Donate a Copy of Beyond Combat

On July 13, 2021, The Jerusalem Connection said goodbye to our founder Jim Hutchens. His body was laid to rest on Chaplain’s Hill at Arlington National Cemetery. His spirit is reunited with his love Pat Hutchens and together they are glorifying the name of Yahweh with the angels in heaven.

We remain committed to carrying on the vision of Jim and Pat Hutchens to glorify the name of Yahweh, serve as advocates for Christian Zionism, and to educate and activate support for Israel and the Jewish people. We are also committed to carrying on the Hutchens faith legacy. One way we do that is sending free copies of Jim’s book, Beyond Combat, to active-duty army chaplain Erik Gramling stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I want to take a minute to tell the story of how TJCI connected with Chaplain Gramling and how divine providence has allowed us to work together to continue Jim’s legacy.

Two years ago, Chaplain Gramling was rifling through the library of a chaplain about to move oversees to Korea. He came across an old dusty book titled Beyond Combat. Seeing that Moody published the first edition in 1968, he figured it was worth a read. After finishing the story of Jim’s experiences as a chaplain in Vietnam, he emailed Jim to let him know the impact of his testimony. At that point, Jim was already living in an assisted living facility in Reston and in need of encouragement, which Gramling’s letter succeeded in doing:

Dear Chaplain Hutchens,
I just wanted to thank the Lord for you, your ministry, and the account of your time in Vietnam. I have read many books by Chaplains over the years, including some from the Civil War, but rarely have I read one that I identify with so much. It was a joy to see that while in Vietnam you were all about helping soldiers find Christ! I was also humbled to see your courage and your willingness to put yourself in harm’s way to minister to your troops. I am grateful he brought you home!

As many of you already know, Jim was brought to faith in Jesus Christ as a young, enlisted man by another army chaplain. His desire to serve our military through the chaplaincy stemmed from the importance that the office played in his own life. The gospel did what the gospel is supposed to do. While Jim was a chaplain, he led other souls in their approach to God for the first time.

For the last two years, since Chaplain Gramling first contacted Jim, we have taken the initiative of sending him boxes of Beyond Combat. Gramling leads a regular course for chaplain’s assistants and he gives a copy of the book to all the graduates from his Religious Affairs course. He also gives them a copy of General Dick Chegar’s testimony. Chegar was a young captain who Jim led to the lord from a shared tent in Vietnam. Chegar went on to become a two-star general and remained close to Jim throughout Jim’s life. Here is an excerpt from General Chegar’s testimony:

About the time I was promoted to captain and assigned to the battalion staff, a new chaplain, Chaplain Jim Hutchens, joined our battalion just as it was lifting off the helipad for a major operation. After several days the battalion encountered a large Viet Cong force and during the heavy fighting, the chaplain was wounded. Despite his wounds, he continued to minister to the soldiers before being evacuated to a field hospital. Several weeks later the chaplain was released from the hospital and hobbled into our Officers’ Mess Tent on crutches for lunch…. After lunch, Jim said that he needed a place to sleep. Since we were both on the battalion staff, I told him I could make room for him in my tent. When we arrived, Jim’s rucksack barely hit the floor of the tent when he inquired, “What’s your relationship with Jesus Christ?”  God’s Messenger, my former neighbor, had been sent 10,000 miles to ask the question that had never been asked of me before!

In my years of knowing Jim, I have come across many other soldiers who shared their own testimonies of Jim’s role in their lives as young soldiers as he boldly shared with them about their need for a savior. Jim’s proclamations of Christ were sometimes rejected and at other times received. He wrote in Beyond Combat, “The answer to a man’s response to the gospel, to his behavior toward others and his degree of personal discipline is not in his environment or circumstance. The answer is deep within the man himself.”

I wanted to share with all of you about young chaplain assistants receiving Jim’s book in Fort Jackson, South Carolina so you can take courage knowing that Jim’s life, the ultimate story of faith under fire, is still being used to share the gospel. If you would like to sponsor a book of Beyond Combat books to honor Jim and further touch lives, we are including a remittance envelope to extend that opportunity.

Shelley Neese
President, The Jerusalem Connection
Author, The Copper Scroll Project