Mike Grayson

Christian, husband, engineer & veteran (MACV-CORDS). Theologian, teacher & student of quantum physics. Writing & teaching at the intersection of faith & science

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

After years of studying both Scripture and the physical universe, I came to a simple conclusion:

When you truly see God, everything changes.

My new book, "Black Holes and Other Works of God", is not primarily about black holes.

It's about purpose, identity, reality, and the Creator revealed through both Scripture and creation.

"God Seen. Everything Changes."

If you read it, I'd appreciate an honest Amazon review.

https://t.co/stbd1DwIEB

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@BlastingThrough Love Colorado. Looking forward to a conference in Colorado Springs toward the end of August. Happy 4th.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@jackunheard You just got one more.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

This is a brilliant parallel between The Lord of the Rings and communism. I don’t know if, in fact, it was the intent of Tolkien, but it’s brilliant nonetheless.

Vietnam was miserable under communism. Today they are transforming themselves by embracing capitalism and freedom—and are prospering. Did you know there are now 1,200 churches in North Vietnam and 100 pastors recently graduated from a seminary in Hanoi? I can hardly believe it.

Communism is a miserable ideology.

[Krzysztof Szczawinski 🇵🇱 @Kristof_Poland]

Did you know that The Lord of the Rings was about communism?

(Maybe when you come from Poland, every evil looks like communism to you…:)

1. The Ring is not a weapon. It is the totalitarian temptation itself – the promise that this time, the right person wielding absolute power will finally produce the good outcome. Even heroes in the book are tempted by this argument. Gandalf refuses it, Aragorn refuses it, but it is the most seductive argument in politics. It is always wrong.

2. The Shire is where the story begins and where it must return. Hobbits grow their own food, smoke their own pipe-weed, own their gardens, and nobody tells them what a second breakfast should look like. This is not naivety – it is civilization at its most honest. Which is precisely why the system cannot leave it alone.

3. The Eye sees everything – not because it is omnipotent, but because enough servants are watching on its behalf. The Nazgûl are the secret police: former kings, once free and powerful, who accepted rings of power and became hollow enforcers. They did not fall suddenly. Each one made a reasonable accommodation, then another, until nothing remained inside the armor. The surveillance state does not need cameras everywhere. It needs people who have already sold themselves, and have nothing left to lose by selling others.

4. Saruman is the most sinister villain in the book – the brilliant intellectual who studied power so long and so closely that he decided he might as well have some. The collaborator. The man who convinced himself that managing the evil was smarter than opposing it, and ended up running a small franchise of it in the Shire.

5. The Shire gets collectivized. This is the chapter Western readers most want to skip – because it means that ignoring the darkness while it was distant did not protect the things that were close and dear. It came home anyway, wearing the face of bureaucratic administration: no private gardens, no excess, enforced sharing, small men with clipboards and new rules. Sharkey — the defeated Saruman — cannot create anything anymore. He can only administrate, regulate, and ruin. This is what the system looks like when it has already lost everywhere else.

6. Gollum is what the system produces when it finds someone useful. He serves the Ring completely, calls it his precious, and has long since forgotten what he was before it. He is not evil – he is consumed. The system doesn’t need to destroy you. It just needs you to need it more than you need yourself.

7. The Ring must be destroyed, not used. Not reformed, not redirected, not wielded by a better person for better ends. This is Tolkien’s most radical political statement: some instruments of total power cannot be turned to good purposes. They must be unmade. Every generation has to rediscover this, because the argument for just one more ring, in the right hands, for the right reasons, never stops sounding reasonable to some people…

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

Keeping things in perspective.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@EODHappyCaptain We are happy you shared it too. But now I’m hungry for some Senate Bean Soup and that fantastic bread.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@BlastingThrough I was part of II FFV and our small team (Sgt. Roger Johns and 9 ARVNs) were sent to Tay Ninh a day or two before the 25th. I think I heard about the ammo bunker blowing up. You have a great memory. We were part of the MACV CORDS program.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@paratroopbrady The older you get, the more you’ll discover that mindset expands to friends and family. It is part of who you are forever.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@EODHappyCaptain Been there many times over the past 20 years. No better place to have a Guinness and reenlist. It is the most correct way to do things.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

Welcome to the land of the free and home of the brave!

[Tara LaRosa @TaraLaRosa]

Greatest new song to come out of the World Cup! ⚽️❤️🇺🇸 Welcome To The Land Of The Free!🇺🇸❤️⚽️

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@BlastingThrough LOL! I get it! Definitely like eating only one potato chip. Wiser words were never spoken.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@infantrydort The problem is that when they break that oath there are no consequences whatsoever. There must be consequences greater than a slap on the wrist.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

Tony, I don't want to be critical of the decisions that were made. I have nothing but the utmost respect for these brave men. Yes—I believe mistakes were made, but I hope those mistakes were evaluated and folks said, "Let's not do that again".

I think one of the biggest mistakes made in both Vietnam and Afghanistan is that the brass underestimated the cunning of the enemy. Those guys knew we would send in a QRF team, and they were locked and loaded for an ambush. It was a terribly tough call—and I would hate to have been the guy who had to put his men in harms way.

I don't know the Sheriff, but would love to meet him since I went through "experimental" training designed by Col. David Hackworth (About Face) in Nov. of 1969. Some of the stuff we did made it into later spec ops training. And some of us ended up working with the CIA in Vietnam. So, I'd love to compare notes. He drove a beat-up Toyota truck—we had motorcycles on ops—both very unconventional.

I thank God for these men and those who serve.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

As I sit in my nice comfortable chair this morning with the sun shining through a window brightening the room, I’m thinking about these men and their families. The loss. The families that were changed forever. The tragedy. My mind wanders back to over 50 years ago when I was on a team doing the same thing, capturing VC insurgents who were also a formidable enemy. Who had endured war long enough to know how we would respond to events like this.

I am thankful for the years God has given me. I am thankful for these men. My heart goes out to their families. I can only imagine that those coming to the rescue knew what they were flying into. The risk. The urgency. I can also imagine the Taliban knew they were coming, and lay in wait. Stepping into that environment is not small thing. They all knew it was life or death, which only makes their sacrifice more poignant.

I think that today I’ll pay a little more attention to what God has given me and be a little more grateful for these men and those like them.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

21 years ago today, on June 28, 2005, four Navy SEALs were inserted under cover of darkness into the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, a place so high and so cold the clouds drift below your feet. Their mission was to find a Taliban commander hiding in the village of Sawtalo Sar. Their names were Michael Murphy, Danny Dietz, Matthew Axelson, and Marcus Luttrell.

By morning, fate walked right up the mountain to meet them. A goat herder and a boy wandered straight into their hidden position. The team had a choice no man should ever have to make: kill unarmed civilians, or let them go and risk everything. They let them go. Within an hour, the mountain came alive with rifle fire.

What happened next is almost too brutal to put into words. Dozens of fighters swarmed the high ground above them. The four men fought their way down a near vertical slope, throwing themselves off ledges and cliffs to escape the fire, breaking bones, tearing flesh, leaving blood on the rocks, and still turning to shoot. One by one they were hit. Still they fought. They would not stop. They would not surrender.

Their radios could not reach the base down in the valley. They were screaming for help into dead air. And so Lieutenant Michael Murphy did something that should never be forgotten. He stood up. He walked out of the rocks and into open ground, into the full teeth of the enemy, with bullets cracking past him on every side, just to get a clear signal. He was shot in the back while making that call. He dropped the radio, picked it back up, finished the call, and said thank you. Then he kept fighting until he could fight no more. That single act of courage is the only reason the world ever learned their names.

Help came screaming up the valley. An MH-47 Chinook, call sign Red Wings 11, packed with eight more SEALs and eight Army Night Stalkers of the legendary 160th SOAR, refused to wait for gunship cover. Their brothers were dying and they would not sit still for it. As the bird flared over the ridge, a single rocket propelled grenade flew through the open rear ramp. The explosion tore the aircraft apart in the sky. All sixteen men aboard were killed the instant it hit the mountain.

Three on the ground. Sixteen in the air. Nineteen American sons gone in a single afternoon. It remains the worst loss of life in Naval Special Warfare history since World War II.

Michael Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Danny Dietz and Matthew Axelson received the Navy Cross. Marcus Luttrell, blown off a cliff and shredded by shrapnel, was the only one to come home. He survived because a Pashtun villager named Mohammad Gulab found him broken in a ravine and, under an ancient code of honor older than the country these men died for, stood between him and the Taliban and refused to give him up.

Twenty one years later, do not let these be just names on a screen. They had mothers. They had wives. They had children who grew up with a flag folded into a triangle instead of a father. They chose each other over their own lives on a mountain most people will never even hear of.

So today, say their names out loud. All nineteen of them 🇺🇸

In remembrance:
Lt. Michael P. Murphy
Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Danny P. Dietz
Sonar Technician 2nd Class Matthew G. Axelson
Lt. Cmdr. Erik S. Kristensen
Senior Chief Daniel R. Healy
Petty Officer 2nd Class James E. Suh
Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric S. Patton
Chief Petty Officer Jacques J. Fontan
Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffery A. Lucas
Petty Officer 2nd Class Shane E. Patton
Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey S. Taylor
Maj. Stephen C. Reich
Chief Warrant Officer Corey J. Goodnature
Chief Warrant Officer Chris J. Scherkenbach
Master Sgt. James W. Ponder III
Sgt. 1st Class Marcus V. Muralles
Sgt. 1st Class Michael L. Russell
Staff Sgt. Shamus O. Goare
Sgt. Kip A. Jacoby

Operation Red Wings. June 28, 2005. Never forgotten.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@Pritzkersgunt @thenicklavery Agreed. Dick is an exceptional human being and warrior. Long live Codename Dynamite!

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

Great story Gabe. Very inspiring. Military service can open doors that would otherwise be closed. My TS clearance and leading a team in Vietnam fast tracked my career in defense SigInt. I’m grateful for the opportunity and encourage others to set their goals high.

BTW - Loved working with South Vietnamese SF. My wife and I helped relocate refugees after Saigon fell. I still maintain friendships with that community.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

@Geezzbus @thenicklavery Good question. They had AFVN. But I can’t remember anyone who listened to it. The world wasn’t digital then. We read, played cards, things like that during our down time. Our mission equipment was primitive by today’s standards. Stone knives and bear skins.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

Pat Tillman was a selfless human being who loved his country. Scripture tells us that there is no greater love than to sacrifice oneself for another.

Friendly fire is an all-too-common tragedy of war. Anyone who has been in a firefight understands the noise, the adrenaline coursing through the body, and the pure stress of that situation. Training is great but it never reaches the level of the real thing—where your life and the lives of your friends are at risk from a determined enemy.

I don't there is anything more tragic than friendly fire. It not only can take the life of a brother, but in a way takes part of the life away from the offender.

By God's grace I was spared from friendly fire twice. It was close. I was furious instead of dead or wounded. They were trained, but not ready for combat.

Pat lost his life and his family lost a son. And I'm certain it left a hole in the one who was involved. But we must remember just how much Pat loved his country and never forget his sacrifice.

[Mike Grayson @MikeGrayson_]

My 30-30-30 was running late this morning. The 30-30-30 is morning routine. Within the first 30 minutes of the day, you get 30 minutes of exercise and consume 30 grams of protein. It is part of a 12-week experiment I am running that includes artificial intelligence—AI. This morning I was running a bit late because life happens.

I began the experiment over 6 weeks ago. The objective of the experiment is to learn how to use AI to become healthier. More fit. So far, the results are impressive. I have not only lost about 8 pounds of fat, but some chronic issues are vanishing. For example, I had a heel spur that has plagued me for over a year, and the pain disappeared in week 2 and has not come back.

Not only is my energy level higher, but I'm sleeping better. Before, it seemed impossible to get a full night's sleep, and now I sleep well almost every night. The change is remarkable.

During a follow-up visit with my oral surgeon last week, after surgery to remove a broken first molar, he asked, "What are you doing? It normally takes people 2-3 weeks to heal as fast as you." I told him about my 12-week AI fitness experiment, and we talked for quite a while.

I plan on sharing my experience on https://t.co/AQV4c1XPom but I'm early in week 7 and there is a lot to report, as well as a lot more things to learn. One thing I learned about myself is that when I get more fiber, I sleep better. But that's the goal, learn more about yourself and become healthier and more fit in the process.