Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
In 1978, Jerry Boykin joined what would become the world's premier Special Operations unit, Delta Force. The only promise: "A medal and a body bag." What followed was a .50 caliber round in the chest and a life spent with America's elite forces bringing down warlords and war criminals, despots, and dictators. In Colombia, his task force hunted the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. In Panama, he helped capture the brutal dictator Manuel Noriega, liberating a nation. From Vietnam to Iran to Mogadishu, Lt. General Jerry Boykin's life reads like an action-adventure novel. Boykin's powerful story will keep you riveted as he reveals how his military duty worked in tandem with his faith to bring him through the bloody storms of foreign battle-and through the political firestorm that ambushed him in his own country.

Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent! Highly recommend the book. July 30, 2008
42 out of 46 found this review helpful

Few people have been involved in as many significant US military operations over the past three decades as has LTG (ret.) William G. "Jerry" Boykin. From being a founding member of the Delta Force to commanding all US Army Special Forces he shows that a person can be a committed Christian and a soldier.

Co-written by New York Times best selling author Lynn Vincent, Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom gets your interest on page one and keeps it through the entire book. The book's structure helps with the presentation. It is divided in thirteen sections. Each section covers one of the stages of Jerry Boykin's life or a major US operation he was involved in. Each section is divided into short, action-packed chapters.

The book tells story after story of how famous military operations went down. The Iran Hostage Crisis, Sudan, Grenada, Panama, Waco and the Branch Davidians, Columbia, Somalia, the Balkans and more give great insight into contemporary US military history.

Jerry Boykin is a born-again Christian. The role of his faith is very tastefully woven into each story. You will not feel preached at, but rather have an appreciation of how his belief in God sustained and directed him through the years.

One of my favorite stories in the book involved Panama, the playing of loud, rock music and Manuel Noriega. The media thought the US Army was using the loud music as a psychological weapon against Noriega. The original intent of the music was to keep the media from being able to eavesdrop on the conversations between Boykin and the Vatican embassy where Noriega was hold-up.

The most insightful section was on Mogadishu, Somalia. It gives the real story that the movie Blackhawk Down omits. Boykin was the leader of the mission. He had to make the tough decision of leaving a man down in order to save others. He said that was the worst thing he has ever experienced.

Boykin has never been afraid to admit he is a Christian. Some things he said during the most recent war in Iraq upset people. He said that he believed God put George Bush in the White House. The news media quoted that statement. What the media didn't quote was that he continued by saying God put Bill Clinton and every other American leader in their positions. Boykin was pretty much beat up in the press over this. He was completely exonerated by internal military investigations.

I highly recommend the book. It provides fascinating insight into military tactics and life behind the scenes of Delta Force. Read and reviewed by Jimmie A. Kepler, July 2008.

5 out of 5 stars

A fantastic effort August 8, 2008
18 out of 21 found this review helpful

Never Surrender is an insightful book which reveals the secretive world of Delta Force and the many operations it has participated in during the past two decades. More interestingly, however, William Boykin and Lynn Vincent have managed to give us a glimpse into the mind of a man who has managed to successfully bridge the gap between the modern soldier and Christianity and how that sort of man can make for positive change in the world. The media may have made Boykin into a poster child for the worst of the American military but his own words reveal him the kind of man any soldier would be honoured to follow into the breech.

5 out of 5 stars

Few others could have told this story August 11, 2008
18 out of 20 found this review helpful

I'm a bit biased as I served in the same unit as the author although at a later date, but this is a proud and extraordinary account of one man's career in Delta Force and his strong personal faith. LTG(R) Boykin seemed to be a magnet to our nation's most sensitive "black" ops, tempted death on two different battlefields, and shares details of missions many of us in my era knew very little about. Boykin also shares his obvious respect and admiration for GEN(R) Peter J. Schoomaker, the 35th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, who for many years was just as "black" as Boykin. Even if you have read Beckwith's DELTA FORCE and Haney's INSIDE DELTA FORCE, don't miss Boykin's eye opening and awe-inspiring work. Well worth ten times the cover price.

5 out of 5 stars

Never Surrender August 10, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

Great book and great writer. I am so proud we have people of Jerry Boykin's caliber serve our country. Thank God for men who will speak the truth and give us wonderful insight into our military. This is a must read. I also realize just how important also the President of the United States is and we do not need to be apathetic during this election but get out and vote. Jerry Boykin has seen it all during his war years and he has led by example. Please read this book. It is great!!!

5 out of 5 stars

RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "I'LL ONLY PROMISE YOU TWO THINGS... A MEDAL AND A BODY BAG!" August 22, 2008
9 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is the powerful life story of Lieutenant General (Retired) William G. "Jerry" Boykin. The General starts off sharing his families commitment to supporting the United States military, when he tells about his Father defying the author's Grandmother, and lying about his age to join the Navy during World War II. His Father's four brothers were already serving on active duty, so there were two reasons he didn't have to enlist (and why his Grandmother didn't want her fifth and youngest son to enlist.)... one... he wasn't eighteen yet... and two... there was a law that would differ the last brother from service. With that type of family devotion to country firmly established, the General then tells of his childhood raised on a North Carolina tobacco farm, and the wonderful Father and son relationship he had with his Father. They hunted and fished together and also spent long hard days working in the fields. The author played all sports in high school and got a football scholarship to Virginia Tech. While growing up, he would go to church with his Mother, but his Father would stay home. When "Jerry" went to College, he had what could be described as a religious "epiphany", which would change his life, and eventually create some major controversy later in his stalwart military career. Two of his football coaches were Christian "faith- forward firebrands. Both coaches inspired me." As I said, during my teen years Dad stayed home from church. "Meanwhile, the men in our home church were, well, church men. It was almost as though the fact that I met them in church, and not out in the "real world", cancelled their credibility in matters of real life. Meanwhile, my Dad was a Purple Heart winner, an outdoorsman, a hardworking husband, and a devoted Father, not a man of faith, but unarguably a good man. Coach Claiborne and Coach Royer were the first men in my life who demonstrated to me a man could be both."

As Jerry was nearing graduation, the Viet Nam war was raging. As a Viet Nam era veteran myself, I must say that a number of situations detailed in this book strike very close to my heart, and as I'll point out later in this review, give striking validity to a number of personal experiences that have continued to fester within me to this day. In 1970 (I had already been to war and returned) during a campus war protest by dissidents, Jerry confronted two individuals that were about to burn our countries flag. I was raised to never even let the flag hit the ground... and if it did... you picked it up and kissed it. I also, like millions of other veterans, defended our flag with our lives. Jerry confronted the two lowlifes: "Hey! Where are going with that flag?" "They said: This war sucks! We're gonna burn this flag!" "The flag my Father lost half his sight for. The flag my uncles and eight million others had rushed to defend. The flag thousands of young men died for in Viet Nam, and were dying for now, maybe at this minute. The hell you are, I said. I said very deliberately, if you try to burn that flag, I'm going to kick both your "butt's". Take your choice. They contemplated that scenario, then turned around and walked in the opposite direction, away from the fire. WISE DECISION, I THOUGHT." General... from one Veteran to another... thank you!

When the author was stationed in Korea, he could not believe how much respect, dignity, and highly emotional thanks, all of Korea showered upon their soldiers on their way to Viet Nam and upon their return. The author with disgust points out how our soldiers were spit on upon their return. This really hit a nerve with me, because when I came back I was degraded with taunts such as "baby-killers". No one ever thanked me for my service until twenty-five years later. Recently, in an unexpected and highly emotional moment... at an Oakland Raider football game, where I've had season tickets since they came back to Oakland in 1995... one year a game fell on VETERANS DAY... and as many fans have had the same tickets for years... we get to know each other... as the Blue Angels flew over the Coliseum, and the announcer thanked all of America's veterans... the big burly guy who sits behind me... and was James Brown's bodyguard... known as the "Snowman"... leaned over and hugged me... and thanked me for my service.

In 1978 Boykin was selected as one of the first members of the "ultra secretive and deadly Delta Force." The highly selective and grueling physical and mental demands, that push a man to the limits of human capabilities and "beyond", are described in painstaking detail. From that initial selection, Jerry would one day wind up being the commander of the unit, and later on command ALL of U.S. Army Special Forces. During my service I had been selected for one short classified "Black-Bag" mission... (nothing to compare to a lifelong career like the General's) but what I found extremely interesting... and brought back in riveting detail to me... from a special hidden place deep within my soul... was one of the final questions they asked Boykin before he was selected... and that exact same question... was asked of me by a military psychologist before I was selected... "COULD YOU, IN A VERY CALCULATED WAY, KILL A PERSON WHO POSED NO THREAT TO YOU?"

The rest of the book is like riding a rocket on an insider's look at almost every famous and controversial military action in the last thirty plus years. The reader will be taken from Viet Nam to the Iran hostage crisis... to the Sudan... to Grenada, which was much more violent than the general public might be aware of (including Jerry getting hit with a 50 caliber round and almost losing his arm, and openly stating the Lord would heal him.)... to helping break an American citizen out of a Panama jail in a daring rescue operation... and also capturing Noriega... to "assisting" in the apprehension of infamous Columbia drug lord Pablo Escobar... who in 1989 was rated by Forbes Magazine as the seventh wealthiest man in the world.. Who was moving an estimated *THIRTY-BILLION-DOLLARS-A-YEAR IN COCAINE... to behind the scenes "advising" in Waco?

Perhaps one of the saddest and gut wrenching portions of the book is the Mogadishu, Somalia chapters. As the author lands in Mogadishu he says: "This has got to be the worst place I've ever been. I had seen poorer places. In El Salvador, I had watched ragged, legless beggars scoot around on carts; in Sudan, I had been with the Dinkas, a desperately poor people who raised scrawny cattle and owned nothing. And I had seen more decrepit places: trash heaped in the street of Honduras, the rubble that once was Beirut, and in Khartoum, a dead donkey burning. But I had never seen hopelessness like this." This is the battle that was made famous in the book and movie "BLACKHAWK DOWN", which the General has problems with. It is where the author opens the back of a vehicle and the blood of his brave men... stacked on top of each other like firewood... flows out like a waterfall. It is also where he made the statement to a captured Osman Atto: "YOU UNDERESTIMATED OUR G-D." According to the author what he said was later misconstrued, and as you will have to read to find out... it seriously affected General Boykin's military career.

This superbly written insider's narration continues to the Balkan's and up through the General's military retirement. There are no punches pulled discussing battle or the General's relationship with the Lord. This book is a modern historical masterpiece!

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