My Secret Life in College

By Dr. James Breazile
Veterinary Medicine and Physiological Sciences
Oklahoma State University

It was supposed to be the beginning of my freshman year in college. I had told friends and relatives that I would be attending the University of Missouri - the first person from my rural northeastern Missouri town to attend such a big university. In August, while all freshmen at Mizzou were learning their way around campus, getting their clothes ready and asking about the professors they would encounter, I was well into my secret life as a CIA agent, assigned to the Marine Corps.

I had left home that summer and boarded a plane for Washington D.C. The CIA had tested me for 3 weeks and enrolled me into a CIA-U.S. Marine Corps program. Although the CIA contributed much to my training, over the next 4 years, the Corp trained and deployed me in what later came to be called the shadow warrior program. My first assignment, lasting 4 months was to locate and inactivate 5 Chinese leaders of Korean troops in North Korea . This operation took place from November to March of that year. The mission was accomplished alone, using only my wits to remain alive, finding food and shelter in a war torn country in which enemy soldiers were around each corner and the winter temperatures were as much as 35 degrees below zero night and day.

During this time, during which I entered my 18 th year of life, I experienced a number of extremely dangerous situations, some of which became important in my later life. On one occasion during that winter, I was caught in the open by a roving North Korean ski patrol. At the time I was on skis, moving my location from one hiding place to another.

Upon spotting me, the patrol immediately took pursuit. We began a race down the mountainside at near free fall speeds. I could hold my distance, but could not pull away from them. I had noted some change in the terrain in front of me, but everything was covered in snow, and I could not discern what it was that I saw. As I approached the site, I was suddenly air borne, over a cliff with a sheer drop off of about 300 feet. After a second, I gathered my focus and looked for a place to land. Below me were boulders and trees, but I was able to select a clear place to hit the snow. Upon striking the slope of the snow, I was immediately rocketed away from the cliff at break neck speed. Suddenly I heard gunfire and assumed that the patrol was shooting at me. Seeing no indication of passing bullets, I looked around. The Korean patrol had stopped at the top of the cliff and were clapping their hands and shooting their guns into the air. They were applauding the great ski jump that I had just made. The meaning of this event in my life today is that fortitude and focus can take you through what seems to be impossible situations in this life. The event also taught me something about honor among soldiers.

In another daytime encounter, I suddenly came upon a single Manchurian soldier at very short range. We were too close for anything but hand-to-hand combat. He pulled his bayonet and I my marine issued K-bar that had been honed down for fighting purposes. With these weapons, teeth, nail, boots and bare hands in over a foot of snow, we fought a fight both knew was to the death. As I was well trained in Judo, I made every attempt to overcome him. He, also well schooled in hand-to-hand combat, countered my every move and I was able to anticipate his. After about 30 minutes of all out effort, we both lay in the snow, totally exhausted. We watched each other, as both struggled to breathe. Understanding that the first one up would win, with great effort I stood up. I kicked his bayonet away, knelt down and gave him a hug. I then rose, picked up my gear and left. I had never encountered a battlefield soldier who was better than this man. He was too good to kill. I wonder to this day what has happened to him. This encounter reinforced my understanding that effort and application of one's skills to their utmost merit reward.

I completed my mission in Korea in March, by coming upon an U.S. Army camp near the 40 th parallel. As I approached the sentry, a young man of about my age, halted me. I was dressed in pieces of a U.S. Marine uniform, with various Korean clothing necessary for warmth. Not having bathed or had a hair cut for nearly 4 months, I likely was not the most handsome person of the day. After being halted, the sentry asked me to identify myself. I told him that I had to see his commanding officer. I heard him move the safety on his rifle to off, and warned him that if he didn't put the safety on, he would eat the rifle. He put on the safety, and without questions took me to command. Within 2 days, I was back in the U.S.A.

After a week of debriefing, I finally arrived on the campus of the University of Missouri . From March to May, I completed two semesters of course work and became a second year student. Over the next four years, my work for the Marines took me around the globe several times. Usually my mission was to inactivate a Communist leader in a civil war action. I carried out many missions in most African countries, Spain , Iraq , China and the Philippines . On the campus, I obtained a student job and became a normal student in all aspects, except that I rarely went home on a vacation time. I was usually off on an assignment. My assignments were coordinated with university holidays and summer months, so that my education was not interrupted during this time.

There was some difficulty in adjusting to campus civilization after each mission. This was particularly true if the mission involved several stages, in which there was a great deal of danger, or difficulty getting to the object of the mission. Some missions, such as the first one in North Korea , required that I travel across country for many miles to reach the site where the mission could be carried out. In most cases, I was delivered to foreign countries by airplane and parachute, but occasionally I was delivered by boat. In any case, once I was on land, I was responsible for my own transportation to get from place to place. This was usually accomplished by long distance running, and often involved scaling mountains and crossing rivers. All this was of little consequence, as I was capable of living in the open endlessly. I would often return with aches and pains from effort and direct trauma, which caused my friends some concern, but I could always provide a reasoned, satisfactory explanation of the trauma.

After the Korean experience, for a time I was reluctant to enter a new war zone to carry out my termination operations. With time however, I gained an understanding of the purpose and need for my efforts. I also gained skill, and was much more relaxed about entering a foreign country and moving among the citizens in a way that eluded detection as an American. At first the violence of war surprised me, but I soon reached time at which I was not surprised, nor disgusted by anything. I was able to detach myself from the violence and saw it simply as a by-product of war. I convinced myself with the assistance of both the CIA, who paid me, and the Marine Corp, who trained me, that what I was doing was extremely important to the success of democracy in the world.

During the first full year on the campus, I lived in a student dormitory and began to attend churches with my friends. I had never attended a church service before coming to the university, and held a curiosity about Christianity. I continually asked my friends why they attended a given church, why they believed that God inspired the Bible. I never received an answer that satisfied my curiosity.

I continued to seek answers to these questions, all the time wondering why anyone would believe in a God who spoke to his people through a book with no basis for its authority except that a minister, a father or mother said so. God seemed a good idea to me, but I had never had a recognizable encounter with him and wasn't sure I would recognize one if it happened. My search for answers to the basis of faith of Christians led me finally to the door of the rectory of the local Catholic Church. Father Kemper began to instruct me. He was able to provide an understanding of why I should be Catholic, but was not able to provide me with an experience of the reality of God's existence. I was baptized into the Catholic Church simply through an intellectual choice. God was still a good idea, but simply not real to me.

I married a Catholic, and began raising my children to be Catholic. Over the next 15 years, I lived as a pagan Catholic by routine, rather than from faith. I did all the things that Catholics do. I became a member of the parish council, the school board and attended Mass as was required. I enjoyed the fellowship of the church, but did not have a relationship with God. Because of this, my prayers were merely rote recitations, never a conversation with God.

In the 15 th year, I attended a 3-day weekend retreat called a Cursillo. On the second day, I met God in the aisle of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Kansas City , Missouri . It is difficult to explain to one who has not had such an experience, but everything took place within a few seconds. Suddenly I knew without a doubt that God was real. In my training by CIA as a shadow warrior, I had been prepared to recognize the presence of a person, in the dark, even someone who was well hidden. It is difficult to explain how this is done, because it involves a sort of 6 th sense. I knew that God was present as a person. In his presence, I was filled with a mixture of emotions which are hard to describe, but a fusion of overwhelming joy and of extreme sadness comes close. I had no doubt that this person was God, who revealed himself to me, simply because I had prepared myself to recognize his presence. The gift of faith satisfied the curiosity of my intellect. I knew that God was real. I had met him. I also knew that he had been with me all the time, and that I had not allowed his presence to become real to me.

My experience during the Cursillo weekend reminds me of Paul. I later read about the conversion of Paul, the evangelist, as he describes it in Holy Scripture. My conversion to a person of faith was as immediate as Paul's. The events of the weekend experience had led me to confess my sins. My confession was much like my prayer, rote and impersonal. The priest, however, challenged me to be sorry for my sins because they offended God. In my conversation with him, I told him it was difficult to be sorry for offending someone I did not know. He understood my situation and brought me to the prayer, "God, if you are real, I am deeply sorry for offending you." With that the priest pronounced the words of absolution and I left the confessional.

I was only a few steps from the confessional booth when I accepted the gift of faith. The grace of Jesus filled me with great emotion. I don't remember moving on to the pew, but a few minutes later knelt before him. I thought about saying something theological to God, but all I could think about was that I was sorry for my sins, I was sorry that I did not know him, and that I would do all I could not to sin again. I didn't hear anything, but I know that my Lord Jesus, looking down upon my repentant soul, once again spoke those words, "forgive him Father, he didn't have a clue." I knew that I had been forgiven and given the mission of carrying his message into the world.

Upon later reflection on this experience, I recalled an evening on a mountain in North Korea , almost 20 years before. I recall sitting on a rock, at dusk, waiting to go out on a night mission. I had slept in a snow bed for most of the day, and felt quite rested. In the quiet of the mountains, where hardly a sound could be heard, I was suddenly aware of the presence of a person. Although I could not localize this person, I knew that there was a person quite near to me. I had by that time been able to differentiate Manchurian from Korean, but this person was neither. The emotion I experienced upon sensing the presence of this person was the same as that experienced in the Church. After my conversion experience in Kansas City , Missouri , I realized that God had visited me on that mountainside in a foreign country in time of great danger, and I did not know him. My conclusion at the time was that I could not afford to have emotions that would interfere with the clarity of my focus on the mission to be accomplished. I simply considered the experience as due to fatigue and delayed my mission one more day.

After my meeting the Lord in Kansas City , I have spent the rest of my life to date studying the Bible and the history of Christianity in continual wonder at his patience with me, and the great gift of love he has for me. During the past 42 years, I have taught as a professor in major universities, including Minnesota , Missouri and Oklahoma State . I have a great drive to learn more about the God of the scriptures, of his great love for me, and of how I might serve him. As a scientist I have studied the mysteries of life, death, time and space and in my faith I have come to realize the greatest mystery of God's creation is the human person. I understand that we are created individually and uniquely in order to reflect the glory of God in our individual ways. Each person possesses great dignity. I am determined to serve that dignity.

A major change in my life was to enter a seminary in Jefferson City , Missouri , for preparation to ordination as a deacon in the Catholic Church. I was ordained in May 1977. As an ordained minister, with a Masters degree in theology, I marry, bury and baptize, teach and preach, just as any minister, but I make my living as a university professor. This had given me the unique opportunity to serve as a bridge between the Church and my work place. In this way, I can assist others to come to know the God for whom I searched for a number of years. I have been blessed both by the world and the Church, but most of all God has blessed me. It is my desire to give that same blessing to the world in which I live.

In the shadow warrior years I directly experienced the evils of the world and the violence of man. I also came to the realization that I was capable of great violence and the rendering of evil to others. I am not surprised at the violence of man against man, but recognize it as a great mystery. The evil of violence against another person presents a great conflict with my sure knowledge that each person is created by God to reveal His glory to the world. I have come to understand that evil comes from the heart of mankind and that we have the ability to make a decision to overcome the evil within ourselves, or to cooperate with it. I know that by myself, I could easily let it be a part of my life. With Christ as the focus of all that I do in my daily life, however, I know that I can overcome any evil, whether it comes from me, or from others.

During my years of teaching university students, I have prepared them to be successful in the world through what I could teach them about veterinary medicine and the veterinary profession. My major mission however, is one that I exercise both within the university community and within the community in which I live. This mission is to live the love of Christ in my every day life. Through this mission I can assist in the alleviation of violence, suffering and overall evil of the world by loving others and helping them to come to know that Jesus loves them and because of his love they are loveable.