Interview with Dr. John M. Perkins

Conducted by phone on January 23, 2021.

Transcript

John M. Perkins: military service don't match anything in what's bad for me. It was a time when my brother Clyde was, went in. That's a whole different climate from when I went in.

Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:00:24] John M. Perkins: And I was and the poverty that I left in Mississippi, even though I was drafted in California, my military experience, as I look deeply back on it, was all good.

It and I was. In the military when I believe it was when, yes, I went into the service as a part of the first integrated military from California. And the boys that I went in with, I think I might've been 19 or 20 when I went in, I don't know today. And they was from, drafted from California, went in from L.

A., went to Fort Art for our training. And many of those other people who was with me went to camp. Right between Fort Art and in L. A., Robbis, Camp Robbis. And we went in as the first integrated, after Truman integrated the Army, and the military, Had the power to do that. They will, the school and everybody in the military is under somebody else.

[00:01:56] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

John M. Perkins: And if you would get me to overall look at the military, yes, even right today, the United States, head of the military just confirmed a black as a top person.

Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:02:13] John M. Perkins: So I got out of it. So all of my, and I was not a Christian when I went in, I was somewhat had been grew up in Mississippi as a, an escape to California as a angler black, at least against all Mississippi people.

Because when I got to California, the years, a couple of years before I went in, a few years before I went in, that was a great experience for me just as an individual civilian. I tell a story about starting a mechanization and being the first people in. And when the center, when it was set up, I ended up becoming the First, I was a lead man, and I ended up becoming a union leader within the organization where I was going to become a businessman for the company.

But I saw the need for a sense of equality, and it wasn't a big conflict, and even though we let a little work stoppage. It we was not punished, neither was I fired, but I left the management to get out of the union. My experience and what I'm actually saying these were opportunities not with somebody who was a radical, but somebody who benefited from My company benefited from, and then I got out of the military and I've used my GI bill in California to buy a house, came back to Mississippi, used to buy a house.

And then I just got out of the hospital back in December. I went yesterday one year to get my examination, but I was operated on the VA hospital. So my experience as a Christian, see, so I came with Christian after I, I became a soldier, after I got out, so my experience, I looked back in gratitude.

So I don't have now that's the whole thing, but I don't make the military having nothing to do with my brother being killed. It was a environment. As races in the community.

[00:04:59] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

John M. Perkins: So I would not put any of that. My, my hands up is with the military.

Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:05:08] John M. Perkins: I, my, my heart beats because I think even in the state we was in coming up Oh, in a racist situation, but segregated, we saw and look for the day would come when America would live up to his creed.

When the Civil Rights Movement was good, now we welcome the Civil Rights Movement. Sometimes I talk, I talk to white folks in the South and around the United States. They ask me then, when did you join the Civil Rights Movement? Like they got something against it. I don't have nothing against the Civil Rights Movement.

I would be an absolute fool to turn against somebody. To deliver me from the kind of slavery, but I'm not also mad with white folk. I think Christianity have helped me to understand what the forgiveness of sin and what brings about genocide when you don't forgive each other. In my biblical face, is it?

teaches that all sin can be forgiven. Did it use a couple there, but those two is a sin, all sins against God, but all of that was meant to be against God, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Do you see what I'm talking about? So my my, I'm not accommodating anything that the military have done.

But

[00:06:57] John M. Perkins: for me, in my experience, I don't have anything against the military. Now, one of the things I've done now with this operation, the military is so busy, The VA is so busy and everything with phone calls and I'm 90 years old and can't go through those system fags and I'm, and I've been blessed with a good life in terms of economics while I got the VA.

I got I didn't get out of it. I went back when I had this operation, this last cancer operation, I went to a private doctor just for access, not because the VA was so full and so many of the VA people. My age is, my group is the faster dying group.

[00:08:03] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:08:04] John M. Perkins: in the country, but we are dying out.

See I'm 90. So we're going to be dead and we're going to be all gone in in five or six more years. So my life with the military, and I think my success in, in, in when I got out of military had to do with when I was in Missouri, I dropped out of elementary school. And so my learning and opportunity.

And I've always lived over my head. I've always had a job that I didn't have the background. I have found out that's a virtue. That's a virtue when you are called upon to do what you cannot do. And if the environment and the leadership is there. You can survive. There is ways to do that. And I have helped families, rich families and poor families use that coming to the end of what they know and reach in for what you don't know.

And that's a hard thing to do.

[00:09:27] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah,

[00:09:28] John M. Perkins: that's where you, that's what success is at. Success is basically not totally satisfied, but then looking for people, not just to be better than them, but humbling yourself under them and being able to continue to look for truth. But that's a hard guys to act act.

So wisdom is really humility. Wisdom is really humility. So what I'm saying is, I was in the troop information and education deal, I didn't, I was shocked when I went in and being told that I needed to hate a communist I knew nothing about and go kill him. That sort of prepped me.

I didn't get mad at the military, but it prepped me for coming out. And I think it created an opening that when I did come to faith in Jesus Christ, that the military had contributed to me. Now I heard all these other stories. I haven't gotten, I probably would have gotten involved because of my love for it.

I wouldn't have wanted to become corrupt to destroy others. And so I would have, but it never became a mission for me because racism was much more damaging. The racism in this country, not only was damaged against black folk, but it damaged white folks. So there was a evil outside.

It's bigger than in my sight.

[00:11:28] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:11:29] John M. Perkins: Bigger than the evil inside. Now, on the other hand, on the other hand, one of my greatest, I a a Ku Klux lineman Thomas Turner, who acts a bomb, Jews and Whites home. He's one of my best friends. Because he came to Christ and he repented so deeply, so I have a, but now on the other hand, I'm not against people going in and finding whatever he is.

It was against a military person. And if it's against the military, let's root it out. You get the idea?

[00:12:07] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:12:08] John M. Perkins: So I'm not just mad anti looking for something to root out. I'm mad looking for people who can find faith and a sense of gratitude and stewardship of God's earth.

[00:12:27] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:12:28] John M. Perkins: So that's my so I would wanna not, I would not make some wild statement and contribute my misery to the military.

That's that's my honest, but I would not feel good. If the military is being used in an evil way, I wouldn't be a good, but I would want to, at this point, engage our people in reconciliation, engage our people to law author to our nation. We are at a. Crucial time that our nation could be so easy to destroy because people like Brian Jane and all these people, they don't buckle as imperious, even though they make it all this money.

They

[00:13:32] John M. Perkins: don't decide that they are equal. And a black had assumed that he was not equal and he had to be super to be. Every child should be equal. It shouldn't, the bill don't mean his achievement makes him equal. He ought to be born with that. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all mankind was created equal by the Creator.

and was designed for certain rights and chief among those a life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So I, I, so I'm one of those who I'm not here just a while president,

but

[00:14:27] John M. Perkins: I'm not here while a condemning because A Poverty Black for me ends up being a with 16 honorary doctorate degrees.

[00:14:41] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:14:42] John M. Perkins: And all of these books that our family and us and others can benefit from. And that we are just not creating a scholarship fund to help build endowments in schools for students. Poor children, and these are not only poor black, but these are for poor whites too. Because in Mississippi, where I live, poor white folks don't have a liberator.

The Pentecostal church used to have them. And the Klu Klux Klan exploits them.

[00:15:25] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:15:26] John M. Perkins: So my, my. My thought is and I would not say the military was right in all of its existence, but I wouldn't want it. Condemn my whole military. That's what I'm saying.

[00:15:40] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah. And that resonates a lot with where I'm coming from.

The, I think I have this, I hear from other veterans who want to really take ownership of their faith. But what they hear from the pulpit is either like the blind patriotism where it's, flag everywhere and everything else, or it's, keeping, keeping them at a distance because of their military service, assuming that the military always and everywhere does something bad to a person.

And until they. Confess or repent or something. Even if they were like an admin person, never deployed, there's this disconnect. So that's precisely what you know, is motivating me as well, is looking at the good and the bad and the military and providing resources to do that. I like

[00:16:28] John M. Perkins: that.

I like what you're saying. I, I like what you're saying, that's why I wanted to. Talk to you, and understand what you was doing.

[00:16:36] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:16:36] John M. Perkins: And then we go at it in an honest way of integrity, because we bill after the military I feel good about too, we bill a great

[00:16:47] Logan M. Isaac: America.

Yeah. After World War ii.

[00:16:51] John M. Perkins: Now what we did is got deceived. We got deceived by religion. Turning religion over to Trump was evil and I'm not following Trump.

[00:17:06] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:17:07] John M. Perkins: I'm fine. I did an article in the Washington Post about that. They turn the Christian faith, a group of people over to Trump He didn't take it.

[00:17:29] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:31] John M. Perkins: And that was deception. Now I'm not in the mood of making a demon out of Trump. He did wrong. And we're going to see it deeper because he did it as his own ambition.

[00:17:46] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:17:47] John M. Perkins: It wasn't patriotism. He was doing it.

[00:17:50] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:17:51] John M. Perkins: He wasn't to make a better America. He was in riches himself.

[00:17:57] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

And

[00:17:57] John M. Perkins: anybody can be deceived, not anybody, but deception is a devil's trick.

[00:18:04] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:18:06] John M. Perkins: And I think that's the kind of, your book might contribute to that, if it, I would be glad if you would write a book that would contribute to that and continue to not do that. Assume that the military, whatever average you have that is designed to help people without making demons out of somebody else.

I would, I would want to speak to that because we're making demons out of each other and his brain about genocide. Black folks are killing black folks. They got their guns on the wrong people, on the cousins. White folks not turning their guns on themselves, and on churches, and on ballparks, and going in there and killing anybody.

That's our fear.

[00:19:04] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:19:04] John M. Perkins: That's my fear. It's what hatred would do to us.

[00:19:09] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah. One of the things that I really like doing and that I think contributes to that is getting into some of the nitty gritty detail, details. It's like vets always like to pass around their stories and everybody checks one another.

Sometimes people are nervous about impersonating vets. But Do you, you mentioned, I'd be interested in hearing some of the specifics of your service if you remember it. You said you went to, or, let me check something by you to make sure some of my math is right. Cause I read and re read Justice Rolled Down to make sure I That's a

[00:19:43] John M. Perkins: good one, that's a good one, that's a good one, yes.

[00:19:45] Logan M. Isaac: So as far as I can tell, you joined up or were drafted somewhere in April of 1951. I saved,

[00:19:53] John M. Perkins: I went in February.

[00:19:54] Logan M. Isaac: February. Okay. Now, did you have, did you, between February and when you got married, because you said you took a 21 day leave to get married and then went back in and went overseas, came back between February and April.

Was that all training or did they have you waiting somewhere?

[00:20:15] John M. Perkins: No, it, I was trained at Ford Art. And it was 15 weeks training.

[00:20:23] Logan M. Isaac: Oh, okay.

[00:20:24] John M. Perkins: And then, you have a week or so of property in Fort Art. But they bring, they send you home.

[00:20:30] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah, okay. You can get a

[00:20:31] John M. Perkins: furlough. And we got what we call a 21 day furlough.

[00:20:35] Logan M. Isaac: Right.

[00:20:36] John M. Perkins: That's when I got married.

[00:20:38] Logan M. Isaac: Okay. Fort Art. And then I went

[00:20:40] John M. Perkins: back and went overseas.

[00:20:43] Logan M. Isaac: Okay. Fort Art may not exist anymore. And it was home to my

[00:20:45] John M. Perkins: wife. That was the horrible thing.

[00:20:48] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:20:48] John M. Perkins: And I didn't know that. Power that, but I also wanted to get her before somebody else got her.

[00:20:56] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah, I heard a lot. People will, yeah, I had friends that got married on R& R.

What state is Fort, was Fort Art in?

[00:21:05] John M. Perkins: The what?

[00:21:06] Logan M. Isaac: Do you remember what state it was in? I don't know if it still exists or not.

[00:21:10] John M. Perkins: I'm thinking California.

[00:21:11] Logan M. Isaac: California? Okay.

[00:21:13] John M. Perkins: My, I drafted from Southern California, Pasadena, that's in right outside of L. A.

[00:21:20] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:21:20] John M. Perkins: I went then up to Oregon Fort Art, that's in the San Francisco, June area.

It's not quite to San Francisco, it probably is a hundred miles from San Francisco, but San Francisco was pretty easy to go to, but we, we had, we really didn't go that far because they had some good, smaller town in that area. And they had the Fort Art was a, was an excellent location.

It was act on the sea.

[00:21:52] Logan M. Isaac: Okay. I think I know what you're talking about then. And then when you went over to Okinawa, do you remember where you were placed in? What your specialty was? Anything that sticks out from

[00:22:03] John M. Perkins: Yeah. We were at Naha.

[00:22:06] Logan M. Isaac: Huh.

[00:22:06] John M. Perkins: We went in and stayed the first five or so months in Naha. But they were building a major air force base and they almost had it Finished.

Probably even might have had it in a, in the upper part of Cadena. We called it, and that was a big airport space there. And that's where the plane went out every morning and every evening to bomb Korea. Okay. And so we had to protect that as a military zone. So my on all of my military activities and I could worm if I would worm.

I never had. We would consider a combat zone.

[00:23:01] Logan M. Isaac: Okay,

[00:23:02] John M. Perkins: so I was gonna come back zone. But We was there to protect the island itself, in particular, the airplanes when they went to bomb because they would come in and shot up.

[00:23:15] Logan M. Isaac: Right.

[00:23:16] John M. Perkins: And several, and then we was also there because the MiGs was coming out and they would sometimes chase, to be a chasing.

Okay.

[00:23:27] John M. Perkins: And we had to be there ready to shoot down. anything that didn't approach him. So we was, we, the last part of my ministry there, we was dug into the heels, in and had our own camps. We built our own camp, not permanent, but

[00:23:48] Logan M. Isaac: yeah.

[00:23:50] John M. Perkins: And then we protected the guns. And, what we would do is, sometimes we would do it in routine, but sometimes we would do it in reality.

A, enemies are coming. You know what I mean?

[00:24:05] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:24:06] John M. Perkins: And then we would go out and see how ready we was, as a way of keeping us exercised.

[00:24:11] Logan M. Isaac: Oh yeah, like drills.

[00:24:13] John M. Perkins: And then I, the other part I was in when I was at Naha, that's when they put me in the information and education. And even out there, I was in communication.

Because we'd build our, back in those days, we'd build our own telephone lines. Okay. And right now you wouldn't have to do that. Because we and so what we were doing many times is keeping up our telephone wires.

[00:24:45] Logan M. Isaac: Okay.

Now did you, was that training wrapped into your 15 weeks of BASIC?

Or did you do that?

[00:24:52] John M. Perkins: No, in basic, no, in basic, you get that first infrastructure training. Everybody gets that.

8

[00:24:59] Logan M. Isaac: weeks.

[00:25:01] John M. Perkins: And then the other 15 weeks, the

other

[00:25:06] John M. Perkins: then was heavy anti aircraft training. So I was trained to be an infantry. Everybody's trained there. And then. We were not with the heaviest anti aircraft stuff, but we were trained in that.

And so when we got, because they knew now, they knew all the time, we are going to Korea, but where do we go? Do we go out into protection, or do we go into the fight?

[00:25:39] Logan M. Isaac: Okay.

[00:25:40] John M. Perkins: And so we ended up going to replace the military people who got stuck there for a year, all that time.

[00:25:50] Logan M. Isaac: Oh, interesting. Okay.

[00:25:52] John M. Perkins: In the Korean War.

So instead of us sending us to Korea, they sent us there to Okinawa to protect that island.

At

[00:26:01] John M. Perkins: that point the United States is not going to get that island back.

[00:26:05] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:26:08] John M. Perkins: Because it had been the hardest to take. No,

[00:26:11] Logan M. Isaac: I learned, I was

[00:26:16] John M. Perkins: a third grade dropout.

[00:26:21] Logan M. Isaac: It

[00:26:22] John M. Perkins: was a massive time in my life. to concentrate.

And I have always been in

[00:26:33] Logan M. Isaac: over my head.

[00:26:36] John M. Perkins: I've always been in broken, not up for the job that I get. And I have been over ambition in my life. And so I'm always in those. But I have come to understand Even as a Christian, that's where you learn the most, when you're hungering and thirsting after something.

And so mine was learning how to read. Mine was learning how to do this. When I went to California, I didn't know what a street on the boulevard to get from.

In fact, I learned all of that creatively in the military.

Because we, in communication, we was a part of what you call in head of the artillery. We were trained to be forward observers. We was the people would go as close to the line or beyond the line and that we would communicate back to the guns what the environment looked like. And boy, I learned, and you always know what is north, what is south.

You know that. And I learned that my kid was always we'd always have fun. It's difficult for me to get lost.

[00:28:14] Logan M. Isaac: To know what is north, what is south.

[00:28:16] John M. Perkins: And all of us carried a compass in our pocket or somewhere. And then of course, when we would communicate back to the base, we had to communicate where we're at and where they're at.

It's a place that can't be destroyed.

[00:28:40] Logan M. Isaac: So

[00:28:40] John M. Perkins: we wouldn't locate people by what houses on the left, what houses on the left, because a house could be destroyed, and you could misguide the arterial that you was calling in. So you had to, and you wasn't a good, you need to call a military in on the enemy, not on yourself.

[00:29:01] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah,

[00:29:03] John M. Perkins: You know that, yeah.

[00:29:05] Logan M. Isaac: Do you, that's routine to you, ? Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember when it came time, did you do just a one year draft enlistment? Or No,

[00:29:14] John M. Perkins: two years. It was two years and it was two years. So I stayed in 22 months.

[00:29:22] Logan M. Isaac: Okay.

[00:29:22] John M. Perkins: 23 months or something like that. That was supposed to be 24 months.

[00:29:27] Logan M. Isaac: Okay. And when you were getting ready to come home, what do you remember anything as you were. Before you got on the plane to leave Okinawa, what kind of things were you looking forward to? Do you remember anything about before you came home?

[00:29:40] John M. Perkins: Oh, I think I'm looking forward to, and all of us, many of the other boys are looking forward to getting married.

Some of them. Was heartbroken because somebody else had got the girl they wanted. So yeah, I was

[00:30:01] Logan M. Isaac: looking forward to coming home and being a husband. Yeah, to

[00:30:06] John M. Perkins: being a husband. Vera Mae I've been with her now. I'm 90 and a half. She is 87 and a half. And we've been together. For 70 years. Isn't that something?

[00:30:25] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah. Yeah. I saw that's why I was trying to do my math. I found a couple years ago when your daughters put something about your anniversary. That's how I was able to piece together the timeframe. That is a, that's an admirable goal to shoot for. My wife and I are at five right now, so we've got a ways to go

[00:30:43] John M. Perkins: and and where do you live?

[00:30:44] Logan M. Isaac: We're in Maryland now. When we last spoke, I was in North Carolina.

[00:30:48] John M. Perkins: Now, are you was in the military too?

[00:30:54] Logan M. Isaac: That's

[00:30:54] John M. Perkins: great. That's great.

[00:30:56] Logan M. Isaac: I wanted to also ask you really quickly about the transition home. I mentioned, World War II vets. Black vets who came home and were discriminated against that there's a lot of scholarship and articles now talking about how that kind of was the impetus for them to get involved.

But that's also it sounds like your experience in 53 or so was very different from their experience. Military.

[00:31:22] John M. Perkins: Yeah. When I came out too I met some people and I ambition and I get a job as a janitor. I also went to school and met some people who started their own business in Preston.

Dry cleaning was becoming very powerful.

[00:31:42] Logan M. Isaac: Oh, okay.

[00:31:43] John M. Perkins: And it was a great place to, to start. So I took my BA training. In dry cleaning, but then the company that I worked for Promoted me and so I was better off. I thought I was gonna start my own Dry cleaning vendor, but I was learning in merchandising and they took me out of the I told the company that And they asked me what would I like to learn?

So I said

[00:32:17] John M. Perkins: And some of the most important thing in California was construction.

[00:32:24] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:32:24] John M. Perkins: And one of the super important thing was well, because of the size of the building, and so I went into well, and I did well, and then when I got out, but I did well and with the company that Was also expanding and building stores.

You get the idea?

[00:32:50] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah. So I became a a welder.

[00:32:54] John M. Perkins: And that was, to me, adequate. Because I became in the shop. We had a a supermarket. Place like that. We had what we call up to the fourth man

in

[00:33:07] John M. Perkins: terms of who's in charge. You had to, you had to, to one man and one a man in your system.

And then you would have a third person and a fourth person. And so I, I got in that loop within the shop I was in. So we, that was a sort of a grading in terms of being a livable wage.

Okay.

[00:33:36] John M. Perkins: And our company was a family owned company that also set aside a percentage of their company for ownership.

Yeah. And you never, we never bought up to the full amount that the company would give an ownership. That created a sort of permanent, salarious company,

[00:34:00] Logan M. Isaac: yeah.

[00:34:01] John M. Perkins: That you want. And so every year when, because our truck, our company was splitting, it was growing so fast. And which meant that you got double and sometimes almost triple the amount when they split So, so All of that was Learned for me then when I came to faith I went full time That's

one

[00:34:29] John M. Perkins: of the unique things I'm a guy who went into full time ministry in 1960 and has been in full time ministry.

And ever since, and I took some of those things that I learned and became consultants to other groups. That's, that contributed to my getting into local economic development. I saw the the business as we needed ownership, some ownership in the black community. We needed some businesses and almost all ethnic groups.

Blacks had it during the more difficult time. We had more economic development than we have now because that it was tight surrogate.

[00:35:33] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:35:33] John M. Perkins: And in the big cities, particularly in the big cities. And that's, so the black community was a commerce community.

[00:35:44] Logan M. Isaac: Okay. Yeah. I just have one more question, then I gotta help out with dinner, but I may try and give you a call maybe in another week or so when you became a Christian.

Did you reflect back on your military time at all? Did it

[00:35:59] John M. Perkins: Oh it was, it not with messing with other women, but I reflected back on it and my desire to abstain from that kind of stuff, and to be a faithful husband. And I really myself had to repent. And then even as I got back, before I became a Christian, I cheated, after I came to faith, still, I think that's where some of my gratitude come from that Bureau May stuck with me.

Until I overcame that desire and understood the Christian faith. That I got a God that is with me. He sees me. That's a hard thing.

God have to be redemptive. And then, I didn't never get any children. During those early days outta wedlock

.

That's a blessing.

[00:37:02] Logan M. Isaac: Do you, did God I'm it, when I ask, or when I hear from other soldiers and vets, they do talk about, like womanizing or. Pornography or something. Do you ever think about, like you mentioned, sometimes having to be ready to shoot down MiGs or protect Okinawa. Was there any violence that you participated in and it, was that anything that you reflected on as a Christian looking back on?

[00:37:32] John M. Perkins: No I did not we did not shoot down anything.

[00:37:37] Logan M. Isaac: Okay.

[00:37:37] John M. Perkins: We was ready to shoot it down.

[00:37:40] Logan M. Isaac: So

[00:37:40] John M. Perkins: I have no tough times there. I,

I,

[00:37:44] John M. Perkins: one of the things too I said one time to a Christian boy, I, I was far from God and I would say to him, I didn't believe in God. I didn't know who he was.

And sometime he would raise that and I would and I would go into. I didn't know what an atheist was.

[00:38:03] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:38:03] John M. Perkins: But I would go into my anti God stuff. And sometimes I think, he's Christian conscious. I would a little bit despise it, because it looked like it was against me, because I knew I was against my wife.

I knew that. Not against her, I was just sneaking out. Yeah. And as I look back on it, that was a good experience for me.

[00:38:27] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah. Did I,

[00:38:28] John M. Perkins: I saw Christian consistent in a very difficult situation.

[00:38:34] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah. Was this other guy, was he one of the other soldiers? Or like a civilian? He was a soldier.

He was a soldier. Gotcha.

[00:38:41] John M. Perkins: And he was a Christian. And I'm almost, I think I imagine was persecuting him.

.

And I think he was trying to be a alive,

[00:38:51] Logan M. Isaac: yeah.

[00:38:52] John M. Perkins: I, those are things I look back on and and even today I will ask God to forgive me, even, I said, Lord forgive me for my ignorance.

Do

[00:39:04] Logan M. Isaac: you remember his name? Or do you know his name?

[00:39:06] John M. Perkins: No, I don't remember. I lost my military color book. Bureau May had it for a long time. And somewhere in my movie, I lost my military notebook. I had a, it was a paper book, but it was bigger than I had in that book. You know what I mean?

And and we also put pictures in it.

[00:39:34] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:39:34] John M. Perkins: And my children would always look at it. My children loved it.

[00:39:39] Logan M. Isaac: But

[00:39:40] John M. Perkins: they could see me as a when I was in the military I did a little boxing and things like that and I was an athlete. So I played on the baseball team and the strong fall team and the basketball team and that was calm because I played with some of the major leaguers who were drafted.

And and I played with some of the people that was gonna play in the big leagues when they got back,

you

[00:40:14] John M. Perkins: know they would try to organize either baseball or softball and basketball, even in the smaller unit.

[00:40:23] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:40:25] John M. Perkins: But baseball. It came from a bigger population.

[00:40:29] Logan M. Isaac: Yeah.

[00:40:30] John M. Perkins: Yeah.

[00:40:31] Logan M. Isaac: I remember.

It was pretty popular when I was in too. Do you remember the name of the unit when you were in Okinawa? The number or the mascot or anything?

[00:40:39] John M. Perkins: I really don't. Okay.

[00:40:41] Logan M. Isaac: I

[00:40:41] John M. Perkins: really don't. Only thing I can remember is my I done lost it. Now my cell number.

[00:40:50] Logan M. Isaac: Huh?

[00:40:51] John M. Perkins: Yeah. I don't, I forgot about my, I lost my seal now.

Yeah.

[00:40:57] Logan M. Isaac: Okay. Yeah. This has all been really helpful and interesting. I'm sure I'll, go over my notes and look at stuff and have other questions. You mind if I call you back again maybe in a couple weeks? I

[00:41:07] John M. Perkins: don't I don't mind at all.

[00:41:09] Logan M. Isaac: Alright.

[00:41:10] John M. Perkins: I don't come back at all. Okay, brother.

[00:41:14] Logan M. Isaac: All right. I really appreciate it. Dr. Perkins.

[00:41:16] John M. Perkins: Bye.