The Catholic Defender: The Missouri Marian Association and Deepertruth

All of 2007 I was serving in Iraq with the 2-5 Cavalry when I first heard about Dr. Gregory Thompson, Norma McCorvey, and Alan Keyes along with several others being arrested at Notre Dame. They were protesting President Obama speaking before a "Catholic" College which was acting against the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops directive about Pro-Abortion politicians.

I had met earlier in 2005 met Dr. Gregory Thompson who was known for his stand against the ACLU and the Liberal establishment wanting to take faith out of public schools. I had struck up a friendly talk with him about the Catholic faith sharing the conversion story of the Late Great Alex Jones.

From that time Dr. Gregory Thompson and I have been brothers promoting the Catholic faith, sometimes things would pop up that he had issues and we talked out each and every one. I had given the nickname "Secret Agent Man" to Dr. Gregory Thompson because he had been doing "Shake the Nation" Conferences all across America that was certainly based from a Christian perspective defending the Constitution of the United States. He was at the time thought to be a "Conservative Christian" but not a known Catholic.

When I ran into Dr. Gregory Thompson, I was stationed at Fort Hood Texas living in Copperas Cove and was on leave visiting my Mother when I ran into town and discovered Dr. Gregory Thompson's store front on Humansville's main street. It would take you all of a couple of minutes to walk down town Humansville's main street.

In the middle 1970's I went to High School there in Humansville, in order to play ball I had to travel on foot after practices and games, and plays to get home. In those days the nearly seven mile trek would be in the rain, snow, sun and in those days there were no lights going out of town. My Mother bought a small 20 acre farm and we had cattle, hogs, horses, chickens, a basic farm. Dr. Gregory Thompson came with me to meet my Mother and listen to some of my Mother's stories. He looked at her Rosary that had a change from silver color to gold color. It was a Kodak moment.

After returning back to Fort Hood, the 2-5 Cavalry were preparing to deploy to Iraq and part of the process took us to Ft. Irwin California and Ft. Polk Louisiana for training. It would be October 2006 that we would deploy to Iraq for a 15 month deployment. That's a long time to be away from your family and home, but we were proud to serve our Country and make a difference in the Iraqi War.

Returning home after 15 months, I had a number of talks with Dr. Gregory Thompson and we continued talking about the Catholic faith. In 2009 I would redeploy back to Iraq for another year. Much of this time we were preparing to close down our presence in the local communities around Iraq that President Bush had built in 2007.

So much happened in my time in Iraq, but for this article, I am wanting to show what would happen as a result of a happening on October 13, 2009. I showed the movie, "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima" out doors in Iraq. October was the very day Our Lady appeared at Fatima and nearly 100,000 people gathered for the miracles that happened there that day. 2009 I was able to recreate this for the different nationalities present at JSS War Eagle just right near Baghdad.

One notable happening here involved my Wife, Gigi who was working as a Nurse at Thomas Moore Clinic on Fort Hood. She was the Head Nurse of the Wounded Warrior project there. On November 5, 2009, Gigi was in the Emergency Room parking lot preparing for a meeting when all of a sudden a mascal event seemed to be happening but it didn't take long that she realized this was no training exercise. Major Nidal Hasan killed 14 people and wounded 32 others who were all transported by pick up trucks, cars, anyway possible to the hospital.

I was at JSS War Eagle when this happened and the shut down at Fort Hood was a concern when we found out about it. I went running to the MWR to call home when an explosion hit near our main entrance. I stopped for a moment, waited for anything that called for medics, after not hearing anything, I went in to call my Wife. She had just got home about midnight after the post was clear.

We experienced this danger everyday in Iraq, but at Fort Hood? That was an unnerving reality. The Catholic Coordinator on Post and I was able to have Christian Singer John Michael Talbot come to Fort Hood to honor those killed and wounded.

I was able to tell Dr. Gregory Thompson about what we did in Iraq honoring The Blessed Virgin Mary on October 13, 2009. Soon the birth of the Missouri Marian Association would develop and that would lead to a merger with Deepertruth. Early on in 2010 we planned to put together a Conference in Springfield Missouri which Dr. Gregory Thompson had the experience to accomplish through his "Shake the Nation" days.

A Conference was set up in Springfield on October 13 in honor of Our Lady's appearance at Fatima in 1917. This first Conference was a one day event when I first me John Carpenter who would soon join Deepertruth establishing the Journey with Mary series that today have gone on for over 6 years now. Since this first conference, today there have been 25 such conferences that have touched all four Diocese in Missouri, had thousands of participants and a lot of conversions and reversions in the process.