June 18, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, whether armed or unarmed, the medics and defenders of the Free Burma Rangers risk their lives to stand with civilians caught in the middle of war zones—and to stand their ground. Sharing the story of this daring mission is Dave Eubank, a former Green Beret and founder of the Free Burma Rangers.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
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. But I was naturally attracted to
action and combat and testing myself and going forward, trying
(01:00):
to face evil and win from.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
A very early age.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
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 there as
a first lieutenant. And then I tried out for Special
Forces and I became a a team leader for the
(01:27):
Special Forces of Green Berets. Altogether, I spent just under
ten years nine points something years in the army and
felt the call to get out. Military has all its challenges,
but I liked it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I liked the action. I don't like all the rules
and time use, but I love the action. I love
the people in it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
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 away. And I
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 affected 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
(02:30):
to seminary.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But while I was.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Doing that, that's when the Wa tribe of Burma came
and said to my dad, please to someone to help us.
They saw a picture of me with the green beret on.
They said, 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 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 in love?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Why did you choose that person?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's invisible, but it's powerful more than anything else.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And I just felt that in my heart. This is
from God. This is from God, and it's a feeling,
you know.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I saw a movie once based on a true story
of a young girl 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 (03:36):
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. And then his wife says, feelings
are facts too. That really struck me. Feelings are facts too.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
You have to feel it.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
And for me, there was just that feeling like Okay,
you're going to go.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
There was a lot of fighting because the 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 Koren medic stepped out of
the jungle next to where I was said.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
My name is Helia. I am a medic. Can I
help you? And I had a bunch of medicine. I'm
not medic, and I go, yeah, man, And we started
working together.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
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 Beomme Rangers, and we follow Jesus.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
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. You can't run. People can't run.
You got to stay with them, whether 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 they 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 maybe super dangerous and he's here. Huh. Why
when you're there with these people, your presence starts off
(06:14):
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
You're here.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I remember, you know, having our kids with us. The
Kurdish general said, you brought your son, your most precious thing.
I give you my most precious thing in my country.
When we Sudan getting bald of us every day in
the Newer Mountains, the leader of the Newer Mountains said,
you brought your family.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
That means you don't want anything from us, You're just
here to give. Wow. I haven't seen that. Wow. And
then with others like Iraqi General, you brought your family.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
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. You don't even know me, man, Yeah, 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
(07:17):
for the things.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
We've done and rolled them against you, because we're just human,
which is people just like you. America is not God.
It's not the devil.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
The good things that 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. We make mistakes too,
and some of our mistakes have hurt you.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
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.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And I apologize and they go, huh, okay, forgive you,
We forgive you.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
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. 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.
(08:36):
And we offer that too. You don't have to take it.
But that's why we come in Jesus's name.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
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 won't.
And I prayed in Jesus name anyway there. When I
(09:02):
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. There was only one guy. Everybody
else is like, yeah, please, I'm in trouble.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And I remember in the Battle of Mosla 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, but thank you for
showing us what it means to follow Jesus. Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And I love this guy.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
You, Jesus, please give me your love 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 because he loves us too, and
he wants us to love each other.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
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. But I was naturally attracted to
action and combat and testing myself and going forward, trying
(01:00):
to face evil and win from.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
A very early age.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
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 there as
a first lieutenant. And then I tried out for Special
Forces and I became a a team leader for the
(01:27):
Special Forces of Green Berets. Altogether, I spent just under
ten years nine points something years in the army and
felt the call to get out. Military has all its challenges,
but I liked it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I liked the action. I don't like all the rules
and time use, but I love the action. I love
the people in it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
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 away. And I
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 affected 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
(02:30):
to seminary.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But while I was.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Doing that, that's when the Wa tribe of Burma came
and said to my dad, please to someone to help us.
They saw a picture of me with the green beret on.
They said, 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 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 in love?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Why did you choose that person?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's invisible, but it's powerful more than anything else.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And I just felt that in my heart. This is
from God. This is from God, and it's a feeling,
you know.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I saw a movie once based on a true story
of a young girl 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 (03:36):
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. And then his wife says, feelings
are facts too. That really struck me. Feelings are facts too.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
You have to feel it.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
And for me, there was just that feeling like Okay,
you're going to go.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
There was a lot of fighting because the 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 Koren medic stepped out of
the jungle next to where I was said.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
My name is Helia. I am a medic. Can I
help you? And I had a bunch of medicine. I'm
not medic, and I go, yeah, man, And we started
working together.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
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 Beomme Rangers, and we follow Jesus.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
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. You can't run. People can't run.
You got to stay with them, whether 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 they 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 maybe super dangerous and he's here. Huh. Why
when you're there with these people, your presence starts off
(06:14):
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
You're here.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I remember, you know, having our kids with us. The
Kurdish general said, you brought your son, your most precious thing.
I give you my most precious thing in my country.
When we Sudan getting bald of us every day in
the Newer Mountains, the leader of the Newer Mountains said,
you brought your family.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
That means you don't want anything from us, You're just
here to give. Wow. I haven't seen that. Wow. And
then with others like Iraqi General, you brought your family.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
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. You don't even know me, man, Yeah, 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
(07:17):
for the things.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
We've done and rolled them against you, because we're just human,
which is people just like you. America is not God.
It's not the devil.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
The good things that 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. We make mistakes too,
and some of our mistakes have hurt you.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
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.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And I apologize and they go, huh, okay, forgive you,
We forgive you.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
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. 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.
(08:36):
And we offer that too. You don't have to take it.
But that's why we come in Jesus's name.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
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 won't.
And I prayed in Jesus name anyway there. When I
(09:02):
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. There was only one guy. Everybody
else is like, yeah, please, I'm in trouble.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And I remember in the Battle of Mosla 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, but thank you for
showing us what it means to follow Jesus. Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
And I love this guy.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
You, Jesus, please give me your love 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 because he loves us too, and
he wants us to love each other.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
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
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.