Gen. Boykin

I came across this article, titled “FIRST-PERSON: Stabbed in the back.” It’s from something called BP News, which appears to be news for Baptists, and it’s a defense of Gen. “My God is bigger than yours, idolator” Boykin. Here’s the thrust:

Gen. MacArthur and Gen. Patton and multiple others called on God, prayed to God, gave God praise and glory for victories and called upon God to defeat their enemies. Not a single one of those military leaders ever was belittled, harassed or chastised for speaking out about their spirituality.

Now, Patton liked coining quotes (e.g., “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his”) about as much as Ben Franklin (“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”), but I don’t think Patton’s in Boykin’s league when it comes to invoking the wrath of God. Here’s a prayer by Patton, and it’s not even close, rhetorically, to Boykin:

God of our fathers, who by land and sea have ever lead us to victory, please continue your inspiring guidance in this the greatest of all conflicts. Strengthen my soul so that the weakening instinct of self-preservation, which besets all of us in battle, shall not blind me to my duty to my own manhood, to the glory of my calling, and to my responsibility to my fellow soldiers. Grant to our armed forces that disciplined valor and mutual confidence which insures success in war. Let me not mourn for the men who have died fighting, but rather let me be glad that such heroes have lived. If it be my lot to die, let me do so with courage and honor in a manner which will bring the greatest harm to the enemy, and please, oh Lord, protect and guide those I shall leave behind. Give us the victory, Lord.

But this post isn’t about which general is most religious (though Boykin is surely tops the above list), it’s about the empirical validity of this statement by Gen. Boykin about his victory over a Somali Warlord:

I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.’

Let’s take a look at Boykin’s track record. Again, this is from the BP News article [emphasis mine]:

An evangelical Christian, Boykin has been in the Army since 1971, serving in such key operations as the 1980 rescue attempt of U.S. hostages in Iran and in 1993 in Somalia.

So, if success and failure indicate the size of one’s god, and given the outcome of Operation Desert One, Gen. Boykin must admit that Ayatollah Khomeini’s god is bigger than Boykin’s? And if so, then it’s only good policy to remove Boykin from the OBL hunt, and from any operations in the Middle East.

AB