First of all, I wanted to say I am amazed by the similarities in our Near Death Experiences. That is great. I would love to see you post your experience in the Near Death Experience Forum. It has been quiet for months.

As far as your view about the Military. Do you as a returnee...from heaven see anything wrong with teaching young soldiers the song I posted? I don't know what army you were in but the one I was in also sang this song to march to.
Here is the song I posted above and another song we sang as we marched;
Do you see anything wrong with those songs?

"We are going to rape, kill, pillage, burn...
We are going to rape, kill, pillage burn...
And eat babies...

Rape, kill, pillage, burn...
We are going to rape, kill, pillage burn..."

and another song we sang to the tune of "Silent Night;"

" Silently we are waitin'
A little trap we are baitin'
A girl from Palestine
Between my steady align [gun sight]
Hunting in the sniper's wonder land

Thru the woods, we are wallkin’
Silently we are stalkin’
They are exploding like cans
But I take it like a man
Hunting in a sniper wonderland

On a ridge, we are waitin’
With a trap, we are baitin’
A first round kill
From the top of a hill
Huntin’ a Sniper Wonderland

In the village here I sit a hit man
Taking aim and break another round [bullet]
In the village there's a little baby
Suddenly exploding on the ground.

A first round kill from the top of the hill
Hunting in the sniper's wonderland.

Those songs haunt my memories

There were more dozen more verses and versions
but you get the picture...
As a teenager, at seventeen,
I believed I was joining the army for "God & Country."
I beleived it yet I sang those songs...
That kind of training and indoctrination
was designed to make me into a killer...
A cold blooded murderer.

But I had already been down that road before...
When I was an even younger teen,
Ronald Reagan told me that Russia was the "Evil Empire."
My preacher told me that Communists were evil and the enemy of God.
It was during these days I fantasized that one day,
I would become a pilot...
who...on a suicide mission, would die for "God & Country."
I would fly silently over Moscow in a huge sail plane
with a nuclear bomb and crash my plane into the Kremlin
while detonating the nuclear device.

Does that sound hauntingly familiar?

I was a zealot believer.
I believed God was good and I prayed
to a God who was love
but my actions
and my mind
were influenced by my pastor
and my President...
television and the media.

My world view was clearly patriotic
or was it?
If I had fulfilled my fantasy,
what would the world look like today?

I became a pilot at 15 years of age.
I threw three paper routes to pay for the lessons.
I was a good pilot.
My instructor would bring his adult students out
to watch how I landed in a cross-wind.
I had to sit on a phone book because I was so small
back then but I would crab into the wind
and at the just right moment
take the rudder off and stall
at the exact moment of landing

I would do anything to fly.

I would do anything to become a professional pilot.
I read about military things.
I knew how many kills the aces of WWI and WWII had
I role played being in the military.
I longed to kill the enemies of "God & Country."
I also read the Old Testament and Revelations.
I saw myself as God's vengeance on the enemies of my nation.
I thought my country did not go far enough to put down
the enemies of "Democracy & Freedom."
I felt I could do the most for my nation "under God"
by becoming the perfect killing machine.

I joined the army and my life changed from fantasy to reality
and when the hostages were taken in Iran,
I put a dart board of the Ayatollah Khomeini
on the walls in my barracks
and threw darts at Ayatollah while I generated hate for Iran.
My peers began singing new songs
about turning Iran into a parking lot... "a sea of glass"
caused by the heat of a dozen nuclear explosions.

While I was in the army though,
I still prayed to God but my army
did not seem to be too concerned about God.
They seemed more concerned about murdering people
before they murdered us.
Making sure my nation's "enemies died for their country"
and not me and my buddies dying for ours was our prime directive.

It was during these days that I began reading scripture more.
I came across words in red that didn't match my world-view.
To rationalize my world-view with Christianity,
I came to the conclusion that I must do evil to prevent
other men from doing evil.
There was clearly cognitive dissonance there.
But the songs, slogans, and my training kept me on task.
Shortly before I was to apply for Hellicopter Flight Training,
I was involved in a fatal accident. Or so it would seem.
I did meet God and God asked me if I needed to learn more about love.
I agreed and went back to my body.

I was not the same person who I was before.
I had the same memories as the person who died
in that cornfield in Toledo, Ohio.
I even put my uniform back on after a year in
and out of body casts and cervical collars, and cervical beds and traction.
But my heart had changed.
I didn't want to kill anyone any more.

I didn't see the Russians and Iranians
as good people or bad people.
I just saw them as people,
just like me,
struggling to survive,
hoping to take care of their families.
I didn't want to nuke them until they glowed.
I only wanted those Iranians and Russians
to find the same God I found,
to find their way to a God that loved them...
And not only them
but every person I meet
until this day even.
That has been my calling...
To let people know that God loves them...
no matter what.

You can't convert anyone's heart
at the end of a loaded gun.
One thing I did know, way back when
over 23 years ago,
I knew for sure
that I was not in God's army...
I left the army knowing the army I served
did not serve the God I met in heaven but rather
the army I served, served another god.

I also knew that the men in the armies of Iran and Russia
and Israel too...served the same god.

It was during those army days,
when I attended meetings to plan for war with Iran.
men with P.H.D.'s told us how we were going to
destabilize every Muslim nation in the Middle East
to keep Israel/America safe.

These men were very smart men
and they had a plan
to destroy the infrastructure of Israel's enemies
by every means possible.
We would assasainate Muslim leaders.
We would knock out their power stations and water supplies.
We would even dress up diguised as Muslims and kill Muslims
to start in-fighting.
We would never allow Muslims to unite.
There would be heavy loss of life.
Civilian losses, although tragic,
we were told was just collateral damage.

It all made sense at the time
but something inside me told me
these men with their P.H.D.'s
were not what they appeared to be.
I now believe the men who control the armies of
Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom
are those same men or others just like them
and they could care less about America and Democracy.
They care even less about the soldiers who die for them.
As we are rattling sabers with Iran today,
Does any of this sound familiar?

In any case, when it was time for me to leave or stay,
I left the army and went back into the civilian world.
I had a changed attitude.
I still believed in "God and Country."
But I believed in a different God then the god
who I was told was God in my church.
I prayed to a different God then the god who
was pushing for Democracy in Iraq, Afganistan,
Lebanon, Syria, and Iran back then and
and I believe I pray to a different God
then the god many Christians, Muslims and Jews
pray to even today.

When I would go to church, after I left the army,
the preachers spoke pretty words
about how God loved us but then
preachers always had a word or two to say
about how God hated men who were not like me...
God fearing men who believed in Christianity.
This is when I knew that I was not in the right place,
and many a time, I walked out of church...

I still walk out of churches these days.
I walk out with my family...
knowing that the preacher who I went to see
was an instrument
of those same old men with P.H.D.'s.

I still go to churches when I am lead,
but the relationship I have
with the God I met in heaven,
is much more important to me
instead of listening to someone
who does not hear from the same God as me.

I am not saying I am a perfect man.
I have failed to meet God's greatest calling for me
every day.
I am just saying, I got the message about love.
God loves everyone...no exceptions.
If I kill my neighbor because he is Muslim,
Christian, Atheist, or Jew
at least seven new men, women, and children
will learn to hate me.
That is a given.
But if I hold my hand
from killing my enemy,
and only use my strength
to deflect his blows,
one day he will see,
I am not his enemy...
but instead his brother...
On that day,
he will see God in me
and be drawn to God,
God who is love,
and not the god of men with P.H.D.'s.

I believe that the pulpit is being used
as a propaganda tool today,
just as it was in my army days.
The media is also an instrument of the same.

My Near Death Experience has not always
stopped me from doing the wrong thing.
But my NDE has given me the ability to discern
what is of God or from some lesser god.
God is love and forgave even me...
A man who would have murdered a million human beings
if given the chance.
God had mercy on even me.