The John-Henry Westen Show - September 05, 2023


Special Forces Captain Resisted COVID Vax — Paid With His Career


Episode Stats


Length

41 minutes

Words per minute

192.38835

Word count

8,073

Sentence count

481

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Former Green Beret John Frankman talks about his decision to leave the military in order to refuse to take the controversial anti-abortion drug, the so-called "abortion-inducing contraceptive product" known as the "Coconut oil" vaccine.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Do you think that it's okay to receive a shot that's complicit in abortion, the theft and
00:00:05.720 murder of an unborn child for disease that has over a 99.99% chance of survival? And if you're
00:00:12.420 a Catholic, I would recommend pray about it, but potentially go talk to a really solid priest and
00:00:17.640 consider going to confession. I'd like to introduce you to somebody really special. Now,
00:00:27.700 this is a former captain in the army who actually served as a Green Beret in something called the
00:00:34.220 Seventh Special Forces Group. He has voluntarily left the army. He had a great career ahead of him,
00:00:43.320 all sorts of accolades already. And he had planned to serve, as you'll see, for life in the military.
00:00:51.160 The U.S. military has right now lost an incredible soldier. And he refused to go on because of
00:00:59.020 harassment around the COVID vaccine. He is a Catholic. In fact, he's a former seminarian.
00:01:04.880 And he knew his faith really well. And when he was first pressured massively, but then mandated to
00:01:12.900 do the COVID jab, he refused on the grounds that it was an abortion tainted jab. And he wasn't going
00:01:20.300 to do that. He recognized what the church said about remote material cooperation. But being a
00:01:27.080 seminarian formed so very well, as you'll see, he was ready to sacrifice everything for his
00:01:35.380 conscientious discernment about not taking an abortion tainted jab. Someone truly remarkable. 0.53
00:01:42.020 And you know, after all of the things that he did in his military accomplishments, which are many,
00:01:51.200 he considers refusing the immoral and illegal COVID vax as his proudest moment.
00:01:59.600 Stay tuned for this episode of the John Henry Weston Show with John Frankman.
00:02:04.240 Aave Maria Mutual Funds, seeking the moral high ground for 20 years. Pro-life, pro-family, and Catholic values
00:02:23.620 have guided us to the top.
00:02:34.240 John Frankman, welcome to the program.
00:02:37.920 Thank you for having me, John. Appreciate it to be here.
00:02:39.780 Let's begin, as always do, with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
00:02:43.900 and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
00:02:46.600 So, John, you've really done what amounts to a heroic action, giving up, you know, your future plans,
00:02:54.080 your career, your goal that you had set for yourself, accepted to, and everything else.
00:02:58.360 Um, so if you can take us through what happened to you so that everyone knows.
00:03:04.720 So, more or less what happened is I arrived at 7th Special Forces Group the summer of 2020.
00:03:09.480 Um, I ended up going, uh, being an infantry officer, then went to the Special Forces Qualification
00:03:15.500 course, became a Green Beret, military freefall school. So, have had a lot of military training.
00:03:22.100 Uh, and I get to 7th Group, get put on my team, and this is the year of 2020. So, when, uh, COVID was
00:03:28.980 all the rage. That's all anyone ever thought about what was affecting the world, the pandemic,
00:03:34.100 plandemic, whatever you want to call it. And I had a very solid team, and I'm extremely grateful for
00:03:39.560 them. So, as a captain, I was a detachment commander, a team leader of 12 individuals. Um, and we're
00:03:45.320 supposed to think critically and really work autonomously. So, we all know that the
00:03:51.800 that the shot is being produced. And even when it was President Trump, we're all a little bit
00:03:56.240 concerned. Um, a lot of us had already had COVID. So, we're sort of wondering, why are we going to
00:04:01.880 need this thing? And as a Catholic, that's, it's just the most important part of my faith. That's
00:04:07.360 the most part of part of my life is being Catholic. And I understood that all of the shots that were
00:04:11.760 being produced up until that time, um, they all used aborted fetal cells, either in the testing or
00:04:17.100 the production. And I'd been in seminary before, so received some formation. Um, and I was familiar
00:04:24.860 that it was remote material cooperation. That was kind of the level I was at going into January of
00:04:29.980 2021. So, that being said, I considered, well, I can't really justify being complicit in abortion, 0.81
00:04:39.560 in the murder, the theft of the baby's body parts, unless there's some grave reason. And I wasn't entirely
00:04:44.620 sure when the shot was being produced and came out, whether I was going to get that or not.
00:04:48.920 So, around February timeframe, it becomes available for service members. And I noticed in a signup,
00:04:54.280 I'm just the only officer who didn't, didn't elect to get it. And it's just something that is, was
00:04:59.080 being pushed incredibly hard on us. Every single meeting you go to at the company level, battalion
00:05:03.840 level, the first thing you report on is number of fully vaccinated, number of who's received one dose,
00:05:08.720 how many are sick. So, that's just really the emphasis and everyone's making it a readiness issue.
00:05:13.760 And the mandate didn't officially come in until August of 2021. But I would say the pressure
00:05:19.300 was much, much stronger beforehand. And I told my team early that as their team leader, as their
00:05:25.060 senior raiders, the person who can determine how well their evaluations go, that I would neither
00:05:29.940 punish nor reward them for whether they received the shot. And I personally did not want to get it.
00:05:35.260 And that's actually what the military policy was. So, I was just trying to enforce that military
00:05:39.460 policy. But because of that, our team got labeled the tinfoil hat team. It was pretty, yeah, it's 0.78
00:05:46.720 pretty clear that we were kind of standing together and not wanting to get this. And my team sergeant,
00:05:52.020 he suffered a lot terribly, more terribly for this than I did, and was often harassed by the company
00:05:57.020 sergeant major brought into the office. At what point I had a conversation like that, like hour,
00:06:02.280 hour and a half. And I was just not trying to seek martyrdom. I was just trying to follow my
00:06:06.320 conscience, protect my men. And yeah, and the conversation was told, hey, you're screwing up
00:06:11.700 in more colorful language, of course. You're screwing up your career, reputation, you should
00:06:16.460 think about stuff outside the army. If your team loses a mission for not receiving the shot, I'm
00:06:22.060 going to kick guys out of the company. I'm going to send guys to unwanted assignments. So, the pressure
00:06:27.080 was mounted. And the bigger pressure for me was the policies that were in place. So, even though
00:06:32.460 the mandate not kicked in until August of 2021, they were making it a requirement for traveling to
00:06:39.780 different training events for deploying. So, for instance, they tried to incentivize people who
00:06:45.060 got vaccine, got the shot, by having to rest in place less time. So, for instance, if I wanted to go
00:06:50.940 to some school in Florida, I would have to wait two weeks before and two weeks after versus someone
00:06:56.460 who's unvaccinated one week, one week. You mean someone who is vaccinated? Someone who's vaccinated,
00:07:01.020 yeah. So, they're trying to incentivize the vaccine. And I didn't have it as bad. I appreciate
00:07:05.840 my unit, too. And I'll give credit where credit's due. I think to the extent that my leaders
00:07:09.140 thought they could help, they absolutely did. And there were other units that had it just
00:07:13.480 horrendously. I know, for instance, of a battalion in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in the 82nd,
00:07:19.080 where the battalion sergeant major stood in front of the battalion and said, if you're vaccinated,
00:07:24.140 go stand over there. You have the day off. If not, put your rucksack on. We're going to do
00:07:28.560 some hard physical labor, some hard physical training. And that is just not fair to new
00:07:33.380 privates, young lieutenants, et cetera, who don't have the same wherewithal. I feel extremely
00:07:38.080 blessed to have had that kind of seminary formation and just the prayer life to try to discern through
00:07:43.540 it. And at this point, I still am not sure. I just am kind of praying, trying to get light.
00:07:48.600 And it was reading an article of Father Phil Wolf that really helped me better understand
00:07:53.220 just the life issue with regards to these shots. That it's not just the murder of an unborn baby
00:07:59.340 back in the 70s. I mean, if we look at it, it's HEK 273. What does that imply? That there were 276
00:08:05.880 before. What does it imply? That it's harvesting a kidney. It has to have a certain level of development.
00:08:11.500 It's absolutely sickening that we would be complicit in something like that. But it's not just the
00:08:15.980 murder. It's the continued theft of the body. We don't have any rights to their body, the bodies of
00:08:21.600 these aborted babies. The parents, they forfeited those rights when they elected to have the abortion. 0.85
00:08:27.660 And just like we go to different countries to recover the bodies of service members to inter
00:08:31.820 them because we recognize there's a sacredness, we need to do the same for the children.
00:08:36.080 And I am extremely blessed with knowing some very solid priests. And one priest put it to me this way,
00:08:42.000 that it's not just grave matter with regards to the abortion. It's also grave matter with regards to
00:08:47.080 just prudence. And I went back to the Catechism Catholic Church just to look over it again. But
00:08:53.420 another definition for sin is an act against reason. If it's just not reasonable or prudent to do so,
00:08:59.640 and you're doing that, that's just an act against reason. So I prayed about it and just kind of reached
00:09:04.400 this point of peace where I'm just not going to get the shot. And that was the stance. And it was
00:09:08.760 great to get to that point. Now, there were a number of difficulties that kind of suffered or
00:09:14.800 sacrifices I had to make at that point. So I was a Green Beret detachment commander on a military
00:09:20.860 freefall team. And we were out in Arizona training, doing a bunch of military freefall jumps. So
00:09:26.020 that's basically skydiving, if you're not familiar, but with equipment, with oxygen. So jumping out of
00:09:31.760 planes, 14,000 feet, maybe a little more with oxygen, oxygen equipment, nighttime, etc. And at that
00:09:38.720 point, the military, in order to coerce service members to get the shot who haven't yet so,
00:09:45.460 and this is, again, before the mandate, made it more difficult to deploy. So they used things such
00:09:50.060 as command authority or risk of force, risk of mission, etc. in places where they thought they
00:09:55.840 could kind of pull sway. So First Special Forces Command at that time said, hey, it is a requirement for
00:10:01.180 service members to be vaccinated in order to deploy. Now, I talked to my team, and only one guy at that
00:10:08.520 point was willing to get the shot. So I just, I got a call with the company commander. And he said,
00:10:13.300 hey, john, I know you and your team, you don't want to get the shot, but what's it going to be? Are you
00:10:16.760 going to get the shot? Are we going to take the deployment from you? And I said, well, you're going 0.96
00:10:19.680 to have to take it because that's only one guy who wants to get it. And I asked about natural immunity.
00:10:24.980 And I'm told that they're not willing to accept that risk, which I kind of laughed at, or that was
00:10:30.200 funny, because what were we risking right then we were jumping out of planes with oxygen and
00:10:34.280 equipment at 14,000 feet plus, you know, at nighttime. So just really weird levels of risk.
00:10:39.720 And then from there, got thrown into some not as fun training assignments. I'm going to Fort Polk,
00:10:45.340 Louisiana, do another two week exercise. And that kind of brings us to that point. And then the
00:10:51.420 mandate comes into effect in August. And what my team and I noticed, and I was just never going to
00:10:57.600 get the shot just because of the abortion, the life issue. But we were looking into it. And we saw,
00:11:03.060 okay, Comirnaty got FDA approved. Everything else is emergency use authorization. And I'm sure you've
00:11:10.680 gone over a number of times and probably are even more well versed in this than I am. But emergency
00:11:14.820 use authorization means that you can't be forced to take something. It's an emergency use. I mean,
00:11:20.620 it's only supposed to be authorized if there's nothing else available. However, I mean, I think we
00:11:24.660 all know there's some other solutions that are available. But my team understanding that we're
00:11:30.880 concerned that, well, if we receive an emergency use authorization shot, there's not really
00:11:36.200 any liability on the drug company. It still just doesn't seem right. So, I mean, that's very
00:11:43.880 frustrating. But basically, my team is still maybe like 10 to 12 not vaccinated at the time. We go to
00:11:50.560 an assignment in the middle of the woods in Fort Polk, Louisiana. It's no fun. Anyone who's been in
00:11:54.620 the military, they'll have heard of JRTC, the Joint Readiness Training Center. And you're basically
00:12:01.160 doing a brigade level, thousands of members, soldiers exercise. And during those two weeks
00:12:07.800 here in the field, you have a 12-hour break in order to kind of relax, get briefed on how you're
00:12:14.360 doing, progress, continue planning, et cetera. Well, this was September of 21. So, the mandate went
00:12:21.700 into effect August. And there was such emphasis on getting people counseled who were not who had not
00:12:28.140 received the shot yet, that they sent a major to the woods to counsel us in the middle of that
00:12:33.360 training events. And it was incredibly frustrating, probably the most frustrated I'd been the entirety
00:12:39.400 of this whole ordeal. And I just asked my company commander, you know, why are we getting counseled in
00:12:44.640 the middle of the woods? What's going on? Like, how are you expecting service members to make a career
00:12:49.340 decision, a life-changing decision without the proper medical, religious, or legal resources?
00:12:55.860 How am I supposed to show that training to fight and win wars is more important
00:13:00.520 than administrative BS when this is happening? And that we're just not going to get training value
00:13:05.480 at that point. Fortunately, it was pushed back to when we got back to Eglin Air Force Base,
00:13:12.540 seventh group in October, which frustrated me again, because that means that, well, I guess someone else
00:13:18.380 could have pushed it and didn't need to bring it down to my level, but that's okay. I'll try to go back
00:13:22.380 for the boys. So yeah, then we get back to seventh special forces group. And that week, everybody gets
00:13:30.440 counseled. So first day, everyone's getting counseled. I think it's a Tuesday. And I look at the counseling
00:13:35.740 form, and it has a number of different points on it in paragraphs. And one says that COVID is dangerous.
00:13:41.080 Okay, debatable. Other is that the COVID shots are safe and effective. And the other point is that you are now
00:13:48.220 ordered to take an FDA approved shot. So I put in my counseling statement, and a number of my soldiers
00:13:53.840 did too, disagree. I think they put it is not FDA approved. There's only EUA available, because there
00:14:01.020 still is not community available for service members. And I don't know, I think maybe they might have done
00:14:07.140 some labeling trick or something like that. I'll let other experts, lawyers figure that one out. But just
00:14:11.620 at that time, for sure. And I put also that paragraph two or whatever says that it's safe
00:14:17.380 and effective. Well, according to the VAERS, the vaccine adverse events reporting system, we've had
00:14:23.380 over, I don't know how many thousands of deaths. I just checked that out today. I think we're at like,
00:14:27.720 what, 30, 35,000. But there were a number of tens of thousands of deaths at that point. So I put,
00:14:33.060 it's not safe, that it's not effective. Look at everybody who's still getting sick, who's been
00:14:36.700 vaccinated. And then I put, there's no FDA approved shot, therefore, I cannot comply with this.
00:14:42.120 Now, I submitted a religious exemption anyway, which I showed to you just so you can kind of
00:14:46.940 understand those arguments that I made. But then the next day we go and we talk to the
00:14:51.140 group doctors, and we're, my whole team, we're bringing up, hey, there's no FDA approved shot.
00:14:57.120 What are we supposed to do? And they're like, oh, it's medically interchangeable.
00:15:00.160 It's super safe and effective. And there have been some very courageous military whistleblowers,
00:15:04.660 doctors who came out while they were in the service. And they had brought up the dangers
00:15:09.240 of the shot. And we tried to bring up their arguments and what they said testifying. And
00:15:14.500 we're just kind of told, oh, you know, those people are kind of weird and just not really
00:15:18.300 taken too seriously. So I put my religious exemption in. Everybody's kind of frustrated.
00:15:24.040 The rest of the team, they chose to get the shot, but, you know, they didn't have the same
00:15:27.920 kind of background that I did. They're worried about their families,
00:15:31.920 but they were happy to get ordered to get it in case something happens to them because they are,
00:15:37.100 again, worried about the liability and the dangers. So after that, team time gets shortened a little
00:15:42.580 bit because I'm on the team, can't deploy. So what kind of use is it having a team leader who can't
00:15:47.200 deploy? At that time, and kind of while this is all going on, I applied to teach philosophy at West
00:15:54.840 Point. So I applied to the philosophy department. I was accepted to teach philosophy and then teach
00:15:59.000 a course at the Simon Center for Military Ethics, so an ethics course. Ha ha. And that would have
00:16:04.500 entailed going to get a master's for a couple of years at a philosophy department, then going to
00:16:10.760 West Point. Those two years would have been a six-year additional duty service obligation. So I would
00:16:15.500 have signed up for eight more years. I was basically planning on being a career military man, doing all
00:16:21.120 20 years. But while my religious exemption was pending, which is over a year, it never actually
00:16:27.540 answered. The mandate just kind of went away. That's what happened. I'm not allowed to deploy.
00:16:33.100 I'm not allowed to travel for career-enhancing schools. I'm not allowed to move. And not being
00:16:38.480 allowed to move, to go to University of Dallas or Catholic University, where I'd been accepted into,
00:16:44.780 kept me from doing this assignment. Even after the order was rescinded, I reached out to Human
00:16:50.260 Resource Command. I reached out to West Point, and that wasn't available. So fast forward to, let's say,
00:16:55.860 August of 22, August of last year, just in a town hall meeting. And a general is here having a town
00:17:02.720 hall conversation. So that's where service members can ask questions. So that's E-6 or Staff Sergeant
00:17:09.040 204 Major, the rank above me, group commanders there, just a lot of brass there. And he's just
00:17:14.320 kind of going through, taking questions. And I decided, you know, I'm just going to go ahead and
00:17:17.740 just ask the question. So I raised my hand and say, hey, sir, Captain Frankman, AS-3 over in 3rd
00:17:24.160 Battalion. Two weeks ago, the CDC changed its policy and said that there's no distinction between
00:17:30.820 people who are vaccinated or not vaccinated. That said, there's about 30 of us who have not received
00:17:36.100 the vaccine, were not able to deploy, to go TDY or travel, or to move to PCS. Furthermore, I've had a
00:17:45.560 religious exemption pending since October of last year, so about a year. That said, is there going to
00:17:50.340 be any kind of change in the policy? Are we thinking of rescinding this order? And when are
00:17:54.240 we going to hear back from religious exemptions? And the first question he just says, and just
00:17:58.320 off the top of his mind is, oh, have you heard of Novavax? And I respond, yes, sir, I have. It uses
00:18:04.800 aborted fetal cells. And he was just very surprised that I knew that. But I think that not necessarily
00:18:10.640 his fault, but just what's been kind of passed down as kind of like the talking points. With regards to
00:18:17.120 that, I decide, you know, I'm not going to wait until I get my religious exemption denied, because
00:18:21.880 they're all just getting denied. They're not taking them seriously. It doesn't matter that I was in
00:18:25.400 seminary for four years or that I'm a faithful Catholic, etc. It's just going to get denied. And
00:18:30.300 with it getting denied, there's the possibility that I don't get an honorable discharge, that I could get
00:18:35.160 a general discharge, which would go to further employers, etc. So I decide, you know, I'm just going to
00:18:40.620 put in my, my refrat, my release from active duty packets, leave the army, see where God leads me
00:18:48.160 after that. And then I had one more somewhat meaningful interaction, which was my exit interview,
00:18:53.640 just leaving, leaving group. And I asked some questions. And I'm like, you know, I just going
00:18:57.820 to speak my mind here. But do you think that this was a legal order? Are you and then like, sure. And
00:19:04.700 then do you understand that it requires an FDA approved shot? And just like, oh, I'm not a doctor. Well,
00:19:09.760 we had brought it up with the doctors, they weren't helpful on it either. And I brought up,
00:19:13.700 have you heard of Nuremberg, the Nuremberg code? I think that a lot of us forget that in World War
00:19:18.520 II, when Jews were being experimented against, we tried to come up with a list to solve these
00:19:24.220 problems, such as you can't force someone to take something, force, coerce, pressure in any means to
00:19:30.140 take something, that you have to do animal trials first, that you have to know the long term side
00:19:34.840 effects, and this just wasn't being followed. And then are you doing anything to look into service
00:19:39.340 members who've been injured by this? I've had a number of individuals come up to me, sort of,
00:19:43.960 you know, one on one, just because they know where I stand on the issue, tell me about some
00:19:47.940 medical things. I'll let doctors talk about it more than I will. I'll just, you know, speak
00:19:52.800 anecdotally. But just kind of response to that, sort of got gaslit in a number of areas,
00:19:58.860 saying, I was going to a dark place. Too much ideology is bad. Have you heard the Crusades? I'm like,
00:20:05.960 sure, I've heard of the Crusades. Seems a little off topic. But, you know, it's the blood of the
00:20:10.200 martyrs is what spreads the Christian faith. And with Islam, it's the sword. 1.00
00:20:16.080 Hey, my friends, now is the time to stand up and fight. We are just about to have the Synod on
00:20:22.000 Synodality. And everything that you've seen indicates that it's going to be an absolute
00:20:27.380 disaster. We have Father James Martin as a personal appointee of the Pope speaking at it. We've got
00:20:34.640 Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal Tobin. These picks of the Pope to engage in this Synod are indicative of
00:20:43.140 where we're going. We're going into heresy. And at these times of great crisis, the church,
00:20:51.140 especially those called in the laity to work for the glory of Christ and his church, are called to
00:20:57.800 gather and strategize. Back in 2014, LifeSite launched something called Rome Life Forum. It was
00:21:04.500 a gathering at that point of some 75 life and family leaders from all around the world to
00:21:10.240 strategize as to what we could do. And when we gathered, the majority of people were most concerned
00:21:15.640 about what? About Pope Francis, about what was going on in Rome. But this was 2014. But the life and family
00:21:24.460 leaders saw it first. Now, a decade on, we are confronted with some of the most severe challenges
00:21:32.620 the church has ever faced. And so, our tradition at LifeSite is to continue with Rome Life Forum,
00:21:38.020 which has continued every year until we had to take a break over COVID because we weren't permitted.
00:21:43.760 But we're starting it up again. Please come, if you feel so called, to Rome, October 31st and November
00:21:51.440 1st, the very end of the Synod on Synodality. And we'll be there to strategize with His Eminence,
00:21:59.640 with His Excellency, and with many life and family leaders from around the world.
00:22:05.300 For LifeSite News, this is John Henry Weston. And may God bless you.
00:22:10.180 What I would say to a Catholic or Christian who had received the shot, and just off the top of my mind
00:22:16.140 was, do you think that it's okay to receive a shot that's complicit in abortion, the theft and murder
00:22:23.360 of an unborn child for disease that has over a 99.99% chance of survival? And if you're a Catholic, 0.66
00:22:30.940 I would recommend pray about it, but potentially go talk to a really solid priest and consider going
00:22:35.560 to confession. And that's not to, you know, stepping back from the story, to put blame on a lot of
00:22:40.760 individuals. There was a lot of confusing information out there. I know that the CDF, now the DDF, put out
00:22:45.980 a confusing, or they put out a statement, which I addressed my religious exemption memo.
00:22:53.640 So I think that we absolutely cannot judge people for how they fell on this issue. There was just
00:22:58.780 confusion from the media, confusion within the church. I think there's a lot of people who got
00:23:03.340 it that absolutely did not commit a sin, because there's just no culpability, no knowledge there.
00:23:08.060 So we need to pray. And we need to be grateful that we, for those of us who chose not to get the shot,
00:23:12.540 that we were given the grace, the knowledge, the light to not do so. And that's with all of our sins
00:23:16.900 too. And I recognize I'm a great sinner. I don't know why God gave me this light to know this and to
00:23:23.360 avoid the shot and gave me that strength, because man, there's so many sins I commit that I know are
00:23:28.620 wrong, and I just keep doing them. So just kind of have that conversation and end up leaving the
00:23:35.380 service in June or July 1st. But as I'm telling this, I do want to say I'm grateful to my
00:23:42.140 leadership at the local level for trying to help me out for never make me feel alienated,
00:23:46.820 maybe a little bit early on with the shot. But I think they truly did try to do what they could
00:23:52.820 that as a test, just about everybody failed, you know, and that if a teacher gives a test and
00:23:58.360 everybody fails, is it really the student's fault? Or is that teacher's fault? Or is there just
00:24:01.860 something wrong with the system? And I think we know there's just something kind of wrong with the
00:24:06.140 system. And I think that the higher level you're at, the more culpability you have for
00:24:10.360 enforcing this shot mandate, which has hurt the military, and it's hurt it because we've had
00:24:15.220 what over close to 10,000 kicked out. A number of others are choosing to retire early because of
00:24:21.460 their frustrations or to not reenlist. So retention issues, you're having individuals like me who
00:24:26.500 survived the shot mandates, made it to the other side. Yeah, I've lost out on team time, deployments,
00:24:33.240 an opportunity to get a master's degree and teach at West Point. So just like a small career window to do
00:24:39.420 things as an officer, and then people just don't want to enlist right now. If you just went through
00:24:44.580 an ordeal where the military forced a lot of people to do something they didn't want to do that they
00:24:49.340 thought was kind of problematic, then a lot of people are not going to want to be part of that
00:24:54.160 organization. And it's, I think more than anything, it's hurt morale, and it's hurt morale for the
00:24:59.700 service members who are in, and it's done moral damage to them through forcing them to do something
00:25:06.280 that they don't want to do. And I think it's kind of further conditioned. So we all know how habits
00:25:11.280 work. And if you just kind of habitually choose to do what's kind of expedient, kind of out of
00:25:16.760 ignorance, I think that's kind of sort of habituated kind of the yes man sort of career mentality.
00:25:24.040 And it's also kind of gotten rid of some of the critical thinkers. So got out July 1, I actually went
00:25:28.660 on in Ignatian retreats last month, which was just absolutely amazing. And I highly recommend that for
00:25:33.400 anyone who wants to grow deeper in the prayer life or figure out what they're supposed to do next. But
00:25:37.480 it was eight day, it was led by Oblator the Virgin Mary. And I was praying about, hey, what do you want
00:25:42.820 me to do next, God? And, and, you know, I don't know if you saw the article I published, but I'd been
00:25:48.640 trying to get that one out for a bit of a month. And July 31, the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, that gets
00:25:54.860 published, I get reached hit up by people who are much more important than I ever will be, and who want me to
00:26:02.100 get the word out. And so this is what I'm doing now, is I'm trying to spread the word that this was damaging
00:26:09.020 to the military, in order to hopefully raise more awareness for citizens, get them fired up, get their
00:26:16.260 congressmen involved, hopefully get some accountability for the military, maybe with the House Armed Service
00:26:21.520 Committee, having hearings, punishing those who've influenced this, retraining those who follow these orders
00:26:27.960 kind of blindly. And I mean, it didn't just affect the military, it affected everyone. Everyone had
00:26:34.200 their jobs threatened, their livelihoods changed with regards to this disease that just released
00:26:41.200 from China. So doing that, and also just for the pro-life issue. And that's why I really appreciate
00:26:45.360 being able to talk to you on LifeSite about that, that it's, it's totally worth it, and we need to
00:26:50.300 take a stand for these unborn. When you say worth it, a lot of people, when even contemplating such a
00:26:56.540 step, let alone taking it, but when you took the step, were, was there any fear? Is there any regret?
00:27:03.180 Because you ostensibly gave up a very prestigious and lucrative and, and a career. What was your
00:27:11.200 feeling sort of going in and, and after the fact? There was definitely some fear in, in just seeing
00:27:16.860 so many of my buddies getting, getting the shot. I mean, as far as special forces captains know,
00:27:22.560 I only know one other out in the first group. And you know, he goes to a fraternity parish, great,
00:27:27.520 you know, for kids who did not get it. So there were times when I was questioning,
00:27:30.820 am I making the right decision? What's going on? Maybe I'm interpreting this wrong. And yeah,
00:27:35.300 it was definitely sad to give up certain opportunities like that. As soon as I knew that
00:27:40.920 this is what I think God, God's will is for me. That's, that's that. Then I have to do that. And
00:27:46.880 there's consideration too, of just print out, you know, a fake car or something like that.
00:27:52.360 And, and for that issue, even though I thought, well, you know, it's just, that's the sin of
00:27:57.380 scandal. If I think that receiving the shot has grave matter to it or, or bad form, if I then fake
00:28:05.780 it, that's the sin of scandal. I'm making other people think, Hey, John's Catholic. He got it. It's 0.98
00:28:09.760 fine. There's some, some sadness, uh, leaving the military. I love my men. I love service members,
00:28:15.740 soldiers, green berets, especially the NCO Corps, love my team. Um, there were some questions of
00:28:21.380 after the mandate went away, do I stay in and, um, just kind of kept on the path and we'll see
00:28:27.660 where God takes it now. There's also this other concept. It's really weird in the military. A lot
00:28:32.280 of people talk about obedience and, and sort of blind obedience and you're commanded to do something.
00:28:39.240 Should you not just do it? How is it supposed to actually be? You're supposed to use critical
00:28:44.060 thinking. And as an officer, just generally, you are supposed to obey those legal orders that were
00:28:50.380 given to you by higher commanders. Um, so if you receive something, it's not a legal order. You're
00:28:55.500 supposed to bring it up. If you're sure it's not legal, you bring it up even higher and being a
00:29:00.180 special forces green beret. It's a little different too, because we, we go through quite a selection
00:29:05.220 process and they're trying to select the most critical thinking individuals. So we get personality
00:29:09.160 tests, IQ tests. We're trained to think unconventionally and it's just, is it a common
00:29:16.040 sense thing? So I just asked the question, is it a common sense thing? Nope. Okay. And then you have
00:29:22.140 that conversation. So you receive an order like that. It's not just a, how do you want it done?
00:29:27.040 It's like, Hey, why should we do this? Should we do this? And I think we need more military leaders
00:29:31.920 to consider that in any kind of branch, whether it's special forces, army, Navy, et cetera.
00:29:37.520 Interesting. A lot of people looking at what they honestly see as corruption within the ranks
00:29:43.440 of the secular hierarchy. I mean, in all levels of government, especially the three letter agencies,
00:29:50.380 also in the military. I just, just spoke recently with a Marine who was in a similar situation,
00:29:55.940 actually refused to leave, um, and then was jailed for it. And then summarily dismissed anyway.
00:30:01.920 Are you still hopeful for a turnaround, um, in the military, uh, with the government,
00:30:07.380 various agencies and so on? Because for a lot of people looking at it from the outside,
00:30:12.180 sometimes it seems insurmountable. What's your thoughts?
00:30:15.700 I mean, my immediate concerns are what's God's will for me and what should I be doing?
00:30:19.420 Um, and it's not necessarily you're called to success. You're called to fidelity.
00:30:23.080 And that just makes it an amazing time to be Catholic and to be alive and try to be a saint
00:30:27.340 and suffer with Christ. But I am hopeful. Um, there were some good men who were in the military
00:30:33.140 and there still are many, many great men and more than a corruption piece. I think it's
00:30:37.900 more so maybe a lack of critical thought. Maybe just enough, maybe there just needs to be a light
00:30:43.420 bulb that goes off for people to kind of pay attention and, and use their critical thinking
00:30:48.980 skills. But I think we also need to understand that sin darkens reason. Um, so as much as it's
00:30:55.480 obviously a legal and medical thing, that's bad for you, uh, that there is that sin component. So
00:31:02.200 there is some hope that's, I'm still living off that hope and trying to help change things around
00:31:08.240 on the, on the outside. Uh, the SF motto, special forces motto is de oppressor liber. That means to
00:31:14.000 free the oppressed. Uh, so I'll try to do that in the means, ways, shape, and form I can right
00:31:18.900 now with different platforms. Tell us a little bit more about your background. You seem very well
00:31:23.860 formed in the faith. Um, where did that come from? How were you raised to, to get to this level of
00:31:29.580 understanding with regard to the faith, particularly with the life issue as well? My parents, they split
00:31:34.400 up when I was young. So I split up when I was six and I was not raised Catholic. I'm a convert. So
00:31:38.880 I don't know. I was just incredibly blessed where from the beginning of life, I just kind of,
00:31:44.280 as far as long as I could remember, I believe God existed, try to pray to him on a nightly basis.
00:31:48.680 And grew up mostly with my mom and she took me to church, a Protestant church of whatever form,
00:31:54.340 maybe about once a month. And then it was good in the summers. I'd live with my dad,
00:31:58.240 go on a weekly basis to a Presbyterian church and got baptized at 13 in Episcopal church.
00:32:04.320 But then when I was 15, I went to a Catholic high school and I just, and it was because my mom didn't
00:32:10.940 like the public high school I was going to. Uh, so sent me to Catholic high school in DC,
00:32:16.000 really solid religion teacher, just taught the faith well, and started going to mass. And even
00:32:22.360 though I'd been to a number of different Protestant services, there was just something different about
00:32:26.640 it. And a really good thing about that too, is, you know, please pray for the priest, but
00:32:30.860 the place I converted, uh, that priest ended up leaving the priesthood. And what I understand now
00:32:36.980 about the liturgy, about just general instruction, Roman missile, I would have been absolutely appalled 0.99
00:32:42.800 had I gone to that church, uh, now, uh, with what I know now, but, but even so God worked through
00:32:49.140 these very human instruments and the Christ was present there and he's present in his sacraments.
00:32:55.460 So there was just kind of this drawing and attraction. And it was around that time that I
00:32:59.400 started thinking about priesthood. There was a priest who gave a homily at, uh, at the school.
00:33:03.960 And he said, well, I sat where you sat and now I'm up here as a priest. And maybe one day,
00:33:07.780 one of y'all will be a priest. So it's a very powerful year. So came into the church,
00:33:12.000 I think it was Easter of 2004. I should know that better, but, uh, yeah, came into the church,
00:33:18.440 great blessing, uh, and didn't quite understand the distinction between Protestants and Catholics,
00:33:24.140 not having maybe the best RSCIA. And I went to Wheaton college, which is a Protestant evangelical
00:33:29.440 school. And it was just, it was an amazing experience. A lot of very solid people. I like the
00:33:35.440 academics, very critically thinking and was just challenged in the faith a lot. So I started
00:33:39.840 reading a lot of Scott Hahn books, a lot of the more apologetic leaning things, loving the faith
00:33:44.020 more and loving the faith, the extent that I just kept thinking about the priesthood. Um, so I was
00:33:49.940 doing ROTC at the time, uh, reserve officer training corps with the intent of being an army
00:33:55.400 officer. And I was thinking, let's do something in combat arms. Let's just get after it. But as these
00:33:59.620 thoughts about the priesthood came up, uh, started talking to military diocese and decided, you know,
00:34:04.740 I think I got to give this a shot. I think God's called me to the seminary. So I went to the
00:34:08.560 seminary, truly do believe he called me to it. Got many years of great formation to with the arts
00:34:13.820 or to at John Paul II seminary in DC. So took philosophy classes at Catholic U, which was
00:34:20.140 fantastic. Then two years at Mount St. Mary's in Emmitsburg, Maryland, both really solid places
00:34:26.220 and extremely grateful for those experiences, but, um, peacefully discerned out left the seminary
00:34:31.980 spring of 2015, knowing that was God's will at the time and let the army know, Hey, I'm not going
00:34:37.620 to be a priest anymore. You have to give me some other job. And lo and behold, Easter Monday, I get
00:34:43.720 a call saying, Hey, John Franklin, you're going to be an infantry officer. And I was like, Oh my gosh,
00:34:49.340 like active duty infantry. That's very difficult job to start out. Probably the most physically
00:34:54.480 demanding. It's where you, as a platoon leader, lead 40 individuals, three squads. Uh, and that's
00:35:00.640 closing with and destroying the enemy. Like when you think of the military, that's what you get.
00:35:04.780 Um, so yeah, I saw that as a sign from God that he loves me, but he wants to challenge me. So went
00:35:09.720 through infantry, basic officer leadership course, ranger school, uh, et cetera. And yeah, so going
00:35:16.460 back to, cause you were asking about formations, that was the formation there. And then it's just
00:35:21.260 continuing to go to, go to mass, pray, keep up a good spiritual life.
00:35:24.880 Hello friends. To celebrate the momentous overturning of Roe v. Wade, we at LifeSite have minted just
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00:35:47.360 by a brilliant sunburst and draped with olive branches. They of course commemorate our 25 year
00:35:52.180 anniversary of LifeSite News. We began in 1997 in September. So September of 2022 was 25 years.
00:35:58.760 These one ounce silver rounds are available from our partners at stjosephspartners.com,
00:36:04.160 where you can fulfill all of your silver and gold needs in this perilous time. May God bless you.
00:36:10.620 Are you still in touch with your parents at all?
00:36:12.800 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I love my parents.
00:36:14.160 What was their take on what's going on in your life? How did they react? Uh, did they give you
00:36:19.320 counsel, uh, during this ordeal? And, uh, how did that go?
00:36:23.860 Well, my dad's been extremely supportive and it's, it's interesting and he's actually a Protestant 0.85
00:36:28.760 pastor. So when I started seminary at John Paul II, he started at, uh, master's college. Um,
00:36:35.760 and that was with John MacArthur. So the Protestant church that stayed open in, uh, in California,
00:36:40.620 but it's definitely helped to strengthen our relationship.
00:36:42.540 What would you like to communicate to faithful Catholics and to pro-lifers about, uh, what
00:36:50.920 you've gone through and what they might be facing?
00:36:53.160 Fidelity to Christ is the most important thing and making that the most important piece in 0.53
00:36:57.020 your life. So if you are trying to stay close to him, fulfilling your duties well and making
00:37:03.000 time for mental prayer, especially, and just learning to hear his voice, that's going to help direct
00:37:08.160 you in a number of ways. I just didn't think I would be in this situation right now, but it's
00:37:12.460 just hearing his voice little by little, being able to understand the voice, the pastor, uh,
00:37:18.080 the good shepherd. Um, but yeah, with pro-life stuff, it's, it's tricky because you don't
00:37:24.260 necessarily get the clearest information. So I guess trying to stay as informed as you
00:37:27.100 can. And when you recognize something's wrong, uh, just sticking to those principles.
00:37:31.260 Let me ask you, because it's been a running theme in some of my shows here about how do you
00:37:35.980 listen to the Holy spirit? Um, had some fascinating exchanges, but I'd love to hear your take
00:37:40.900 on how does discernment work for you? Because a lot of people need to be able to do that
00:37:45.980 nowadays, particularly as times get tougher and tougher, we've got to pay more attention
00:37:50.860 to the inspiration of the Holy spirit.
00:37:53.960 There's kind of four practices that I try to keep in my life and I'm not perfect at it
00:37:57.520 by any means, but I think each day you should do a little bit of spiritual reading, prayer,
00:38:03.800 rosary, mental prayer, and compliment or examination of conscience. And if you keep those things in your
00:38:09.360 life, it's going to help a lot. And the spiritual reading helps you understand the voice of the
00:38:14.320 saints. So these are like tried and true people who can keep you from just getting kind of weird
00:38:19.320 in your own mind. Like you might just think you're praying, but it's just building yourself up or
00:38:23.180 convincing yourself of something. Um, but then you have to get in there and you have to do the prayer.
00:38:27.160 And I think that all lay people should be able to give God 30 minutes of their life each day,
00:38:31.240 if they can. And to learn how to hear his voice, it's to not talk the whole time.
00:38:38.940 Lexi Davina is a great thing. I'm not a huge methods guy. I just like to get in and talk to God,
00:38:43.400 uh, and kind of see what he says, but it definitely, it takes time. Um, but as far as discerning God's
00:38:50.060 will though, I think everybody stresses with that a lot, but 95% of what you're supposed to do,
00:38:55.700 that's been clearly indicated to us in scriptures, in the church law, uh, in just kind of common sense.
00:39:01.920 So don't overthink a lot of those things. Um, and it can be something small. It can be as small as,
00:39:07.120 okay, I'm praying about the person who's told, give everything up and follow me. And I think,
00:39:12.960 oh, you know, I have too many clothes. I should probably get rid of some clothes. Okay. Well,
00:39:16.340 that might be God's voice to you. It can be something small like that. Um, as far as spiritual books,
00:39:21.980 I think this tremendous lover by Eugene Boylan is my absolute favorite thread it probably at least
00:39:27.360 five times led to a couple of book studies on it. And that's very good practical spirituality for
00:39:33.460 the lay person. So yeah, just finding those good books, finding what works for you, uh, but also
00:39:38.740 not stressing yourself out. So I remember a great homily I heard, uh, last year and it was on the
00:39:44.560 centurion who, uh, said, Lauren, Lord, I'm not worthy that you should enter under my roof,
00:39:49.520 but only say the word my soul shall be healed or servants, servants. And those, the four truths
00:39:54.320 that were highlighted there, great priest, father, Dan Nolan gave that homily was that I'm a sinner,
00:40:00.800 that God is good, that he's all knowing and that he's all powerful. And whenever you have some kind
00:40:08.180 of crisis of spiritual life, you're forgetting that. And often we forget that he's good or forget
00:40:12.680 that he knows everything where I might be stressed out about what do you want me to do next? God,
00:40:17.860 where am I going to go? What action do you want me to take? And you should never think or convince
00:40:23.080 yourself that you are so much of a sinner that God can't talk to you. Cause you might think that
00:40:26.940 you're being humble and doing so, but really what you're doing is you are, you're saying that God
00:40:32.520 isn't powerful enough to do that. And he's so much greater and stronger than our sins. So just trying
00:40:37.600 to keep that, that fidelity, I think a couple of those steps is a, is a good way and you'll figure
00:40:41.240 out his voice. How are you doing right now? You're still pursuing your studies, but are you also
00:40:45.360 employed? Are you looking for employment? What are you doing? I am currently not employed. I'm just
00:40:50.420 kind of taking my time trying to figure out what the next steps are. I really do feel that God has,
00:40:57.160 has called me to this place this time right now. I'm going to full-time try to raise awareness as much
00:41:03.100 as to the problems, the corruption that's going on with the military, for the sake of those military
00:41:07.420 members, for the sake of this country. And hopefully individuals will, I don't know, but by
00:41:14.520 me as an imperfect instrument, try to follow God more closely. But that's, that's more or less what
00:41:19.680 I'm going to do. And we'll just kind of see what doors open right now with regards to that.
00:41:24.080 John Frankman, thank you so much for being with us. God bless you.
00:41:26.900 Thanks so much, John. Thanks for having me.
00:41:28.520 And God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.
00:41:37.420 Hi, everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,
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00:41:52.060 stay up to date with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news. Thanks for watching,
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