November 11, 2025 • 29 mins
As we honor our veterans, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Doug Fears joins K&C. Admiral Fears served 40 years in the US Coast Guard and some of his last few years as the White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Director Advisor to the President of the United States from 2017 to 2019. Please join us as Admiral Fears shares timeless leadership advice that he learned as a veteran, as well as some pretty cool stories from the open seas!
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Romans 13:7 in the new International version says this give
everyone what you owe him. If you owe taxes, pay taxes.
If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor,
then honor. In view of our annual celebration of Veterans
Day in this episode of Kingdom and Culture.
(00:35):
We will discuss to whom and how we owe a
great deal of respect and honor, in particular to those
men and women who have served and are serving in
our United States Armed Forces for our entire country. Welcome
to Kingdom and Culture where truth and grace of the
Kingdom of God courageously intersect with the complexity of culture.
(00:59):
Our guest today is US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Doug Fears, retired. uh,
Admiral Fears served, uh, for a few years, well, quite
a few years, and he'll clarify how many of those
years in the US Coast Guard and his last few
years on the White House staff as the Homeland Security
and Counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.
(01:23):
I don't know about you all out there in radio
and podcast land, but that's pretty cool. Doug, thanks for
being here and I might just chime in Admiral Doug,
Admiral Fears, Rear Admiral, all around cool guy, uh, you're,
you're here and I again I just want to say
thank you.
Um, just so our podcast and radio audience can get
(01:44):
to know you a little more as our honored veteran guest,
can you just please tell us a little bit more
about your journey from when you started in the US
Coast Guard up until your rise in rank as Admiral
and anything else you want to do to fill in
the blank, so here you go.
The Floor is yours, Doug. All
Speaker 2 (02:00):
right, thank you, Pastor Mike, man, we're so good to
see you. Uh, I should probably start by saying a
little bit about how you and I know each other. Sure,
go for it. Uh, but, but Mike for a season
of time was a pastor on the National Community Church
staff on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, and my wife
Kate and I and our boys, uh, were, were members
(02:21):
of NCC for quite a long time. So we, um,
Between my sea duty, uh, tours of duty, I've come
back to Washington, uh, uh, for staff assignments in the
Washington area, and Mike and I got to know each
other back story,
Speaker 1 (02:34):
and I might chime in a little bit more background
on that a little later, but go ahead.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, so, so good to see you. You too. I, um,
I enlisted in the Coast Guard, so I, I grew
up on Maryland's Eastern Shore, which is where I, uh,
retired to.
Um, and if you know anything about the geography of
the Maryland's Eastern Shore and the Chesapeake Bay, we're on the, uh,
the Chesapeake Bay proper, so I grew up on the water.
And so, uh, learned how to fish, learned how to sail,
(03:00):
learned how to crab, learned how to oyster, uh, all
the things that are kind of features of being on
the Chesapeake Bay. And so, uh, when I graduated from
high school, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
I wasn't college bound at the time, uh, and so
I just decided, hey, why don't I give the Coast
Guard a go. Uh, and so that was 1982, and
I enlisted in the Coast Guard, and my intention was
(03:23):
to serve for 4 years and get out.
Uh, learn a trade, and at the time, if you
know anything about the marine industry, um, marine electronics were
things that were only found on commercial vessels. They weren't
found on recreational vessels. So having a GPS or a
chart plotter, or a radio, all those things.
They just didn't exist on recreational boats, and so I
(03:44):
wanted to become an electronics technician and return to the
eastern shore to, to work on marine electronics. And, uh,
40 years later I retired, so I think it illustrates
how bad of a planner that I am. Uh,
Speaker 1 (03:57):
so you, you planned for 4 and ended up doing 4D.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That's correct though, yeah, I uh, I, I ended up
going to sea as a young seaman apprentice.
Uh, and I fell in love with going to sea.
And so I served in 8 different ships. I've sailed
around the world. Uh, I was in the, was in
Desert Storm, uh, and done a lot in the counter-narcotics mission, but, uh,
(04:21):
I served in 8 ships, I was a captain of
3 of them and spent about 12 years of my
life at
sea.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I mean, there's so many questions that I want to
unpack with that, but I guess I'll just start here.
So as part of our US Armed Forces.
How would you say in your experience, uh, in the
Coast Guard how the Coast Guard partners you said with
Desert Storm, but how, how did you partner with other
branches of the military like the Navy I would imagine
and the Marines, um, for the common defense of the
(04:48):
United States? How, how did that partnership work from our
coast of the United States to beyond?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, so the, the Coast Guard, uh, naming convention, the
Coast Guard implies that we're just along the American coast, um,
but we operate globally, and, uh,
Speaker 1 (05:06):
and that's probably enlightening for a lot of our listeners
to hear that, that, that, you know, you go beyond
our shores.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, so it's probably instructive to back up a little bit. Uh, in,
in 1790, the Revenue Marine was created, which is now
the modern day Coast Guard. Oh wow and so Alexander
Hamilton cast a vision for the Coast Guard, uh, in
the Federalist Papers.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Hold on, pause for a second. So all you lovers
of Hamilton out there.
Uh, Admiral Doug just gave you some historical insight that
is totally relevant to your lives right now. So continue.
Go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
There you go. So it, it's unique in that Hamilton
cast a vision for the need for a revenue marine
for a Coast Guard back in, uh, in Federalist 12, uh,
and then he became George Washington's first Secretary of the Treasury.
And as a cabinet secretary, he got Congress to appropriate
money to build the first revenue cutters. And so not
(06:04):
only did he cast the vision, he implemented the vision
in two different roles in two seasons of his life. Wow, um,
but
The Revenue Marine got folded into a bunch of different
maritime organizations in 1915, and Congress passed a law creating
the United States Coast Guard. And so what's unique about
the Coast Guard is that the Coast Guard has law
(06:26):
enforcement authority because of a, because of a provision in
the law called posse comitatus, the US military does not
do law enforcement operations as a Title 10 function.
Uh, and so the Coast Guard has never been in DOD. Uh,
it's the Coast Guard was originally a Department of Treasury
(06:48):
and then in the Department of, um, Transportation and now
in the Department of Homeland Security. Uh, and so they
have Title 10 responsibilities and augment with DOD, but they
also have Title 14, Title 50, and other authorities that
allow them to do law enforcement, intelligence and other things.
And so.
(07:08):
Uh, the Coast Guard complements, uh, some of the things
that the Navy does, um, and I actually was on
an exchange assignment when I was in Desert Storm on
a Navy guided missile cruiser, and so,
Whether you're driving a ship in the Navy or driving
a ship in the Coast Guard, uh, all the doctrine,
the functions are, are very similar. What's different is, uh,
(07:29):
the weaponry on the ships, you know, in a guided
missile cruiser, you might have strike Tomahawk missiles, you might have, uh,
surface to air missiles. The Coast Guard doesn't have any missiles.
It's got point defense capability and, and, uh, and their
main battery, so to speak, is uh, a boarding team
that takes with it.
The law enforcement and defense department authorities that uh that
(07:51):
reside in the Coast Guard,
Speaker 1 (07:53):
wow, would you say the Coast Guard then in a
different way is, um, I guess you could say more,
no pun intended, more navigable in terms of the fact
that you have that coastal duty worldwide and on, on, uh,
within the domestic United States, but you have that law
enforcement component that allows you to have a little more versatility. I, I,
(08:13):
I don't know, is that what I'm picking up here?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, the Coast Guard's a bit of a Swiss Army knife.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Uh, that's a good way to,
Speaker 2 (08:21):
to use that metaphor, but we, we can operate, uh,
anywhere within the territorial waters of the United States.
Which goes out to 12 nautical miles and then we
can operate around the world anywhere on the high seas
and the high seas go from the territorial waters of
one nation to the territorial waters of another nation. So
12 miles off the African coast is African territorial seas.
(08:45):
Outside of 12 miles is the high seas. So we
can operate.
Uh, in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, uh, the,
the Arabian Gulf, uh, the Indian Ocean, wherever, wherever there's a,
a problem that's wet and in the interest of the
United States, uh, the Coast Guard can generally operate.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Wow. So yeah, just whatever helps you fulfill your mission
is where you are able to operate within legal bounds that, that,
that's right. I'm getting some insight here that I'm surprised
I never really, I'm sorry I never really asked you
when we hung out in other times, but I'm glad
to get it here, um.
So,
Speaker 2 (09:18):
so let me,
let me tell you a quick funny story. I, so
one of my, one of my navy buddies from Desert Storm, uh,
went on to command a minesweeper, and I was executive
officer on a Coast Guard medium endurance cutter at a
homeported in Key West, Florida, and he was pulling his
ship into Key West. And so I, I sent him
an email, and, uh, and I said, Well, why don't
you come over for lunch in our ward room, and, uh,
(09:42):
I'll take you for a tour of the ship. And
so he said, that sounds great. So we caught up
over lunch and
Um, I'm walking him around my ship, and at one
point in the tour, he stops and he looks at
me kind of in disbelief, and he goes, this is
like a real ship.
And I thought, man, that's insulting. That's offensive. Like, yeah,
but it was like he had never been on a
(10:03):
Coast Guard ship before. And so Coast Guard ships are
designed to the same, uh, naval architecture standards as Navy
ships are. And so there's, you know, it, it's just,
it's funny that way.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, no, I, I, I like that analogy. It's like, no, actually, yes,
it floats and we have guns, so.
That's, that's awesome um so how would you say you
kind of touched on it a little bit, how would
you say you personally came to that conclusion? I mean
you kind of touched on it that you're like, well,
I don't know what else to do with my life.
I think I'll try the Coast Guard because I like
(10:36):
the the ocean and things, but how can I would
like to tie in uh where do you see God's
hand threading your journey in those decisions since you said
it at first you you were like trying to figure
things out spiritually.
But where do you see God's call in your life
where an intent of 4 years to serve and gain
(10:58):
a trade then became 40 years to where you became
an admiral in one of the oldest military branches in American.
History here and then served in the White House as
an adviser to the president of the United States. I'd
say there's a lot between there that led to that
capstone if you will, of your career for lack of
(11:21):
better description. Where do you see God's hand in all
of that?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
All over,
yeah, uh, you and I, I, I will tell you
when I was 18 years old, uh, I wasn't, I,
I was a Christian, but I wasn't walking that closely
with the Lord, OK, uh.
And so I, I take a lot of those things
as our, as our buddy Pastor Mark Patterson is fond
of saying, there, there are these moments that are kind
of spiritaneous. And, uh, the whole idea of, of me
(11:49):
like getting into the stuff that I was doing, um,
I didn't know what I was doing. I just thought
this is a logical next step, I'll take it and
see where it goes.
And uh he introduced me to other people, uh, other, uh,
adult men, principally, uh, that uh were Christians, that were
(12:09):
Coast Guardsmen, uh, and he just put them in my
path and so.
I, um, I served in one ship, um, that's now
a floating museum in Baltimore's inner harbor. Uh, the, the
ship had actually been in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It was in Honolulu Harbor when the Japanese attack survived,
had this wonderful storied history, and so I was a
(12:30):
seaman apprentice on the ship.
And I, um, I, when you're a young enlisted person
on a ship, you, you do what's called mess cooking
for a season, and that means you clean up the
galley and you help the cooks do all the things
so that the crew gets fed. And so, uh, I
was put in the ward room, which is where the
(12:50):
officers dine.
Uh, and so I was a wardro mess cook and
so I was around all of the officers in that ship, um,
and I got to serve them meals and clean up
after them and those sorts of things, and, uh, a
couple of them had cornered me and said, you know, hey, Pierce,
you need to think about going to the Coast Guard Academy.
And I, my big brother is a very smart guy
(13:13):
and he had gone to the Naval Academy, and I thought,
I'm not my big brother. Like, I don't know that
this is for me. And so I had one guy
in particular, uh, who was an ensign at the time, um.
And he insisted that I take my SATs. He arranged
for me to take my SATs, and then he poked
(13:34):
me over the course of a couple of assignments to
apply to the Coast Guard Academy.
Uh, I ended up going to the Coast Guard Academy
and got my commission. Uh, and then, uh, when I
retired in 2022, uh, he had retired two years before
me as a vice admiral, and, uh, I sent him
an email, actually, I think I texted him and I said,
(13:55):
you know, hey, Fred, would you be willing to,
Uh, be a guest speaker at my retirement ceremony, and
so I got to begin my career and end my
career with this one guy in particular who's like a
big brother to me.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah,
wow.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But, but those, those were like the fingerprints of God
and even, even, uh, so we did, we did my
retirement ceremony. I don't know if you know this, Mike,
but we did it at NCC.
We did it at the Capitol turnaround. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I did know that because Pastor Joel Schmidgall had, had, he,
he attended, and was there. So yeah, he told me
about
Speaker 2 (14:27):
that. So Pastor Mark opened, opened with a prayer at
the beginning of the ceremony, and then Pastor Joel closed
with a prayer at the end of the ceremony. And,
and Pastor Mark prayed at one point because it was
40 years to the day that I retired. Wow.
And so you know Mark well enough to know that that's,
he loves that kind of stuff
Speaker 1 (14:46):
absolutely and and there's no accident in that, you know, there, there's,
and he,
Speaker 2 (14:51):
he prayed it was 40 years to the day, and he,
and he, he said something to the effect of, uh,
and I'm not saying it was in the desert, you know,
making a reference, uh, to Moses, to, to Moses and
the Jews wandering for, uh, 40 years.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
You wandered on the seas instead.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
I wandered on the seas,
Speaker 1 (15:10):
yeah,
Speaker 2 (15:11):
but I, you know, as I got more senior, uh,
back to your question, as I got more senior, uh,
assignments start coming through Washington DC, uh, in these senior
staff assignments. And so, um, you know, I, I, it's
by the grace of God that I got to do
what I did, but I worked in the House of Representatives.
I worked in Coast Guard headquarters. I worked with the
Office of Management and Budget. I worked on the National
(15:33):
Security Council staff a couple times.
Uh, I was an advisor to the president, was in
a think tank, uh, and so I would come to
DC and do these things, and then I would go
back out for sea duty. So I went to sea
at every pay grade, uh, along the way, and, uh,
that's just what happened. And
Speaker 1 (15:52):
you, you, you kept your feet wet while also doing
some pretty high level work in our nation's capital. It's
almost like you're the, you're the perfect, uh, seaman.
Um, in that regard, uh, and, and you know, for
those just joining us on radio or podcast we're with
Admiral Doug Fears retired from the US Coast Guard who
also served in the White House as adviser to the
(16:14):
president for, um, uh, Homeland Security and counterterrorism, uh, pretty
awesome accomplishments and as he just mentioned, uh, I, uh,
serving in all these administrative duties in the House of
Representatives and.
What a great story, Doug. I mean wow, God is
um I've always joked around that I'm like the Forrest
(16:35):
Gump of pastors. I don't know how I ended up
in Washington DC but I met the president again it's
like you're just you're meeting the president and serving in
these places and it sounds like from how you started.
It's just you became the forest. I don't mean to
demean you you're an admiral in the US Coast Guard.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna honor you because you need that
but wow, that God put you in these places to
(16:58):
me it's like you can see God's divine hand sovereign
work in your life and no doubt you probably had.
A grandma, a mom, and some others praying for you
along the way.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
No doubt,
yeah, like, like, like every good mother or grandmother, you're always,
especially if you have boys, uh, you're, you're on your
knees hard praying for them, but my, my mom, who's
now 80.
6, you know, prays for me all the time, man. She, she's,
she is like faithful and, and my pastors too, you know,
(17:31):
I mean, I, I know you prayed for me when
we were in the, in the same, uh, congregation, absolutely, um,
when I was, when I was working at the White House,
you know, one of the things that comes along with
working in the West Wing is you get privileges in the,
in the White House. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (17:45):
talk a little bit about that. Like what was that
experience like going from
You know, being on the open seas and doing all
these other wonderful things. Now you're in the White House
advising the president, not of a company, but of the
United States of America. I, I don't know if people
picked that up yet, but that's a big deal. That's
a big
deal.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, I, you know, I, I tried to be faithful.
I started my day I had a Bible on my desk. Uh,
I would start my day in the Proverbs, and I
like when I've been in these really challenging, uh, seasons
of life.
Uh, one of my go-tos is I just switched to
the proverbs and I just read a proverb a day, uh,
and that, that tends to keep me grounded, uh, and
(18:24):
then I also, uh, would bring in, um, I brought
in Pastor Mark and Pastor Joel. Uh, they'd come in and,
and have lunch with me or breakfast with me and
pray with me in my office, and, uh, Dick Booth, uh,
actually came in a couple of times, and, uh, and,
and so.
Um, you know, I had a lot of, a lot
of folks praying for us, and, and we had, um,
(18:48):
You know, the, the work was hard. The hours were long.
I mean, there's a saying about parenting that the days
are long, but the years are short. Uh, the same,
the same thing applies to working at the White House
when you're working 7 days a week and 18 hours
a day, and, you know, God still gave us the
margin we needed. Kate and I led a small group
while I was the Homeland Security adviser to the president, and, um.
(19:11):
You know, I, I would many times have to go
to work, you know, I'd go to church on Sunday
mornings if I, if I could, and I did most
of the time. And then I would get, get home
and go, honey, I gotta go to work for a
bit and, uh, and, and do some things. And then
I'd do that, and we'd come home and we'd host
a small group on parenting, uh, with other families that you,
(19:31):
that you know from NCC, uh, every Sunday, and it
was just, we, we prioritized it.
Uh, and it was a meaningful part of our lives,
but um,
Speaker 1 (19:42):
yeah, well, so yeah, and as a veteran, uh, you know,
you're having served, it sounds like you found that life
rhythm both in your duties but also now that have
carried into retired life, which you're not, you're not dead
obviously you're still doing work you're you're traveling the nation
and and still speaking and here you are in our
(20:03):
podcast which again thank you for being here.
Uh, you know, and maybe this is a good segue
into some other things you've done. You were recently on
a podcast with, uh, Kirsten Lindquist about burnout to biohacking
around fasting and breath work and faith. Um, while we
don't have time to go deep into that.
Um, it seems like this has been a pretty big
(20:24):
deal to you with this, this healthy living, both spiritually
with your faith in Jesus, but also just in general
with your body and what, what is that all about
post US Coast Guard post White House um sounds like
it's something that's pretty important to
you.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, so I left the White House in 2019. Um,
I was metabolically unhealthy when I left.
Uh, I had been for years. I was in good shape.
I was a marathoner early on, and I just gradually,
you know, standard American diet, having kids and prioritizing kids
and family over yourself, uh, increasingly, uh, larger responsibilities, uh,
(21:08):
deployed at sea, um, a lot of pressure, and so, and,
and as those professional responsibilities grow.
Um, you know, managing stress is kind of a thing,
and I don't know that I did it particularly well. OK,
and then I hit a wall in 2019, and I
had brain fog, I had low back pains, I had
hip pains, general fatigue. I mean, I was still fully functional.
(21:32):
But I, but I had to push myself harder to
do what I needed to do, and I was working
7 days a week when I was at the White House,
and so I didn't, I didn't observe the Sabbath, uh,
you know, which is, which is, uh, really important to
be able to do, and so.
Uh, I started searching on the internet, and I, and
I found a doctor who was talking about intermittent fasting
(21:54):
and the, and the value of fasting. And by the way,
like you and I didn't talk about this, Mike, um,
but I'm, I'm 3.5 days water fasted right now and
black coffee, um, but, uh, you know, when your body
gets into, um, a fasted state, it enters this, uh,
phase called autophagy in biology, and it's where you're.
(22:16):
Where your body begins to eat fat instead of sugar
and it also eats toxins that are fat soluble and
so
Speaker 1 (22:24):
there's so you've just been drinking water and coffee the
last 3 days.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
3.5,
Speaker 1 (22:29):
yeah, I'm gonna,
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I'm gonna break my fast probably in about an hour, um, but, uh,
but I feel great. I have high energy, uh, your
body begins to produce more ketones from your liver. Ketones
are able to cross the blood-brain barrier and serve as
a fuel for your brain, uh, and so, you know, I.
I said at the beginning of, um, actually I said
it towards the end of the podcast, but she pulled
(22:52):
it up. Their production team pulled it up to the,
the intro of the podcast, but, uh, I told Kate
a long time ago as I began to learn all
this stuff, and at, at this point, I've read about
150 books on cellular healing, detox, uh, you know, biohacking,
those sorts of things, but, um.
If I were ever diagnosed with cancer, the very first
(23:13):
thing I would do is fast for anywhere from 20
to 40 days. Just do a water fast because your
body goes after your God designed our bodies to heal Himself.
And so what you have to do is remove the
barriers to healing, which are all the toxins in our environment, uh,
and then you have to enable your body to do
what God designed it to do. And so.
(23:34):
You know, uh, if you remember back to biology, there's
a thing called a senescent cell. It's a broken or
dead cell. Uh, cell senescence turns into cancer sometimes, and
so cancer cells are, they fuel themselves off sugar. So
if you ever had cancer, you don't want any sugar
in your diet, uh, but if you turn your body and,
(23:55):
and trigger autophagy through fasting, uh, onto your cancer, then I,
I've got a friend of mine whose wife had breast cancer.
And instead of the normal cancer treatment, she fasted for
27 days, went back to the doctor, they couldn't find
the cancer cells. Wow. So the tumor, the tumor was gone,
and so it's, it's just, it's become a part of
(24:16):
who I am. I like, uh, I wish I would
have known this 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but um.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Well, now, now you're using your platform with all that
great knowledge of the open seas and serving and, and
now you get to be a living example of how
you can still be healthy even after all that work
and you know we only have a few minutes left
and and uh um and for those that are listening,
you know, again we have Admiral Doug Fierce here uh
with us um a veteran of the US Coast Guard um.
(24:46):
And uh you know, maybe it's veterans that are listening
and and they need to get in that place of
health both spiritually and physically and I hope what you've
been able to share uh you can actually follow Doug
and Doug, you can help me out with this on Instagram.
I love your handle Cutter Daddy Dog. That's Cutter like
the ship C U T T E R Daddy D
A D D Y dog D A W G. That's,
(25:08):
that's just like your cool stuff.
Status right there so that's on Instagram if you want
to follow Doug and hear more about what he just said,
but in our last couple of minutes, what word of
encouragement do you want to leave with your fellow veterans
and their families? Um, and then what word of advice
would you give to young aspiring future veterans of our
US Armed Forces, whether they are going to the Army,
(25:29):
the Marines, the Navy Air Force, Space Force, or US
Coast Guard. So that's kind of two part there.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, first of all, I'd say, uh, I salute all
the veterans that are out there listening, uh, and those
who aren't listening, but, uh, it's, it's, it's a calling
and it's a sacrifice, um, it's honorable, uh, it's purpose driven, and, uh,
all those things are, are very, very meaningful. And so, um,
(25:55):
and there's, and there's a life after service, you know, I've,
I've really enjoyed the almost 3 years that I've been retired, um.
Because I've, I've just shifted into a new chapter and
I'm doing new things, and that's a whole lot of fun.
But I, I am a big fan of, uh, CS Lewis,
and he delivered a speech to the King's College in
(26:16):
the late 1940s called The Inner Ring, and in that speech,
and I encourage you to read it, Google CS Lewis
The Inner Ring, um, it's, it's kind of thick academic, um,
you know, British, uh.
Uh, English. And, and so in it, he cautions these, uh,
(26:37):
college seniors against pursuing the inner ring, and it's like
getting inside the inner ring is a perpetual feature, he argues.
So the inner ring is designed to keep you out
and those who pursue getting in the inner ring discover
once they're in it, that there's another inner.
ring inside the inner ring. And so this perpetual feature, uh,
attracts people to do things that maybe aren't as honorable or, or, uh, important, uh,
(27:02):
in the pursuit of being in the inner ring. Instead,
Lewis argues that you should focus on becoming a sound craftsman.
And by becoming a sound craft.
Craftsman, you find yourself in an inner ring that you
didn't seek to belong to, and that's an inner ring
of other sound craftsmen. And there are all these virtuous
features inside the inner ring of sound craftsmen like craftsmanship,
(27:25):
like friendship, uh, like honor and duty and all these
other things that are important. And so, uh, to the young,
to the young veterans that are out there that are
pursuing their vocation.
My advice to you would be, as, as my advice
to myself was, uh, pursue becoming a sound craftsman and
(27:46):
then
Other people are attracted to you because you're good at
what you do, uh, and so that's a great way
to spend life. I mean, I didn't seek to belong
to become the Homeland Security adviser to the president. I
was sought after, uh, and so, um, you know, I,
I served, I, I hope with distinction and honor, uh,
and so my job, your job at the core is
(28:09):
to become a sound craftsman.
Uh, and to follow our Lord Jesus, right? And, uh,
and then God will figure the rest of it out.
You just got to be obedient and as our buddy
Pastor Mark likes to say, like long obedience in the
same direction, uh, and God's gonna, he'll direct your path.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Amen.
Well Doug, from my vantage point, you have served our
nation honorably for 40+ years. You continue to do so
in your craftsmanship even now, and I want to thank
you again for joining us on Kingdom and Culture, and
I just want to say a happy Veterans Day to
all those who have served and are serving. And again,
a special thanks to you, Admiral Doug Fears. God bless
(28:50):
you and uh yeah, we'll see you next time on
Kingdom and Culture. Thank you, Doug.
Romans 13:7 in the new International version says this give
everyone what you owe him. If you owe taxes, pay taxes.
If revenue, then revenue. If respect, then respect. If honor,
then honor. In view of our annual celebration of Veterans
Day in this episode of Kingdom and Culture.
(00:35):
We will discuss to whom and how we owe a
great deal of respect and honor, in particular to those
men and women who have served and are serving in
our United States Armed Forces for our entire country. Welcome
to Kingdom and Culture where truth and grace of the
Kingdom of God courageously intersect with the complexity of culture.
(00:59):
Our guest today is US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Doug Fears, retired. uh,
Admiral Fears served, uh, for a few years, well, quite
a few years, and he'll clarify how many of those
years in the US Coast Guard and his last few
years on the White House staff as the Homeland Security
and Counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.
(01:23):
I don't know about you all out there in radio
and podcast land, but that's pretty cool. Doug, thanks for
being here and I might just chime in Admiral Doug,
Admiral Fears, Rear Admiral, all around cool guy, uh, you're,
you're here and I again I just want to say
thank you.
Um, just so our podcast and radio audience can get
(01:44):
to know you a little more as our honored veteran guest,
can you just please tell us a little bit more
about your journey from when you started in the US
Coast Guard up until your rise in rank as Admiral
and anything else you want to do to fill in
the blank, so here you go.
The Floor is yours, Doug. All
Speaker 2 (02:00):
right, thank you, Pastor Mike, man, we're so good to
see you. Uh, I should probably start by saying a
little bit about how you and I know each other. Sure,
go for it. Uh, but, but Mike for a season
of time was a pastor on the National Community Church
staff on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, and my wife
Kate and I and our boys, uh, were, were members
(02:21):
of NCC for quite a long time. So we, um,
Between my sea duty, uh, tours of duty, I've come
back to Washington, uh, uh, for staff assignments in the
Washington area, and Mike and I got to know each
other back story,
Speaker 1 (02:34):
and I might chime in a little bit more background
on that a little later, but go ahead.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, so, so good to see you. You too. I, um,
I enlisted in the Coast Guard, so I, I grew
up on Maryland's Eastern Shore, which is where I, uh,
retired to.
Um, and if you know anything about the geography of
the Maryland's Eastern Shore and the Chesapeake Bay, we're on the, uh,
the Chesapeake Bay proper, so I grew up on the water.
And so, uh, learned how to fish, learned how to sail,
(03:00):
learned how to crab, learned how to oyster, uh, all
the things that are kind of features of being on
the Chesapeake Bay. And so, uh, when I graduated from
high school, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
I wasn't college bound at the time, uh, and so
I just decided, hey, why don't I give the Coast
Guard a go. Uh, and so that was 1982, and
I enlisted in the Coast Guard, and my intention was
(03:23):
to serve for 4 years and get out.
Uh, learn a trade, and at the time, if you
know anything about the marine industry, um, marine electronics were
things that were only found on commercial vessels. They weren't
found on recreational vessels. So having a GPS or a
chart plotter, or a radio, all those things.
They just didn't exist on recreational boats, and so I
(03:44):
wanted to become an electronics technician and return to the
eastern shore to, to work on marine electronics. And, uh,
40 years later I retired, so I think it illustrates
how bad of a planner that I am. Uh,
Speaker 1 (03:57):
so you, you planned for 4 and ended up doing 4D.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That's correct though, yeah, I uh, I, I ended up
going to sea as a young seaman apprentice.
Uh, and I fell in love with going to sea.
And so I served in 8 different ships. I've sailed
around the world. Uh, I was in the, was in
Desert Storm, uh, and done a lot in the counter-narcotics mission, but, uh,
(04:21):
I served in 8 ships, I was a captain of
3 of them and spent about 12 years of my
life at
sea.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I mean, there's so many questions that I want to
unpack with that, but I guess I'll just start here.
So as part of our US Armed Forces.
How would you say in your experience, uh, in the
Coast Guard how the Coast Guard partners you said with
Desert Storm, but how, how did you partner with other
branches of the military like the Navy I would imagine
and the Marines, um, for the common defense of the
(04:48):
United States? How, how did that partnership work from our
coast of the United States to beyond?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, so the, the Coast Guard, uh, naming convention, the
Coast Guard implies that we're just along the American coast, um,
but we operate globally, and, uh,
Speaker 1 (05:06):
and that's probably enlightening for a lot of our listeners
to hear that, that, that, you know, you go beyond
our shores.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, so it's probably instructive to back up a little bit. Uh, in,
in 1790, the Revenue Marine was created, which is now
the modern day Coast Guard. Oh wow and so Alexander
Hamilton cast a vision for the Coast Guard, uh, in
the Federalist Papers.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Hold on, pause for a second. So all you lovers
of Hamilton out there.
Uh, Admiral Doug just gave you some historical insight that
is totally relevant to your lives right now. So continue.
Go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
There you go. So it, it's unique in that Hamilton
cast a vision for the need for a revenue marine
for a Coast Guard back in, uh, in Federalist 12, uh,
and then he became George Washington's first Secretary of the Treasury.
And as a cabinet secretary, he got Congress to appropriate
money to build the first revenue cutters. And so not
(06:04):
only did he cast the vision, he implemented the vision
in two different roles in two seasons of his life. Wow, um,
but
The Revenue Marine got folded into a bunch of different
maritime organizations in 1915, and Congress passed a law creating
the United States Coast Guard. And so what's unique about
the Coast Guard is that the Coast Guard has law
(06:26):
enforcement authority because of a, because of a provision in
the law called posse comitatus, the US military does not
do law enforcement operations as a Title 10 function.
Uh, and so the Coast Guard has never been in DOD. Uh,
it's the Coast Guard was originally a Department of Treasury
(06:48):
and then in the Department of, um, Transportation and now
in the Department of Homeland Security. Uh, and so they
have Title 10 responsibilities and augment with DOD, but they
also have Title 14, Title 50, and other authorities that
allow them to do law enforcement, intelligence and other things.
And so.
(07:08):
Uh, the Coast Guard complements, uh, some of the things
that the Navy does, um, and I actually was on
an exchange assignment when I was in Desert Storm on
a Navy guided missile cruiser, and so,
Whether you're driving a ship in the Navy or driving
a ship in the Coast Guard, uh, all the doctrine,
the functions are, are very similar. What's different is, uh,
(07:29):
the weaponry on the ships, you know, in a guided
missile cruiser, you might have strike Tomahawk missiles, you might have, uh,
surface to air missiles. The Coast Guard doesn't have any missiles.
It's got point defense capability and, and, uh, and their
main battery, so to speak, is uh, a boarding team
that takes with it.
The law enforcement and defense department authorities that uh that
(07:51):
reside in the Coast Guard,
Speaker 1 (07:53):
wow, would you say the Coast Guard then in a
different way is, um, I guess you could say more,
no pun intended, more navigable in terms of the fact
that you have that coastal duty worldwide and on, on, uh,
within the domestic United States, but you have that law
enforcement component that allows you to have a little more versatility. I, I,
(08:13):
I don't know, is that what I'm picking up here?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, the Coast Guard's a bit of a Swiss Army knife.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Uh, that's a good way to,
Speaker 2 (08:21):
to use that metaphor, but we, we can operate, uh,
anywhere within the territorial waters of the United States.
Which goes out to 12 nautical miles and then we
can operate around the world anywhere on the high seas
and the high seas go from the territorial waters of
one nation to the territorial waters of another nation. So
12 miles off the African coast is African territorial seas.
(08:45):
Outside of 12 miles is the high seas. So we
can operate.
Uh, in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, uh, the,
the Arabian Gulf, uh, the Indian Ocean, wherever, wherever there's a,
a problem that's wet and in the interest of the
United States, uh, the Coast Guard can generally operate.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Wow. So yeah, just whatever helps you fulfill your mission
is where you are able to operate within legal bounds that, that,
that's right. I'm getting some insight here that I'm surprised
I never really, I'm sorry I never really asked you
when we hung out in other times, but I'm glad
to get it here, um.
So,
Speaker 2 (09:18):
so let me,
let me tell you a quick funny story. I, so
one of my, one of my navy buddies from Desert Storm, uh,
went on to command a minesweeper, and I was executive
officer on a Coast Guard medium endurance cutter at a
homeported in Key West, Florida, and he was pulling his
ship into Key West. And so I, I sent him
an email, and, uh, and I said, Well, why don't
you come over for lunch in our ward room, and, uh,
(09:42):
I'll take you for a tour of the ship. And
so he said, that sounds great. So we caught up
over lunch and
Um, I'm walking him around my ship, and at one
point in the tour, he stops and he looks at
me kind of in disbelief, and he goes, this is
like a real ship.
And I thought, man, that's insulting. That's offensive. Like, yeah,
but it was like he had never been on a
(10:03):
Coast Guard ship before. And so Coast Guard ships are
designed to the same, uh, naval architecture standards as Navy
ships are. And so there's, you know, it, it's just,
it's funny that way.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, no, I, I, I like that analogy. It's like, no, actually, yes,
it floats and we have guns, so.
That's, that's awesome um so how would you say you
kind of touched on it a little bit, how would
you say you personally came to that conclusion? I mean
you kind of touched on it that you're like, well,
I don't know what else to do with my life.
I think I'll try the Coast Guard because I like
(10:36):
the the ocean and things, but how can I would
like to tie in uh where do you see God's
hand threading your journey in those decisions since you said
it at first you you were like trying to figure
things out spiritually.
But where do you see God's call in your life
where an intent of 4 years to serve and gain
(10:58):
a trade then became 40 years to where you became
an admiral in one of the oldest military branches in American.
History here and then served in the White House as
an adviser to the president of the United States. I'd
say there's a lot between there that led to that
capstone if you will, of your career for lack of
(11:21):
better description. Where do you see God's hand in all
of that?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
All over,
yeah, uh, you and I, I, I will tell you
when I was 18 years old, uh, I wasn't, I,
I was a Christian, but I wasn't walking that closely
with the Lord, OK, uh.
And so I, I take a lot of those things
as our, as our buddy Pastor Mark Patterson is fond
of saying, there, there are these moments that are kind
of spiritaneous. And, uh, the whole idea of, of me
(11:49):
like getting into the stuff that I was doing, um,
I didn't know what I was doing. I just thought
this is a logical next step, I'll take it and
see where it goes.
And uh he introduced me to other people, uh, other, uh,
adult men, principally, uh, that uh were Christians, that were
(12:09):
Coast Guardsmen, uh, and he just put them in my
path and so.
I, um, I served in one ship, um, that's now
a floating museum in Baltimore's inner harbor. Uh, the, the
ship had actually been in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It was in Honolulu Harbor when the Japanese attack survived,
had this wonderful storied history, and so I was a
(12:30):
seaman apprentice on the ship.
And I, um, I, when you're a young enlisted person
on a ship, you, you do what's called mess cooking
for a season, and that means you clean up the
galley and you help the cooks do all the things
so that the crew gets fed. And so, uh, I
was put in the ward room, which is where the
(12:50):
officers dine.
Uh, and so I was a wardro mess cook and
so I was around all of the officers in that ship, um,
and I got to serve them meals and clean up
after them and those sorts of things, and, uh, a
couple of them had cornered me and said, you know, hey, Pierce,
you need to think about going to the Coast Guard Academy.
And I, my big brother is a very smart guy
(13:13):
and he had gone to the Naval Academy, and I thought,
I'm not my big brother. Like, I don't know that
this is for me. And so I had one guy
in particular, uh, who was an ensign at the time, um.
And he insisted that I take my SATs. He arranged
for me to take my SATs, and then he poked
(13:34):
me over the course of a couple of assignments to
apply to the Coast Guard Academy.
Uh, I ended up going to the Coast Guard Academy
and got my commission. Uh, and then, uh, when I
retired in 2022, uh, he had retired two years before
me as a vice admiral, and, uh, I sent him
an email, actually, I think I texted him and I said,
(13:55):
you know, hey, Fred, would you be willing to,
Uh, be a guest speaker at my retirement ceremony, and
so I got to begin my career and end my
career with this one guy in particular who's like a
big brother to me.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah,
wow.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But, but those, those were like the fingerprints of God
and even, even, uh, so we did, we did my
retirement ceremony. I don't know if you know this, Mike,
but we did it at NCC.
We did it at the Capitol turnaround. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I did know that because Pastor Joel Schmidgall had, had, he,
he attended, and was there. So yeah, he told me
about
Speaker 2 (14:27):
that. So Pastor Mark opened, opened with a prayer at
the beginning of the ceremony, and then Pastor Joel closed
with a prayer at the end of the ceremony. And,
and Pastor Mark prayed at one point because it was
40 years to the day that I retired. Wow.
And so you know Mark well enough to know that that's,
he loves that kind of stuff
Speaker 1 (14:46):
absolutely and and there's no accident in that, you know, there, there's,
and he,
Speaker 2 (14:51):
he prayed it was 40 years to the day, and he,
and he, he said something to the effect of, uh,
and I'm not saying it was in the desert, you know,
making a reference, uh, to Moses, to, to Moses and
the Jews wandering for, uh, 40 years.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
You wandered on the seas instead.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
I wandered on the seas,
Speaker 1 (15:10):
yeah,
Speaker 2 (15:11):
but I, you know, as I got more senior, uh,
back to your question, as I got more senior, uh,
assignments start coming through Washington DC, uh, in these senior
staff assignments. And so, um, you know, I, I, it's
by the grace of God that I got to do
what I did, but I worked in the House of Representatives.
I worked in Coast Guard headquarters. I worked with the
Office of Management and Budget. I worked on the National
(15:33):
Security Council staff a couple times.
Uh, I was an advisor to the president, was in
a think tank, uh, and so I would come to
DC and do these things, and then I would go
back out for sea duty. So I went to sea
at every pay grade, uh, along the way, and, uh,
that's just what happened. And
Speaker 1 (15:52):
you, you, you kept your feet wet while also doing
some pretty high level work in our nation's capital. It's
almost like you're the, you're the perfect, uh, seaman.
Um, in that regard, uh, and, and you know, for
those just joining us on radio or podcast we're with
Admiral Doug Fears retired from the US Coast Guard who
also served in the White House as adviser to the
(16:14):
president for, um, uh, Homeland Security and counterterrorism, uh, pretty
awesome accomplishments and as he just mentioned, uh, I, uh,
serving in all these administrative duties in the House of
Representatives and.
What a great story, Doug. I mean wow, God is
um I've always joked around that I'm like the Forrest
(16:35):
Gump of pastors. I don't know how I ended up
in Washington DC but I met the president again it's
like you're just you're meeting the president and serving in
these places and it sounds like from how you started.
It's just you became the forest. I don't mean to
demean you you're an admiral in the US Coast Guard.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna honor you because you need that
but wow, that God put you in these places to
(16:58):
me it's like you can see God's divine hand sovereign
work in your life and no doubt you probably had.
A grandma, a mom, and some others praying for you
along the way.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
No doubt,
yeah, like, like, like every good mother or grandmother, you're always,
especially if you have boys, uh, you're, you're on your
knees hard praying for them, but my, my mom, who's
now 80.
6, you know, prays for me all the time, man. She, she's,
she is like faithful and, and my pastors too, you know,
(17:31):
I mean, I, I know you prayed for me when
we were in the, in the same, uh, congregation, absolutely, um,
when I was, when I was working at the White House,
you know, one of the things that comes along with
working in the West Wing is you get privileges in the,
in the White House. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (17:45):
talk a little bit about that. Like what was that
experience like going from
You know, being on the open seas and doing all
these other wonderful things. Now you're in the White House
advising the president, not of a company, but of the
United States of America. I, I don't know if people
picked that up yet, but that's a big deal. That's
a big
deal.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, I, you know, I, I tried to be faithful.
I started my day I had a Bible on my desk. Uh,
I would start my day in the Proverbs, and I
like when I've been in these really challenging, uh, seasons
of life.
Uh, one of my go-tos is I just switched to
the proverbs and I just read a proverb a day, uh,
and that, that tends to keep me grounded, uh, and
(18:24):
then I also, uh, would bring in, um, I brought
in Pastor Mark and Pastor Joel. Uh, they'd come in and,
and have lunch with me or breakfast with me and
pray with me in my office, and, uh, Dick Booth, uh,
actually came in a couple of times, and, uh, and,
and so.
Um, you know, I had a lot of, a lot
of folks praying for us, and, and we had, um,
(18:48):
You know, the, the work was hard. The hours were long.
I mean, there's a saying about parenting that the days
are long, but the years are short. Uh, the same,
the same thing applies to working at the White House
when you're working 7 days a week and 18 hours
a day, and, you know, God still gave us the
margin we needed. Kate and I led a small group
while I was the Homeland Security adviser to the president, and, um.
(19:11):
You know, I, I would many times have to go
to work, you know, I'd go to church on Sunday
mornings if I, if I could, and I did most
of the time. And then I would get, get home
and go, honey, I gotta go to work for a
bit and, uh, and, and do some things. And then
I'd do that, and we'd come home and we'd host
a small group on parenting, uh, with other families that you,
(19:31):
that you know from NCC, uh, every Sunday, and it
was just, we, we prioritized it.
Uh, and it was a meaningful part of our lives,
but um,
Speaker 1 (19:42):
yeah, well, so yeah, and as a veteran, uh, you know,
you're having served, it sounds like you found that life
rhythm both in your duties but also now that have
carried into retired life, which you're not, you're not dead
obviously you're still doing work you're you're traveling the nation
and and still speaking and here you are in our
(20:03):
podcast which again thank you for being here.
Uh, you know, and maybe this is a good segue
into some other things you've done. You were recently on
a podcast with, uh, Kirsten Lindquist about burnout to biohacking
around fasting and breath work and faith. Um, while we
don't have time to go deep into that.
Um, it seems like this has been a pretty big
(20:24):
deal to you with this, this healthy living, both spiritually
with your faith in Jesus, but also just in general
with your body and what, what is that all about
post US Coast Guard post White House um sounds like
it's something that's pretty important to
you.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, so I left the White House in 2019. Um,
I was metabolically unhealthy when I left.
Uh, I had been for years. I was in good shape.
I was a marathoner early on, and I just gradually,
you know, standard American diet, having kids and prioritizing kids
and family over yourself, uh, increasingly, uh, larger responsibilities, uh,
(21:08):
deployed at sea, um, a lot of pressure, and so, and,
and as those professional responsibilities grow.
Um, you know, managing stress is kind of a thing,
and I don't know that I did it particularly well. OK,
and then I hit a wall in 2019, and I
had brain fog, I had low back pains, I had
hip pains, general fatigue. I mean, I was still fully functional.
(21:32):
But I, but I had to push myself harder to
do what I needed to do, and I was working
7 days a week when I was at the White House,
and so I didn't, I didn't observe the Sabbath, uh,
you know, which is, which is, uh, really important to
be able to do, and so.
Uh, I started searching on the internet, and I, and
I found a doctor who was talking about intermittent fasting
(21:54):
and the, and the value of fasting. And by the way,
like you and I didn't talk about this, Mike, um,
but I'm, I'm 3.5 days water fasted right now and
black coffee, um, but, uh, you know, when your body
gets into, um, a fasted state, it enters this, uh,
phase called autophagy in biology, and it's where you're.
(22:16):
Where your body begins to eat fat instead of sugar
and it also eats toxins that are fat soluble and
so
Speaker 1 (22:24):
there's so you've just been drinking water and coffee the
last 3 days.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
3.5,
Speaker 1 (22:29):
yeah, I'm gonna,
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I'm gonna break my fast probably in about an hour, um, but, uh,
but I feel great. I have high energy, uh, your
body begins to produce more ketones from your liver. Ketones
are able to cross the blood-brain barrier and serve as
a fuel for your brain, uh, and so, you know, I.
I said at the beginning of, um, actually I said
it towards the end of the podcast, but she pulled
(22:52):
it up. Their production team pulled it up to the,
the intro of the podcast, but, uh, I told Kate
a long time ago as I began to learn all
this stuff, and at, at this point, I've read about
150 books on cellular healing, detox, uh, you know, biohacking,
those sorts of things, but, um.
If I were ever diagnosed with cancer, the very first
(23:13):
thing I would do is fast for anywhere from 20
to 40 days. Just do a water fast because your
body goes after your God designed our bodies to heal Himself.
And so what you have to do is remove the
barriers to healing, which are all the toxins in our environment, uh,
and then you have to enable your body to do
what God designed it to do. And so.
(23:34):
You know, uh, if you remember back to biology, there's
a thing called a senescent cell. It's a broken or
dead cell. Uh, cell senescence turns into cancer sometimes, and
so cancer cells are, they fuel themselves off sugar. So
if you ever had cancer, you don't want any sugar
in your diet, uh, but if you turn your body and,
(23:55):
and trigger autophagy through fasting, uh, onto your cancer, then I,
I've got a friend of mine whose wife had breast cancer.
And instead of the normal cancer treatment, she fasted for
27 days, went back to the doctor, they couldn't find
the cancer cells. Wow. So the tumor, the tumor was gone,
and so it's, it's just, it's become a part of
(24:16):
who I am. I like, uh, I wish I would
have known this 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but um.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Well, now, now you're using your platform with all that
great knowledge of the open seas and serving and, and
now you get to be a living example of how
you can still be healthy even after all that work
and you know we only have a few minutes left
and and uh um and for those that are listening,
you know, again we have Admiral Doug Fierce here uh
with us um a veteran of the US Coast Guard um.
(24:46):
And uh you know, maybe it's veterans that are listening
and and they need to get in that place of
health both spiritually and physically and I hope what you've
been able to share uh you can actually follow Doug
and Doug, you can help me out with this on Instagram.
I love your handle Cutter Daddy Dog. That's Cutter like
the ship C U T T E R Daddy D
A D D Y dog D A W G. That's,
(25:08):
that's just like your cool stuff.
Status right there so that's on Instagram if you want
to follow Doug and hear more about what he just said,
but in our last couple of minutes, what word of
encouragement do you want to leave with your fellow veterans
and their families? Um, and then what word of advice
would you give to young aspiring future veterans of our
US Armed Forces, whether they are going to the Army,
(25:29):
the Marines, the Navy Air Force, Space Force, or US
Coast Guard. So that's kind of two part there.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, first of all, I'd say, uh, I salute all
the veterans that are out there listening, uh, and those
who aren't listening, but, uh, it's, it's, it's a calling
and it's a sacrifice, um, it's honorable, uh, it's purpose driven, and, uh,
all those things are, are very, very meaningful. And so, um,
(25:55):
and there's, and there's a life after service, you know, I've,
I've really enjoyed the almost 3 years that I've been retired, um.
Because I've, I've just shifted into a new chapter and
I'm doing new things, and that's a whole lot of fun.
But I, I am a big fan of, uh, CS Lewis,
and he delivered a speech to the King's College in
(26:16):
the late 1940s called The Inner Ring, and in that speech,
and I encourage you to read it, Google CS Lewis
The Inner Ring, um, it's, it's kind of thick academic, um,
you know, British, uh.
Uh, English. And, and so in it, he cautions these, uh,
(26:37):
college seniors against pursuing the inner ring, and it's like
getting inside the inner ring is a perpetual feature, he argues.
So the inner ring is designed to keep you out
and those who pursue getting in the inner ring discover
once they're in it, that there's another inner.
ring inside the inner ring. And so this perpetual feature, uh,
attracts people to do things that maybe aren't as honorable or, or, uh, important, uh,
(27:02):
in the pursuit of being in the inner ring. Instead,
Lewis argues that you should focus on becoming a sound craftsman.
And by becoming a sound craft.
Craftsman, you find yourself in an inner ring that you
didn't seek to belong to, and that's an inner ring
of other sound craftsmen. And there are all these virtuous
features inside the inner ring of sound craftsmen like craftsmanship,
(27:25):
like friendship, uh, like honor and duty and all these
other things that are important. And so, uh, to the young,
to the young veterans that are out there that are
pursuing their vocation.
My advice to you would be, as, as my advice
to myself was, uh, pursue becoming a sound craftsman and
(27:46):
then
Other people are attracted to you because you're good at
what you do, uh, and so that's a great way
to spend life. I mean, I didn't seek to belong
to become the Homeland Security adviser to the president. I
was sought after, uh, and so, um, you know, I,
I served, I, I hope with distinction and honor, uh,
and so my job, your job at the core is
(28:09):
to become a sound craftsman.
Uh, and to follow our Lord Jesus, right? And, uh,
and then God will figure the rest of it out.
You just got to be obedient and as our buddy
Pastor Mark likes to say, like long obedience in the
same direction, uh, and God's gonna, he'll direct your path.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Amen.
Well Doug, from my vantage point, you have served our
nation honorably for 40+ years. You continue to do so
in your craftsmanship even now, and I want to thank
you again for joining us on Kingdom and Culture, and
I just want to say a happy Veterans Day to
all those who have served and are serving. And again,
a special thanks to you, Admiral Doug Fears. God bless
(28:50):
you and uh yeah, we'll see you next time on
Kingdom and Culture. Thank you, Doug.
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