The Green Beret Who Had God
and Lost Himself Anyway
Retired Green Beret, certified herbalist, and co-host of the Unconventional Faith podcast. He spent twenty years in the Army, much of that in 3rd Special Forces Group, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and came home carrying grief he would not fully face for another decade.
Justin Koch spent twenty years in the Army, much of that as a Green Beret, and most of his life convinced he had his faith handled. What he could not do was actually let God lead. This episode is the story of a man who compartmentalized everything that hurt, performed everything that was expected, and kept the whole structure standing through willpower, alcohol, and an SF identity that eventually ran out of road.
Justin Koch grew up in Montgomery, Texas, the son of parents who found faith through a neighborhood pastor who knocked on their door while riding a bicycle. Justin was saved at thirteen and almost immediately started living two lives. Church on Sundays, the world everywhere else. He had his salvation, and somewhere in the back of his mind he decided the ticket was punched and the rest was his to spend. It was not a dramatic rebellion. It was a quiet drift.
A year at The Master's College in Santa Clarita, California was supposed to straighten him out. It did the opposite. He found the campus culture performative, the Christianity suffocating, and the people more interested in demonstrating righteousness than extending it. He came home with incompletes, a chip on his shoulder, and a ready-made excuse to keep his distance from God. What followed were his self-described lost years. He eventually returned, moved back under his parents' conditions, and went to church not because he wanted to but because he had to. For the first time, he started being honest with God. He married Heather at a courthouse while still in basic training greens.
"The leadership and responsibility of your life is not up to you. And as soon as you let that go, there is a freedom in it that will go beyond your understanding."
The Army gave Justin almost everything he was looking for and none of what he actually needed. He became a Cavalry Scout, survived Korea and a fourteen-month deployment to Iraq, and ground his way through Special Forces Assessment and Selection. He deployed to Afghanistan with 3rd Special Forces Group in 2013. His teammate Steven was killed in an attack on their outpost. Justin ran to the tower expecting to treat an infantry casualty and found Steven instead. He triaged the other wounded, managed the mass casualty, and shoved all of it down somewhere deep. He had been doing that his whole life.
He and Heather lost a daughter to a pregnancy complication. Scout came next, premature, four pounds, weeks in the NICU. When Justin retired from 3rd Group at twenty years, the panic attacks came daily. He had nothing left to hold the structure up. What came out the other side was not a program. It was surrender. He and fellow retired Green Beret Tom Brigham had been going verse by verse through the Bible together for years, honest enough to say out loud when they did not understand something they had heard a hundred times. A friend told them to record it. That became the Unconventional Faith podcast. Justin Koch is now at peace with the one thing he spent forty years trying to avoid: not being in control.
"I knew I had saving faith. I was like, well, I got mine. Now I'm gonna go do whatever I want, try to be cool, try to experience life — which was experiencing sin and experiencing death."
"It was wild. I'll never forget it. The slap, the physical slap in my face, I felt it whenever I was going up there expecting to render aid to one of the infantry guys. And I look up and it's Steve."
"I remember looking at her when she showed me the stick. I was like, I should be happy right now. I should be joyful. And I was like, I don't feel anything."
"I'm just a brush. A brush cannot create a masterpiece. It needs an artist."
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."
Justin names his lost years directly after the Prodigal Son parable — and reminds us it was the father's love that made the return possible, not the son's decision-making.
"Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
Justin cites this verse when describing his early lukewarm faith — the hard truth that performing religion is not the same as a living relationship with Jesus.
"So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth."
The verse that frames the entire first half of Justin's story: a man who believed the right things and never fully gave his heart over — which Scripture names as one of the most dangerous places to be.
"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Justin echoes this verse in his own words: the peace that surpassed his understanding only arrived when he stopped trying to manufacture it himself.