see
what happens. I had a choice that kind of makes
it hard, but I thought, I wonder what it's like
to get out and just totally depend on God and
go for it. And I got out and I went
(02:31):
to seminary. But while I was doing that, that's when
the Wa tribe of Burma came and said to my dad,
pleased to someone to help us. They saw a picture
of me with the green beret on. They say, send
that guy. We're a warrior people, we need warriors. We'll
understand them. He's a warrior, we know that talking about me,
and we need Jesus. And your son's a seminary, so
(02:54):
he's trying to follow Jesus.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Send him.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And when I got that call, it just felt right.
You know, like when you fall in love with someone,
how do you describe the feeling of falling love? Why
did you choose that person? That's invisible, but it's powerful
more than anything else. And I just felt that in
my heart. This is from God. This is from God,
and it's a feeling, you know. I saw a movie
once based on a true story of a young girl
(03:18):
who had a horse and loved it, but they had
to sell it is Oklahoma during the drought, I guess
in the thirties or whenever. They had to sell it
because they couldn't afford it the farm anymore, they couldn't
feed the horse and all this, and the wife is
talking to the husband after the sales saying, you know,
our daughter feels so bad.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I feel so bad. And the husband says, well.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I'm going to give you some facts. We don't have food,
we can't feed the horse, we can't do this. We're
gonna lose the farm.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And then his wife says, feelings are facts too. That
really struck me. Feelings are facts too. They are.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
You don't get married just on hard facts. You get
married on feelings. You don't go to war just on
hard facts. You don't do anything just on hard facts.
You have to feel it. And I think that feeling
is from God. How we use it can be for
the devil, it could be for anything, but it's from God.
And for me, there was just that feeling like Okay,
you're going to go. It was a lot of fighting
(04:12):
because that Burma's the longest running civil war in the world.
Over three million displaced in the last two years alone,
millions more in the last seventy three years of fighting,
more fighting now than there's been since World War Two.
The Burma dictatorship right now is supported by China, Russia,
North Korea.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
It's wicked and killing its own people.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've lost sixty of our rangers, of our humanitarian men
and women killed in serving others there's thousands more others
have been killed.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
That's just our group. So we're in the middle of
this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And I remember when we first started, there was fighting
that were shooting and I was helped trying to help
wound it. And this ethnic Karen medic stepped out of
the jungle next to where.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I was said, my name is Celia, I am a medic.
Can I help you? And I had a bunch of medicine.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I'm not medic, and I go, yeah, man, And we
started working together, and other ethnic men and women started
to join us, and we just started to go where
the fighting was and help people, and slowly became the
Free Beommerangers, and we follow Jesus. Although to be in
the Free Berimme Rangers, you don't have to follow Jesus.
You have to do this for love. We only have
three rules. The ability to read and write in any language.
(05:25):
You can't run. People can't run.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
You got to stay with them. With you're armed or not.
It's up to you.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
But if you have no guns and they're coming with guns,
the enemy is and the people can't flee, you've got
to stay with them. You got to help them flee
or live or die with them. And the last one
is do this for love. We don't pay the team
to do this for love and trust God. So I'm
a soldier submitted to Jesus serving as a missionary. You know,
(05:53):
actions speak louder than words. So the fact that you're there,
even if you don't like your skin color or race
or country you came from. You there and they're in trouble,
that's automatically you're like, whoa, that guy didn't have to
be here, not paying them and it's not comfortable right
now and it may be super dangerous, and he's here.
Huh why when you're there with these people, your presence
(06:14):
starts off the whole thing. You're here, I remember, you know,
having our kids with us. The Kurdish general said, you
brought your son, your most precious thing.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I give you my most precious thing in my country.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
When Mari Sudan getting bald of us every day in
the Newer Mountains, the leader of the Newer Mountains said,
you brought your family. That means you don't want anything
from us, You just here to give.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Wow. I haven't seen that wow.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
And then with others like Iraqi general, you brought your family.
You must think that in God's eyes, American children and
Iraqi children have the same value because you're living with
our children.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So that's first thing is presence, and the next thing
is action.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
What are you doing handing out food, medicine, running through
gunfire to say somebody, Oh wow, you rich your life
for me.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
You don't even know me, man, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
But God knows you and God knows me, so that
makes us related that way. And he told me to
come and help you. Oh wow, okay, And then those
are actions and then words. Please forgive us. I'm an
American for the things we've done, enrolled them against you,
because we're just human, which is people just like you.
America is not God, It's not the devil. The good
(07:25):
things America has done because God has blessed us when
we obey him, and sometimes he blesses us when we
don't obey him.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
He's just good that way.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
But we have a lot of good things and a
lot of things work so well in our country because
we follow God.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
But we're not God, which is people.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
We make mistakes too, and some of our mistakes have
hurt you. Please forgive us. I love my country. I'm
so grateful to be an American and for the good.
It's done more than any other country in the whole world.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That's sure. But we're still people.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
We still make mistakes, we still kill people that don't
shouldn't have been killed. And I apologize and they go,
huh okay, we forgive you.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
We forgive you.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And that's from people whose kids have been killed and
in their strike. The American military in general tries very
hard and has the best record in the world of
not killing people they don't want to kill, but still
it happens.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
We're human.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So to say we're sorry, and then to say we
come in Jesus' name and ask Jesus yourself whether you're Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic,
spirit worship or Buddhist.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
This is not about religion. This is bigger than religion.
This is about the living God who sent his son
and loves you. And we come in his name because
he changes our heart. He didn't just change it once,
he keeps changing it every day. And we offer that too.
You don't have to take it, but that's why we
come in Jesus' name. And what can I pray with you?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
And about every time they go yes, please, only one
time in my entire life have I said to someone
in a foreign country, can I pray? And they said yes,
and a butt don't pray in Jesus' name, not only will.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And I prayed in Jesus name anyway. There.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
When I was done, they go, I told you not to.
I said, well, man, that's my prayer.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I got to do it. But don't worry. I won't
pray anymore with you.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
There was only one guy. Everybody else is like, yeah, please,
I'm in trouble. And I remember in the Battle of
Mosa when it was over, Iraqi General came to me
and said, you know, we almost lost our country. And
I prayed to God for help and he gave me
the worst two things in one an American Christian you,
(09:29):
but thank you for showing us what it means.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
To follow Jesus. Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And I love this guy. It's General Mustafa Muslim. So
love is what breaks down barriers than all of us.
And Jesus offers that supernatural transformation of the heart. And
when we are willing to follow him, even in the
midst of our weaknesses and sins and questions, when we
say I'll obey you, Jesus, please give me your love.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
He does and he goes with you and people feel that.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So that's my only hope in ministry because I'm also
just a person with sinful thoughts, sinful actions, limitations, but
offered up to Jesus.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
He uses us anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Because he loves us too, and he wants us to
love each other. My mom says, God has friends all
over the world and he likes them to meet each other.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery, and a special thanks to
Dave you Bank free Burmer Rangers. That's his mission and
that's his mission field a soldier missionary. Dave you Bank's
story here on our American Stories
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from a man who truly puts his faith in
action combat zones. To be exact. Dave U Bank's main
mission with the Free Burmer Rangers is to deliver aid
in areas of the world where bullets are literally flying
overhead and the risk of death is high. He also
(00:31):
brings his family and children along for the ride. Here
he is to tell his faith story. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
So this is how I felt called to be a missionary.
I don't know if I was born a soldier or
I just decided to become one so young that I
can't remember the difference.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
But I was naturally attracted.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
To action and combat and testing myself and going forward
and trying to face evil and win from a very
early age. Went to University at Texas A and M
was commissioned there as an officer in the US Army.
Was in the infantry down in Panama and doing different
missions all over central South America. Then I went to
the second Ranger Battalion and I was an attuned leader
(01:18):
there as a first lieutenant. And then I tried out
for Special Forces and I became a a team.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Leader for the Special Forces of Green Berets.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Altogether, I spent just under ten years nine points something
years in the army and felt the call.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
To get out. Military has all its challenges, but I
liked it. I liked the action.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't like all the rules and time use, but
I love the action. I love the people in it.
But I remember when I rededicated my life to the
Lord in my thirties, when I had a crisis of
really following Jesus and decided to follow full on. After
a lot of failures, Well my way down work, Jesus,
I'm going to go back to your way. And I
(02:02):
felt God say, stay in the army.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I'll bless you.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Put God first, your men's second, and you last, which
is not the order it was. Put God first, your
men's second, you last. You be effective for me in
the army. I'll bless you. Or get out and see
what happens. I had a choice that kind of makes
it hard, but I thought, I wonder what it's like
to get out and just totally depend on God and
go for it. And I got out and I went
(02:31):
to seminary. But while I was doing that, that's when
the Wa tribe of Burma came and said to my dad,
pleased to someone to help us. They saw a picture
of me with the green beret on. They say, send
that guy. We're a warrior people, we need warriors. We'll
understand them. He's a warrior, we know that talking about me,
and we need Jesus. And your son's a seminary, so
(02:54):
he's trying to follow Jesus.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Send him.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And when I got that call, it just felt right.
You know, like when you fall in love with someone,
how do you describe the feeling of falling love? Why
did you choose that person? That's invisible, but it's powerful
more than anything else. And I just felt that in
my heart. This is from God. This is from God,
and it's a feeling, you know. I saw a movie
once based on a true story of a young girl
(03:18):
who had a horse and loved it, but they had
to sell it is Oklahoma during the drought, I guess
in the thirties or whenever. They had to sell it
because they couldn't afford it the farm anymore, they couldn't
feed the horse and all this, and the wife is
talking to the husband after the sales saying, you know,
our daughter feels so bad.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I feel so bad. And the husband says, well.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I'm going to give you some facts. We don't have food,
we can't feed the horse, we can't do this. We're
gonna lose the farm.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And then his wife says, feelings are facts too. That
really struck me. Feelings are facts too. They are.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
You don't get married just on hard facts. You get
married on feelings. You don't go to war just on
hard facts. You don't do anything just on hard facts.
You have to feel it. And I think that feeling
is from God. How we use it can be for
the devil, it could be for anything, but it's from God.
And for me, there was just that feeling like Okay,
you're going to go. It was a lot of fighting
(04:12):
because that Burma's the longest running civil war in the world.
Over three million displaced in the last two years alone,
millions more in the last seventy three years of fighting,
more fighting now than there's been since World War Two.
The Burma dictatorship right now is supported by China, Russia,
North Korea.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
It's wicked and killing its own people.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've lost sixty of our rangers, of our humanitarian men
and women killed in serving others there's thousands more others
have been killed.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
That's just our group. So we're in the middle of
this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And I remember when we first started, there was fighting
that were shooting and I was helped trying to help
wound it. And this ethnic Karen medic stepped out of
the jungle next to where.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I was said, my name is Celia, I am a medic.
Can I help you? And I had a bunch of medicine.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I'm not medic, and I go, yeah, man, And we
started working together, and other ethnic men and women started
to join us, and we just started to go where
the fighting was and help people, and slowly became the
Free Beommerangers, and we follow Jesus. Although to be in
the Free Berimme Rangers, you don't have to follow Jesus.
You have to do this for love. We only have
three rules. The ability to read and write in any language.
(05:25):
You can't run. People can't run.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
You got to stay with them. With you're armed or not.
It's up to you.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
But if you have no guns and they're coming with guns,
the enemy is and the people can't flee, you've got
to stay with them. You got to help them flee
or live or die with them. And the last one
is do this for love. We don't pay the team
to do this for love and trust God. So I'm
a soldier submitted to Jesus serving as a missionary. You know,
(05:53):
actions speak louder than words. So the fact that you're there,
even if you don't like your skin color or race
or country you came from. You there and they're in trouble,
that's automatically you're like, whoa, that guy didn't have to
be here, not paying them and it's not comfortable right
now and it may be super dangerous, and he's here.
Huh why when you're there with these people, your presence
(06:14):
starts off the whole thing. You're here, I remember, you know,
having our kids with us. The Kurdish general said, you
brought your son, your most precious thing.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I give you my most precious thing in my country.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
When Mari Sudan getting bald of us every day in
the Newer Mountains, the leader of the Newer Mountains said,
you brought your family. That means you don't want anything
from us, You just here to give.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Wow. I haven't seen that wow.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
And then with others like Iraqi general, you brought your family.
You must think that in God's eyes, American children and
Iraqi children have the same value because you're living with
our children.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So that's first thing is presence, and the next thing
is action.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
What are you doing handing out food, medicine, running through
gunfire to say somebody, Oh wow, you rich your life
for me.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
You don't even know me, man, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
But God knows you and God knows me, so that
makes us related that way. And he told me to
come and help you. Oh wow, okay, And then those
are actions and then words. Please forgive us. I'm an
American for the things we've done, enrolled them against you,
because we're just human, which is people just like you.
America is not God, It's not the devil. The good
(07:25):
things America has done because God has blessed us when
we obey him, and sometimes he blesses us when we
don't obey him.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
He's just good that way.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
But we have a lot of good things and a
lot of things work so well in our country because
we follow God.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
But we're not God, which is people.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
We make mistakes too, and some of our mistakes have
hurt you. Please forgive us. I love my country. I'm
so grateful to be an American and for the good.
It's done more than any other country in the whole world.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
That's sure. But we're still people.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
We still make mistakes, we still kill people that don't
shouldn't have been killed. And I apologize and they go,
huh okay, we forgive you.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
We forgive you.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And that's from people whose kids have been killed and
in their strike. The American military in general tries very
hard and has the best record in the world of
not killing people they don't want to kill, but still
it happens.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
We're human.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So to say we're sorry, and then to say we
come in Jesus' name and ask Jesus yourself whether you're Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic,
spirit worship or Buddhist.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
This is not about religion. This is bigger than religion.
This is about the living God who sent his son
and loves you. And we come in his name because
he changes our heart. He didn't just change it once,
he keeps changing it every day. And we offer that too.
You don't have to take it, but that's why we
come in Jesus' name. And what can I pray with you?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
And about every time they go yes, please, only one
time in my entire life have I said to someone
in a foreign country, can I pray? And they said yes,
and a butt don't pray in Jesus' name, not only will.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And I prayed in Jesus name anyway. There.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
When I was done, they go, I told you not to.
I said, well, man, that's my prayer.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I got to do it. But don't worry. I won't
pray anymore with you.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
There was only one guy. Everybody else is like, yeah, please,
I'm in trouble. And I remember in the Battle of
Mosa when it was over, Iraqi General came to me
and said, you know, we almost lost our country. And
I prayed to God for help and he gave me
the worst two things in one an American Christian you,
(09:29):
but thank you for showing us what it means.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
To follow Jesus. Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And I love this guy. It's General Mustafa Muslim. So
love is what breaks down barriers than all of us.
And Jesus offers that supernatural transformation of the heart. And
when we are willing to follow him, even in the
midst of our weaknesses and sins and questions, when we
say I'll obey you, Jesus, please give me your love.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
He does and he goes with you and people feel that.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So that's my only hope in ministry because I'm also
just a person with sinful thoughts, sinful actions, limitations, but
offered up to Jesus.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
He uses us anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Because he loves us too, and he wants us to
love each other. My mom says, God has friends all
over the world and he likes them to meet each other.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery, and a special thanks to
Dave you Bank free Burmer Rangers. That's his mission and
that's his mission field a soldier missionary. Dave you Bank's
story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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