In short
David Eubank, founder of Free Burma Rangers, a U.S. Special Forces veteran turned Christian humanitarian, discusses being a “missionary soldier” in war zones—Mosul fighting ISIS and Burma/Myanmar’s decades-long conflict—arguing that love and prayer guide his work, even when he carries out armed resistance.
Guest backgrounds
David Eubank served over 10 years in U.S. Special Forces/Army Rangers; later helped civilians in Burma. He frames FBR as humanitarian and non-sectarian, though Christianity is central to his personal motivation.
Key claims
Hearts can’t be changed by bullets; love changes people. Revenge is spiritually dangerous; “justice” must be wrapped in love. Praying for enemies keeps the heart “clean” even when fighting.
Notable examples
Mosul: a three-year-old girl dies after ISIS landmines; Eubank prays, receives a Bible verse (“Revenge belongs to me”), and releases hate. Burma: volunteers under artillery must act as missionaries, not tacticians. He also describes raising children in war zones and his son Pete’s near-frontline involvement.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VODavid Eubank's Background
1:42 to 5:30
Explore David's journey from soldier to humanitarian in war zones.
“founder of an organisation called the Free Burma Rangers.”
The Blurred Lines of Warfare
5:30 to 10:46
David shares experiences that blur the lines between soldiering and humanitarianism.
“And that's what's going to give you enough strength to do something when You're too scared to do it.”
Prayer Amidst Violence
10:46 to 11:12
A powerful moment where David prays for peace amidst chaos.
“that you are also somehow part of this by the very nature that you're there.”
Confronting the Nature of Justice
11:12 to 13:52
David wrestles with the concepts of justice and revenge in wartime.
“He's not just going to jump on our side because we say a couple of nice things.”
Confronting the Nature of Justice
15:38 to 16:08
David wrestles with the concepts of justice and revenge in wartime.
“On NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions.”
David's Childhood and Faith Journey
16:14 to 18:54
Explore David's upbringing as a missionary kid and his evolving faith.
“He's a man who says he's not really a soldier even though he works in war zones.”
Parenting in War Zones
18:54 to 20:54
David shares his controversial choice to raise his children in war zones.
“And, you know, maybe we did the wrong thing, but we did the best we could do.”
The Nature of Loss and Grief
20:54 to 22:58
David reflects on the loss of colleagues and the impact on his family.
“And when he turned 18, he was with me in Burma.”
Understanding God in Suffering
22:58 to 26:34
A discussion on faith and understanding God amidst suffering and violence.
“Because these men and women, we've lost a couple women too.”
Living Purposefully in Dangerous Times
26:34 to 28:00
David discusses his commitment to his work and the role of faith in his life.
“David says the Free Burma Rangers is not a religious organisation.”
Show all 12 chapters
David's Dedication to Service
28:00 to 29:03
David shares his steadfast commitment to helping others in challenging situations.
“how long you feel like you got left doing the work that you're doing.”
Understanding David's Complexity
29:03 to 29:32
Exploring the complex nature of David's character and his views on love and conflict.
“David is a fascinating but complex character.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Rajeev Gupta:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:30Rajeev Gupta:travel dollars work harder. Follow Smart Travel on your favourite podcast app. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise. This programme contains descriptions of violence, injury and death in war zones, which some listeners may find distressing.
1:15Rajeev Gupta:I'm watching a video of a man in army uniform with a gun running towards gunfire. However, this man, despite his appearance, is not a soldier. He's a Christian missionary.
1:30David Eubank:This is 4 May 2017, right outside of northwest Mosul. People flaying, ISIS shooting at them.
1:38Rajeev Gupta:You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Rajiv Gupta, and for Heart and Soul, I'm speaking with David Eubank, founder of an organisation called the Free Burma Rangers. David is extraordinary. He's operated in some of the most dangerous war zones in the world. He says, carrying out humanitarian work and helping people resist against brutal regimes. All the while, David keeps his Christianity front and centre of his work. People describe him as a missionary soldier.
2:12David Eubank:Rajiv, can I pray? Absolutely. Dear God, thank you for Rajiv. Thank you for the BBC to help this be useful and glorifying to you and good for the BBC and fun to do. In Jesus' name, amen. So I see myself as a child of God that grew up in the jungles and fields of Thailand as a missionary child and wanting to be a soldier, but always thinking I'll be a missionary. I'm not sure why, but my dad fought in the Korean War and was glad he did. But he said, you know, you can stop a man's heart with a bullet, and sometimes you have to, but you will never change a man's heart with a bullet. Hearts are changed by love.
3:00David Eubank:And so he said to God, if I go overseas again, I want to go so that hearts are changed. He can't change anyone's hearts, but God can change hearts. And so I think that's still true for me as well.
3:11Rajeev Gupta:David is a U.S. military veteran, having served as a soldier for over 10 years, including in the U.S. Special Forces.
3:19David Eubank:You have Rangers, Special Forces on the Army side. You have the Navy SEALs on the Navy side. You have the Air Force, Combat Control, PGA. So everybody has something. I was on the Army side. So Rangers and Special Forces. And after about 10 years, I got out and was invited to help people in Burma, which is the longest running war in the world, now 76 years. And there, I'm not really a soldier because sometimes I don't even have a gun. And I'm not there, even if I have a weapon, I'm not there to fight the dictator's army. I'm there to help people.
3:53Rajeev Gupta:Myanmar was known by its official English name Burma until 1989. For years, it's been affected by a brutal civil war, something that David has become involved with. But he's keen to draw a clear line between his humanitarian work and army background. But it's a line that can sometimes get blurred.
4:13David Eubank:I remember just recently in a pretty intense battle, the Burma Army is hammering the Karani, which is up in northeast Burma. We were taking machine gun fire from the Burma Army right across the rice fields. I was finally 100 meters, which is very close in real life, just chomping down everything. And we're laying there running out to get wounded, Karani, with the medical support. And then the Burma Army sees us dropping mortars, just walking mortars on us. And we're just in a rice field. And I remember talking to a new volunteer the next day. We survived it. and I said, you didn't react the way you thought you would, did you?
4:46David Eubank:I mean, you reacted fine, but I could see your eyes. And I said, you cannot be a soldier here. You got to be a missionary because it makes no sense tactically to stay here getting hammered for people you don't even know that making their own decisions and there's no cover and concealment. The enemy has airplanes, attack helicopters, drones, artillery, and the resistance has maybe one AK and a homemade shotgun. It makes no sense. You would not do that in the American Army, but you could do it for love. And if it was your daughter up there that was shot, you're going to stay here and go. I said, so you've got to be a missionary.
5:20But because we're in war zones, it helps to be a soldier.
5:24David Eubank:You don't have to be one. But the most important thing in our organization is love. That's the most important thing. And that's what's going to give you enough strength to do something when You're too scared to do it.
5:37Rajeev Gupta:David, you've been in some of the most challenging war zones in the world, from Mosul fighting ISIS to Burma in constant conflict with the Burmese army. And you describe these scenes, you know, horrendous scenes where you're under some really heavy artillery fire. And here you are still standing talking to me today. Do you think there's some divine providence that's keeping you here, that's keeping you alive and keeping you doing the work that you're doing?
6:08David Eubank:Yes. And I'm more scared than I ever was. I mean, the more you do it, especially when it's when it's there stronger than you are. I don't get braver. It's like, my goodness, when is it my turn? I've been wounded five times and none of them that seriously. I mean, I was shot right in the arm, but they missed the bone. I mean, I was close. I was seven yards from ISIS. They're looking right at me. Three of them, one close within four yards or four meters. and boom. And I got hit in the leg and I got, the worst was that head injury from a bombing when I was dragging one of my dead Rangers, but none of them, obviously I'm standing here.
6:42David Eubank:It's just last month before I came on this trip to the States, I was in four battles in a row and every single one of them, people got wounded, killed and all around me. So yes, I hope it's divine providence. I believe in God. That's not hope. I believe. But I can't prove, you know, everyone that Jesus healed back when Jesus was physically on this earth is not with us today. All healing is temporary. And the disciples themselves are not here. Jesus himself was put on the cross. So I don't have any confidence I'm going to live through any battle.
7:19Rajeev Gupta:Putting himself in harm's way has become almost normal for David. I find the way he talks about the battles he's been in both captivating but also shocking and sad. However, nothing prepared me for what David was about to describe next. And a warning, the following describes the situation of violence and killing.
7:41David Eubank:I remember one moment that was very, what for me, very definitively the power of God in my life was in the Battle of Mosul, towards the end of the battle, ISIS is losing, and we liberate this family. The Iraqi army is with us, liberate this family's farm field. They're going to get to move and go see their relatives first time in three years. They load up in a tractor, but ISIS is planting landmines. But I've been interacting with a family. There's a little like three-year-old girl holding my leg. Oh, he's like my daughter when she was younger. And then they're trying to go away, ISIS blows them up, boom.
8:17David Eubank:We're trying to do mouth to mouth, we're trying to intervene medics and you know Rajiv, it's the first time in battle I saw people cry. Because in battle you're focused. We all started crying. Why? We had many wounded kids. We all had a relationship with this three-year-old because it had been a moment of calm in that battle and the medics were crying, the Iraqis were crying, I was crying.
8:40Rajeev Gupta:And it was in this moment that David says he felt something that blurred the lines even further between his humanitarian work and operations on the front line. David wanted revenge.
8:52David Eubank:I'm praying, Lord Jesus, please bring this girl back to life. And she died in our hands. And I got up and I turned to Monkey, one of my team leaders, and I said, Monkey, we're going to share the love of Jesus in word and deed. We're going to give food, blankets and medical care. We're going to kill ISIS as much as we can, not because we're good at it or we're some kind of super soldier because he's evil and that could have been my kid. That's justice. So the next morning at 5 a.m., I'm going to roll into the next battle. I open my Kindle to the Bible part and I close my eyes and I start pressing random.
9:27David Eubank:Three times in a row, I get the same verse. Revenge belongs to me, says the Lord. I will repay. He doesn't say there's no revenge. It's his job. Human's job is justice. We can handle it. Revenge, we can't handle. And I said, well, but God, this was justice. And I opened it again, revenge. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord will repay. And suddenly it dawned on me what I called justice was revenge. Because justice is wrapped in love. Revenge is you hurt me, I don't care. I hope you die or get crushed. That's revenge and that will eat you up. And so I said this, Jesus, thank you for showing me it was revenge.
10:05David Eubank:I give it up to you, forgive me. I said that prayer, not expecting anything. It was like a 2 ,000 kilo weight went off my shoulders. This insidious evil that I was going to carry called revenge, that I masqueraded it as justice. And when I said, I'm sorry, he took it away from me. And I went into that battle the next day, a free man, not encumbered by hate or anything saying, I don't have to kill anybody. I don't have to fight anybody. I will if they get in front of me, but I'm going to pray first. I don't have a policy of always fight. My policy is, Jesus, what do I do?
10:38Rajeev Gupta:Does it not worry you though, Dave, that with all this killing, with being on these battlefronts, and as you said, seeing Satan's work at play, that you are also somehow part of this by the very nature that you're there. I mean, some people use that old phrase, you know, one man's terrorist and another man's freedom fighter, so to speak. What gives you the sense that you're on the right side of this?
11:05David Eubank:That is a great question. And that's a question that we ask. I ask myself often, all the time. We want to be on God's side. He's not just going to jump on our side because we say a couple of nice things. And so what we do is we pray. What are we supposed to do here? And we pray for our enemies. I said, praying for your enemy is a command of Jesus and it keeps your heart clean. You may even fight and kill them, but you're praying for them, which puts you in a different attitude. and then if you've killed them pray for them to pray for their souls and realize you've just killed someone's son or husband even though they're nazi the wrong side which i think most people say that's the wrong side um or they're isis which is another pretty easy one they're still someone's kid hey tell them we got too badly wounded in this vehicle we got too badly wound in this vehicle.
11:59David Eubank:They got to get down here now. And I remember in a trench fight with ISIS when I, there was three of them and very close. At this one, the one of them, I was two meters from him. Two meters is really close. Looking each other in the eye, you know, when they died, when I killed them. I remember I got down and I straightened the guy's arm up and I closed his eyes and I held his hand. He's dead. And I, and I remember right in the middle of that, I was rolling in and out of the trench. And I said this, I was out of ammunition and I rolled back out, hey, throw me another magazine. And I said, God, help us be friends somehow.
12:39David Eubank:Help us not kill each other. I said that prayer out of one fear, but second, I don't really want to kill this guy. This is, it's never going to end. Like you're not going to change his heart. And I said that prayer and I actually had hoped it would be answered. And I rolled the trench. He's like, oh, that didn't work. And when it was over, I prayed for him and I said, Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. He's a sinner. I really believe he was doing the wrong side the wrong way. I think we're on the right side, but I'm not the executing angel. I'm just a man. Please forgive me. And I prayed for him. Please take his soul to heaven.
13:14David Eubank:So I think it's crucial to realize we're not God's executioner, that even when you're doing the right thing for justice, liberating slaves, whatever. Your heart is still human heart with evil in it. And so I ask that question all the time. I do pray for our enemies. That's about love. You can't live well with shame. The shame of things you did do that were wrong or the shames you didn't do that you should have done. That's what Jesus is for. You give that shame to him. You don't carry it. And I just say, Jesus, I hate this guy. Tell the truth. I hate them, but I reject that. I give it up. Please help me.
13:50David Eubank:And sometimes I feel healed in the moment. Sometimes it takes a month of that prayer.
13:55Rajeev Gupta:You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
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16:07Rajeev Gupta:I'm Rajiv Gupta and for Heart and Soul I'm speaking to David Eubank founder of the Free Burma Rangers. He's a man who says he's not really a soldier even though he works in war zones. What keeps him there is he says his love of God. I want to take you back to your upbringing and how much religion and Christianity played in your childhood and how that manifested for you. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?
16:37David Eubank:I grew up as a missionary kid. My father was an oilman. My mom was an actress. And my father fought the Korean War. In between that, they left their professions, went to Thailand in 1961. I was nine months old. I was born in Texas. And I grew up in Thailand. And I grew up with Thai people. And my first language was Thai. And then I went to boarding school. And it was in boarding school that I had to decide, okay, my mom and dad believe in God. I believe in God, but is he real? I'm not in boarding school. They're not here. And I had dinghy fever, so I was physically sick. And I was seven years old.
17:09David Eubank:And when you're seven years old and sick, you want your mom. She's not there. Nothing's there. So I just said, Jesus, are you real? If you are, I'll follow you. And I felt something. And later on, I thought, what is that something? It was love. Well, God is love. When his presence appears to us, it's love. And so I decided I'm going to follow Jesus.
17:28Rajeev Gupta:I wonder whether you felt resentment for your parents for leaving you in boarding school. I speak, you know, times when you, like you said, seven years old, wanting your mom there. Did you feel some sort of resentment for them for that?
Read the full transcript
17:44David Eubank:No, not resentment. What's the word? Sorrow. I miss them so much. and as a little boy going there, I kept a stiff upper lip
17:58and showed,
17:59David Eubank:because I loved them and trusted them so much, I never wanted to say I had a bad time. I've told this to my parents since. I never said, I said I loved boarding school. First, I didn't want to go. But once I was there, I loved boarding school because I love my mom and dad so much, I don't want them to feel bad. But I cried myself to sleep under my pillow. So no little, I was in what's called a little boy. the little boy's room under a pillow, sobbed myself to sleep every night the first month I was there. No one could hear it. My mom cried herself to sleep back where they were. And years later, when I confessed to my parents, I hated it.
18:39David Eubank:I didn't hate. I had great hostile parents and great experience. I learned a lot. There was things that helped me. Sure. But I hated being away. I didn't hate it. I hated being away from mom and dad. And I told him years later, I said, you know, I didn't really tell you the truth because I didn't want to hurt your feelings. I hated being away from you. Why did you do it? And my dad got choked up. He said, Dave, I'm so sorry. We didn't know another way. And, you know, maybe we did the wrong thing, but we did the best we could do. We really thought it was the best for you. And that's tears in his eyes.
19:13David Eubank:And I hugged My dad, I said, I know. I'm sorry. It hurt me. But I know you tried the best. I forgive you. And so as parents, sometimes we try the best and we, it may not be, but we're just people.
19:29Rajeev Gupta:That childhood feels like it still shapes David's decisions today. Because for decades, controversially, David and his wife Karen have decided to take their kids with them into war zones.
19:43David Eubank:You know, my kids all grew up in war zones. And I remember an Iraqi general said, you brought your family? You must thank American children of the same value as Iraqi children. I said, I do. Under God, we're all the same. You got your families here. And I remember in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, they said, oh, you brought your family. That means you don't want anything from us. And we never took our kids purposely to the real front where the bullets are smacking like that. Never. Not on purpose anyways. But we go where other families are. There's always families in every war zone. It's not a video game.
20:14David Eubank:There's families everywhere. But it's a dangerous world. So many times they've been shot at, mortared, bombed, almost everything inadvertently or episodically, because ISIS will come from behind right into a Good Life Club kids program. And so they faced many of those dangers. He's strapped and peppered all over his body. Okay. I will help him live in Jesus' name. This is 6 February 2026.
20:40Rajeev Gupta:David's son Pete is now 20. There are times that he wants to go to the front line and work alongside David. It's something he feels very uncomfortable about.
20:53David Eubank:You know, Pete turned 18 two years ago. And when he turned 18, he was with me in Burma. And Pete was always back, either carrying or further back at the casualty collection point, not in the front. And he said, Dad, I want to go with you. I said, Pete, you want to go with me to the front on purpose? He's already been shot at now many times, but this is on purpose. I don't want you to go. I love you. I trust you, but I don't want you to go. And he goes, Dad, I prayed about it. I want to go help you. And he's very competent. You know, he, we jumped when he was six. He's now a full-on skydiver. He's the youngest guy to climb Mount Rainier, the Grand Teton.
21:29David Eubank:These are two big peaks in America. He was six years old. He's super competent. And he's 18. I said, have you asked your mother? and normally I never say that. I never say that. Have you asked your mother? Yes. And I turned to Karen, my wife, and go, honey, what did you say? She said, Dave, I trust him and his relationship with God. He's not a foolish boy. He's a man now and he prayed about it and he's 18. And if something happens to him or you today, I will not blame you or God. Wow. That's a scary wife. Some villagers helping us carry loads. My kids spend their summer breaks with us still because they grew up in Burma and they love the people.
22:14David Eubank:And my son was with me in the enemy trenches, the Burma army trenches, pulling out our wounded when the guy right between my son and I was killed. And then my son was almost killed trying to pull his body out, which he successfully did. If my kids were killed doing these things, only God would save me. I don't even like thinking about it. And so it scares me. But we pray about it and have that deep peace. Like, okay.
22:39Rajeev Gupta:David, in that moment, say, were you in the trenches with your son next to you, a colleague in between you and yourself there, and it's your colleague that loses his life. In that moment, have you ever questioned, God, why him and not me? Yeah.
22:53David Eubank:And, you know, Régis, when you say that, it makes me want to cry. Because these men and women, we've lost a couple women too. They're precious to me. You know, we trained them. When we first started FBR about 30 years ago, the young intake were in their early 20s, 18 to 20, the new volunteers. I was in my 30s. So I'm like an older brother. I'm 65 now. They're still coming in at 20 years old. They call me dad or granddad, seriously. And I love them. I don't know all of them that well because you have like 100, 200 people coming on an intake, but I know them all. I know them all a little bit. Some of them I baptized that wanted to become followers of Jesus.
23:36David Eubank:Some of them I performed the service for. Some of them grew up as aunts and uncles to my kids, raised my kids in the jungle. Some are now peers to my kids. And then not just me that cries, my whole family cries. You know, my daughter sings a song because she sang, she grew up with these people. And when they die, often she knows them and she'll sing a song for them. And one of the songs is about the young man that I was dragging when I had my head injury. And she heard he was killed because she was in university. And she fell on her face crying. She says all lines in the song. But one of the choruses, how many times can you face the fire without getting burned?
24:14David Eubank:How many times can you run through the bullets before it's your turn? deeds not words shall speak to me that resonated with me because i had many many close calls kanya what happened what happened ranger you get shot or just get shot
24:35Rajeev Gupta:amen
24:40kanya is one of our top medics here in papoon
24:44David Eubank:February 6th, 2026.
24:50Rajeev Gupta:I've seen videos of you carrying small children, a little girl who has been shot, fatally wounded, and carrying their bodies from the front line, hearing the death and destruction that you've seen and witnessed. After seeing all of that, what makes you believe still so deeply that there is a God. Because nothing else works.
25:17David Eubank:When I have decided years ago to explore, what if there's no God? What if there's really meaningless and you're just here? That logic kind of ends because who started this thing? Even if you believe in evolution, which is a viable theory, what started it? It's logical to say in a way when you're suffering, you watch other people suffering, there's no God because he would stop that. But when I think that way, what's the result of it? Not excited, not motivated, more fearful, less energetic, less loving, less hopeful. But if I say, God, I don't understand you. I don't understand this terrible freedom you gave us.
25:56David Eubank:We want this freedom, but we misuse it. All of us do. And it impacts the world negatively. And you watch it. I don't understand that. I understand how you can watch a five-year-old get killed. But I'm not God. You must look at things very different than us. Maybe in some way, that's how God is looking at all this. The things of this world are fatal, but they're not final. Our spiritual beings are probably more real. When I say, Jesus, I don't understand it, but thank you. Help me be useful. I feel happier. My vision is broader. I have energy. I have more courage. And then I started to look at empirically, which one works?
26:31David Eubank:Faith works. Lack of faith doesn't. Now, I still don't understand that much, but I know which one works, and the other one didn't.
26:38Rajeev Gupta:David says the Free Burma Rangers is not a religious organisation. People of all faiths and none are part of it. But for him, Christianity remains front and centre.
26:51David Eubank:Like I said, many religions, no religions. You can join as long as you do this for love. We have three rules. Do this for love because we don't pay the teams. Literacy in any language so you can do proper reporting and medicine. And then physical and moral courage. That is, you cannot run away, people can't run away. That's it. And if you're too scared, ask for love because you can stay out of love. And then I'll say my testimony, why I follow Jesus. And I say, I follow Jesus because number one, he shows me my sin. That's an ugly thing, but better to know the truth. He forgives me my sin. He helps me not do those things.
27:24David Eubank:He helps me forgive others. That's one of the hardest things. Like he gives me purpose. He checks my motives, helps me listen to others, gives me that deep down peace when there is no others. like this is the way you walk in and it's crazy it's down here it's not pride leading you it's not comfort leading you it's not fear leading you this is god's way and then i believe he takes me to heaven or what the karen people in burma call the undiscovered land and that's a great ending
27:52Rajeev Gupta:you told me at the start that you're more fearful than ever and that's particularly about the context you are 65 and your children are coming into their 20s now and i wonder how long you feel like you got left doing the work that you're doing.
28:09David Eubank:As long as God has me go, as long as people want us to come and help, I'm grateful for the younger men and women that have joined us that are brilliant and strong and they can do the work. But I can still walk. You know, right before this, I just went for a run. It was a slow run, but I'm thankful to God that I can still run every day. I can still climb mountains. I can still surf badly and rodeo and ride. As long as I can, I'm going to do it as long as people want me to. And so I love being with people. I love helping them in their time of need. It doesn't scare me too much when things go boom.
28:50David Eubank:And I go to the sound of the guns automatically still. I'm more scared, but I still go. I don't have to really force myself. And as long as God has me, I'll keep doing it.
29:03Rajeev Gupta:David is a fascinating but complex character. He talks about love, but in the same breath, he talks about killing. He prays for his enemies, but still runs towards gunfire. He speaks of Jesus' shame, revenge and justice, and a faith that for him does not remove fear, but stays with him, but yet he continues to operate in war zones. For David, that's what his life is supposed to be like. You've been listening to Heart and Soul from the BBC World Service I'm Rajiv Gupta, the producer was Sam Gruway
From the publisher
David Eubank calls himself a missionary soldier. A former US Special Forces soldier, he is now an ordained Christian Reverend and founder of the Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian group working in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. He prays before missions, runs towards gunfire, rescues the wounded, and says love is what keeps him there. But David's story is also morally complicated. He has carried dying children from battlefields. He has watched friends and colleagues die. And he has killed. Rajeev Gupta speaks to David about what it means to follow Jesus in a firefight. David reflects on his upbringing as a missionary child in Thailand, his years in the US military, and the call that took him into Burma’s long-running civil war. He describes the moments when his faith and a desire for revenge came into conflict. But how does David know he is on the right side? How does he justify taking his wife and children into war zones? And how does he keep believing in God after seeing so much suffering? This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.
