Though military Christians are sometimes criticized in the media for mixing their faith and their profession, they are far from the only ones to do so (as previously discussed).

One unusual place that recently showed a mix of faith and the military was the Discovery Channel’s Future Weapons.  The military-focused show features a variety of advanced weaponry, explaining and demonstrating the capabilities of the latest advances in combat arms.

The host, Richard “Mack” Machowicz (bio), is a former Navy Seal who also trained to be a zen priest.  From what appears to be the deck of a Navy ship, he speaks of how the combination of his military and religious training equipped him for a comprehensive perspective on life:

Seal team taught me I can handle things…in the outside physical world pretty well…But I found that there was something inside that I just needed to confront.  The zen training allowed me to [take] all the hard work I was doing out there [and turn] it all inside and start working on the inside of me…

Looking in at the heart of yourself is difficult business, and zen training allowed me to do that in a way that I’d never experienced before in any type of training. 

The video is available on the Discovery Channel site, as well as YouTube.

This was first noted at Buddhist Military Sangha, a blog run by a Buddhist US military Chaplain.