Welcome and Introduction to Austin Wheeler

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's January 15, 2025, and today we are continuing our series on Mormon stories about Mormons in the military. We are super excited to have with us in studio, Austin Wheeler. Hey, Austin.

Austin Wheeler [00:00:18] Hey, how you doing, John?

John Dehlin [00:00:20] So glad you could join us. Austin served full time in the military for about six and a half years, including attending West Point. He was in the Army. He also wants to share his perspective on Christianity, Mormonism, military service issues like violence, but also Christian nationalism and I assume, kind of the Desnat culture, but also just modern themes around aggression and violence and that sort of thing. And there's also many traditional themes around faith and, you know, Mormon church culture, et cetera. So you're in for a real treat today. There's also just as a trigger warning, there's also some themes of abuse in this story, and it's going to be a great episode. I've got Margi here with me in studio. Hey, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:22] Hi there.

John Dehlin [00:01:24] And we're ready to roll. So, Austin, did I forget anything in the intro in terms of major themes?

Austin Wheeler [00:01:29] No, no. Anything to clarify? I'm sure I'll do as I'm talking through the story.

John Dehlin [00:01:35] Okay. All right. We were asking you right before, kind of if there were any specific interviews on Mormon Stories podcast that made you interested in applying. And if I remember right, you mentioned specifically the Paul Brothers. You kind of had some strong feelings around that interview, specifically when I asked them the question about Christian nationalism. And then you also mentioned growing up with Jesse Hildebrandt. And so that also was influential to you, is that right?

Austin Wheeler [00:02:10] Yeah, definitely. I would say from. From the military aspect of the. The Paul Brothers interview. I know that there were some things that it gave me the opportunity to introspect that they said that I think a lot of people might have been concerned, surprised by. And it really highlighted to me the need to address the civilian military divide and kind of help act as a cultural broker for kind of the experience of Mormonism as well as the military, the U.S. military. And then, yeah, I grew up with Jess. So when all of the terrible events were coming out about just that entire episode of justice

Austin Wheeler [00:02:59] coming to light, it gave me a new level of compassion for them and actually gave some context for, you know, some of the stuff that I was experiencing as a 14 or 15 year old that I didn't know what was going on. It just gave me, you know, that new level of compassion and love for them and hoping them the best. So.

John Dehlin [00:03:19] And I think you mentioned another theme of, like, Mormons out of Utah, basically sending, quote, troubled teens to Utah to be fixed or healed. Is that also a theme?

Austin Wheeler [00:03:32] Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'll work that into my memory of my experience on Earth so far. But, yeah, that's definitely something I've witnessed as a theme that I think, Jess, unfortunately, very succinctly illustrates that kind of. That subculture or that solution that exists, in my experience, uniquely to Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:03:57] Fantastic. All right. Well, Austin Wheeler, where does your Mormon story begin?

Family Background and Converting to Mormonism

Austin Wheeler [00:04:03] So I guess it would begin with my grandmother. She was a convert. She lives in Pasadena. She converted when my grandfather was actually away on the draft as one of those things that while he was in training.

John Dehlin [00:04:22] So Vietnam.

Austin Wheeler [00:04:23] This would have been the Vietnam draft.

John Dehlin [00:04:25] Correct.

Austin Wheeler [00:04:25] So my grandfather and her, they believe, were in Fort Leonwood, Missouri, at the time when my grandmother took the discussions and she was baptized a member. He was not. It was just my father at the time, I believe, when my grandmother was baptized.

Austin Wheeler [00:04:47] So from that side, my father's side of the family, his two younger brothers were essentially born into the covenant. My grandfather was a major holdout. He actually. He's in his mid-80s now. I think he was, like, 78 or 79 when he actually was baptized a member. That was just a couple years ago. That was actually during my deconstruction. So that was a little jarring to see.

Austin Wheeler [00:05:18] See that. But. But they raised my uncles and my father fully invested in the church, very active in the Scouting program in Southern California. And then my mother, she's an immigrant to the U.S. she moved here from Columbia with her family when she was 16, and she was still living at home, I think 17 or 18, when they took the missionary discussions again here in Southern California. My parents met at the.

Austin Wheeler [00:05:53] I think it was the Pasadena City College Institute, and they had a brief courtship or, you know, as you get standard by Mormon standards, in the late 80s. My mother was married when she was 19, so, you know, fairly young, especially by today's standards. And I have older sister and an older brother and the youngest of three, and where I come in. So born into the Covenant, early 90s, and grew up in Southern California, Corona, the Corona, Norco area, Riverside.

Austin Wheeler [00:06:33] As a kid, it was a great place to grow up. You know, it was one of those things where it was 45 minutes to the beach or 45 minutes to an hour up to ski slopes in Big Bear or Wrightwood area. So my early childhood, I guess, like, one of the earliest memories of just, like, church I had, it was just, it was always the church.

Austin Wheeler [00:06:57] It was meaning the only true little trademark under that, the one true church. I was definitely raised orthodox. I don't know how orthodox Southern California Mormonism is compared to, you know, the core corridor here. But it was one of those things where it was, you know, every, every activity was attended.

Austin Wheeler [00:07:26] The, the Boy Scouts of America was completely ordained by God and the greatest thing ever created. And it was, you know, stuff like the scout motto was quoted virtually as scripture. So yeah, I was very much in it, very much. You know, I believed as an 8 year old I definitely knew I needed baptized.

Austin Wheeler [00:07:51] I remember by my 9th birthday I felt bad that I had never read the Book of Mormon. So when I was nine, to make up for having not fully read it as a child, I reread it nine times, one for every year in my life. And then kind of I see now as a scrupulosity thing, but every year to make sure that I knew that I was renewing my faith and I was really likening the scriptures unto myself and I would reread the Book of Mormon every single time for my age.

Austin Wheeler [00:08:30] So I did that from age 9 up until age 25. So I've read just a couple times, I've read cover to cover Book of Mormon, all the footnotes. And I started doing that with the Bible in high school because I got really involved with the Christian crowd, you know, non denominational Christians.

Austin Wheeler [00:08:53] My parents got divorced when I was in seventh grade. I think that was a really important thing in my life because it was the first time I had like a major authority structure, power structure upended. And it gave me the first chance to actually see like my parents as human, but also see that humans are fallible and that, you know, from a Christian standpoint, the need for grace, the need for forgiveness and just how to hold space for people just trying their best.

Austin Wheeler [00:09:34] And I'd say my like devotion to my orthodoxy or you know, the orthodoxy in the church outside of just being the default activity that you had to do, where I really, you know, got that idea that I had to build my testimony was really came after would have been like 10 years old. I believe I had attended a ward Christmas party where I was, I was sexually assaulted by a fellow member of my ward. One of, one of the people in the youth program with me.

Austin Wheeler [00:10:13] They were mirroring a sexual activity that they witnessed somebody in the, in the bishopric having their son perform on them. And he was 11 at the time, so, and that was tough because I had been baptized and, you know, this was. This would have been, you know, pre Prop 8. So the culture of Mormonism was still very much that gay people don't deserve, not enough to live.

Austin Wheeler [00:10:57] But in my mind, I had done, you know, I had done something homosexual. So that meant I was gay and I didn't deserve to. I was broken. So I really, I felt like I had done something wrong and I couldn't talk to my parents about it.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:21] So you were kind of alone with it, you were holding.

Austin Wheeler [00:11:24] Yeah, I was just trying to. Trying to make sense of it and trying, you know, it would be one of those things where I would be reading the Book of Mormon and I'd fall asleep, and I felt that I fell asleep because I was being unrighteous. And if I was feeling the spirit, I would have been able to stay awake. And I was wrong for again, being a tired kid rereading the same book he'd read 30 times before.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:52] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [00:11:53] But I, in that struggle, I double, triple, quadrupled down on that. This church is true. This is all I've ever known. My parents have told me this is truth. If anything happens, this is the one thing I can rely on. So I just, at 13 or 14, really just tried to throw myself into it harder and hoped that that would in some way fix me.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:34] But so your chronology, just so I'm making sure I'm. So you experienced abuse at age 10, is that what you. Kind of around that age. And then the divorce, your parents divorce was when you were in seventh grade? Yeah, pretty close.

Parents' Divorce and Separation from the Church

Austin Wheeler [00:12:54] Yeah. So like within a year of that happening? I think my parents divorce was finalized.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:01] Okay. And then, so when, in thinking about that time, do you feel that your identity, the identity that you were creating during that time and your, let's just say fastidiousness when it came to kind of religion, do you feel like the root was this identity and, and belief you created around your brokenness? Is that where it came from? Or do you feel like the fastidiousness you're. You're kind of the level at which you read the scriptures, you wanted all the. Did that always exist? Does that make sense? Was it born in that, in those sort of. Or did it always exist kind of. Do you remember that kind of even before that?

Austin Wheeler [00:13:50] Yeah, I would say it definitely existed beforehand. I'm, I'm pretty, pretty far onto the spectrum with ASD there, but yeah, yeah, so. But I will say having somebody who defaults to very black and white thinking and being given Mormonism, it is a very damaging construction. Like you Know, this is one of those things where if I had, if I had an occupational therapist or somebody, you know, help me work through, like, hey, like, there are grays.

Austin Wheeler [00:14:29] And even today, that's something that, you know, I struggle with, like, trying to hold space for not binary right or wrong. But Mormonism is very plain in its language about what's right and wrong. So the, the church I attended, which at the end of the day is really just the church of wanwrite. Because of the more I've talked to people about their own faith journey, I realized nobody is in like, you know, the only thing that unifies, I think their thing is like having a calling or paying tithing. But it's like everybody believes in a different Jesus or a different hierarchy of, you know, the Mormon church, you know, the brethren or what have you.

Austin Wheeler [00:15:12] But the God that I was reading about and believing in, like, there was one right thing to do and pretty much everything else that wasn't, that was wrong. And it was objectively wrong. And it was just so. Yeah. So in that regard, you know, I didn't have the tools to view myself as a victim of abuse, but that really was kind of like the framework that I had was like, well, you know, I shouldn't have been there. You know, I shouldn't have been at award party when I'm nine or ten, you know, sorry.

Childhood Struggles and Formative Beliefs

Margi Dehlin [00:15:47] So a belief that you created during that time, and I think this is something that we see right with children when things happen to you and you have no one really to share it with. And not a lot of resources is a child survives the way they can, and oftentimes that is that they create narratives or beliefs about themselves in that. And what I'm hearing you say is you created a belief in yourself as kind of it was your fault, or here are the ways that you played a part in that or where you shouldn't have been or you were broken in this way. Is that right?

Austin Wheeler [00:16:32] Yeah, definitely. And I think one of the things too that. So I'm sorry, jumping forward a little, little bit forward in time. But, you know, by the time I was 13 and 14, there was stuff like the LDS tools app was coming out, the gospel library was becoming a thing.

Austin Wheeler [00:16:48] All of a sudden there was access to like 70s, 80s, 90s general conference talks, you know, and there's a lot of really messed up things in every decade of the church that has been taught over the pulpit. So I would. I found myself a lot like as a. Just a teen in general, like, grappling with, trying to make sense of like, you know, who I was and you know, you're very, very egocentric. Right. So it doesn't make sense that the world can be unjust or unfair. Bad things can happen to people.

Austin Wheeler [00:17:23] It was, well, there is a conference talk that you know, that I looked up, you know, and it was saying that victims of sexual abuse had to acknowledge how they were complicit in that abuse. And again as a 13 year old, 14, 15 year old, like grappling with feelings of unworthiness or um, you know, like, you know, it's one of those things like I've not never really felt like same sex attraction but the fact that I did, you know, a homosexual action like that make, you know, again that binary like well then I'm, you know, I must be gay and I must be bad.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:08] Interesting.

Austin Wheeler [00:18:09] You know, and then you know, again with that 2000, was it 2007? I think like Prop 8, like we spent months. There was no, like, there was no real like youth group activities. It was canvassing every Tuesday night for mutual.

John Dehlin [00:18:23] For those who don't know what Prop 8 is. Canvassing doing what?

Austin Wheeler [00:18:26] Yeah. So Proposition 8 was the church getting involved in political activity in California. There was a proposition to amend the California Constitution to add the just. It was one line but that's all it took to marginalize whole community that marriage was only between a man and

John Dehlin [00:18:51] a woman and same sex marriage was legal before Proposition 8. So that would have and actually did result in taking away the right to, to marry for gay people in California. Correct? Yeah, yeah.

Austin Wheeler [00:19:06] And, and is one of those things where you know, on the tail end now, like I've learned about the amount of money that was dumped into it and just my own experience, like I said, like I remember, I remember feeling weird that you know, again I'm 13 or 14 maybe feeling weird that people didn't like that we were just trying to protect marriage.

Austin Wheeler [00:19:30] And I remember the narrative being like, well if the very specific boogeyman of the evil lesbian or gay couple was going to in quotation, you know, this invisible specter of if Prop 8 isn't passed and marriage isn't protected, then a gay couple could go and try to get a temple recommend to get married in the temple, to get sealed in the temple and we know the temple is super secret, super sacred, so we can't allow that, but because there's no law, then this gay couple will actually sue the church. And suing the church is just the biggest, most terrible thing that could ever happen to this organization.

Austin Wheeler [00:20:14] All because they're trying to uphold God's will. So that's why we have to add this line to the Constitution, to the state constitution, to make sure that we protect the sacred covenants of the temple. That was honestly the framework we got before we got told, now go pester your, you know, your non Mormon neighbors and ask them if they dislike, hate people.

John Dehlin [00:20:39] And we know the church spent over $40 million.

Austin Wheeler [00:20:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:44] You know, influencing the legislative process of a sovereign US State. Right. Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [00:20:48] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:20:49] Successfully.

Austin Wheeler [00:20:50] Yeah, Successfully.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [00:20:51] So.

John Dehlin [00:20:53] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:54] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [00:20:54] So.

John Dehlin [00:20:55] So you. That's a lot of conflict for a little kid.

Austin Wheeler [00:20:58] Yeah. Yeah. So that was what a time to be alive. Right. So I will say another thing that really shaped, you know, ultimately, I guess, why I got here during that time, again, just like pouring myself into not only the doctrine of the Church, you know, like reading. Reading McConkey when I was. When I was 12. Like, it's not a healthy kid doing that. Not healthy for an adult to do that.

Austin Wheeler [00:21:27] But, like, that's where. That's where I was. But then the other thing was like. Yeah, like, culturally. Right. So a big. A big part of the culture. And I don't know, again, I don't know if it's unique to where I grew up or if it was like all, you know, all of Utah, all of the country, the world. But there was very much this kind of like the seed of Christian nationalism, like just this idea that's very plainly in the Book of Mormon, like that the primacy of America, of America being instituted by God. So then the inference that because it was made by God, so long as they're righteous as a qualifier, they're always in the right, and there's a superiority there.

Austin Wheeler [00:22:18] So, you know, there was, again, the Boy Scouts was massive as one of those things where I wasn't allowed to drive until I got my Eagle Scout.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:25] Oh, wow.

Austin Wheeler [00:22:26] So it was very much like, you know, every month we, you know, we'd have the overnight camping trip and, you know, set for, like, roadshow or a dance festival or, you know, larping in for the Pioneer Trek. It was all just, you know, Scout Scouts, Scouts. And a big part of that, too, became like, I'd say, like paramilitary stuff.

Austin Wheeler [00:22:50] So the local leadership. When I remember when I was baptized, he came to my baptism, and I thought, that's the coolest thing ever, because he was a counselor in the stake presidency. But he ended up being my stake president, like, immediately after that. So, you know, he was kind of dynastic in that sense.

Austin Wheeler [00:23:11] But the stake president at the time, like during my entire youth essentially he was a, he was retired Special Forces and a lot of you know, like the stake firesides and stuff or as eventually, you know, like when I started getting more interested in the military, he kind of noticed that. So I'd start like, I started being fed these stories and it was one of those things where it's like I remember, I remember a, you know, like 200 youth stake fireside where he's talking about how like he, he said a prayer when he was doing airborne training and he was okay, but like the one non believer like ended up drifting into like traffic and actually like died.

Austin Wheeler [00:24:02] And I remember like that being like, what's the takeaway here? Or you know, like hearing, you know, the, the stories of like kind of glorification of the violence. You know, a lot of stories about how like, you know, how it. Heavily decorated he was, but also like the, the special Forces unit he was with was in areas where like they weren't, you know, like legally they didn't exist there, if that makes sense. So you know, like he should have been a Medal of Honor recipient but, but they weren't officially there. So instead he just, you know, like, yeah, like at the priesthood session when you're hearing about how North Koreans surrounded them and they had to do hand to hand combat and he watched the lieutenant on the team get killed with the hatchet.

Austin Wheeler [00:24:53] And so like that response, Margi, I think that's a lot of people. But when I have to kind of milk before meat, right? Like when you're drip fed aggression or violence, you become numb to it. And you. So when you're being exposed to this type of stuff when you're 12, 13 and when it's framed that this is a righteous man, and I will say like, I have no, I have no reason to believe that he was dishonorable in his service.

Austin Wheeler [00:25:26] I believe every one of those stories we heard, I feel compassion for him that he had to not only endure such violence but to exercise it. I think like his military experience combined with I think just the common themes in the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:25:52] Yeah, because the Book of Mormon, those of you who haven't read the Book of Mormon, I can't for our audience has never been Mormon. It's a super violent book and it's a super militaristic book because like the second half of the Book of Mormon is almost all like armies, battles, battalions, legions killing and slaughtering each other and, and not just like tens, but like, like 6 million.

Austin Wheeler [00:26:11] We ran against each Other, now we're down to 3 million. Let's do it again. Now we're down to 1 million. Now we're down to 30 millions of deaths.

John Dehlin [00:26:18] Military deaths with swords and shields and you know, stuff that now it's, it's pretty clear those battles didn't happen and because there were no swords and shields and chariots and helmets and horses. But, but it's like Joseph Smith was looking around, seeing all the frontier militaristic stuff and he injected that into ancient American history and. But, but, but general, literally generals and armies.

Austin Wheeler [00:26:47] Right, right, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing too. Like I know from like a philosophical framework.

John Dehlin [00:26:55] Right.

Austin Wheeler [00:26:55] You know, like we talk about, you know, there's like some people will take like packs of non violence or something. Right. Like they believe that, you know, any form of consumption is unethical or whereas like Mormonism, like it's codified in, you know, I don't know, I know they changed like the intro and stuff recently, but.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:10] Right.

Austin Wheeler [00:27:11] But back in my day, like this, this was. Right, this was, this was proof that Native Americans were direct descendants of the people here.

John Dehlin [00:27:20] Who, the Israelites.

Austin Wheeler [00:27:21] That's right, yeah. The 600 B.C. a man who was concurrent with the prophet Jeremiah left and part of his. And one of the first major plot points of the Book of Mormon is beheading a political figure. And I think too, again, we'll get that, I feel towards the end of this conversation. But Mormonism primes you to view violence as an acceptable tool or negotiation tactic, I guess. And you don't see it as violence, you see it as just a thing to be done.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:58] Right.

Austin Wheeler [00:27:59] So yeah, like again, culturally you have the Book of Mormon saying cutting off people's heads is cool, chopping off their arms is tight.

John Dehlin [00:28:07] And that's referring to the story of Ammon in the Book of Mormon, if you all want to look that up. A prophet of God who ventures into Lamanite territory as a foreigner and when he's attacked, he chops off a ton of guys arms to the point that they're having to pile up the arms into a pile. And he's a prophet, he's glorified. And that God gave him the power to chop off the arms of all these Lamanites.

Austin Wheeler [00:28:35] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:28:36] Yeah, yeah. No, it's a very violent book.

Austin Wheeler [00:28:38] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:39] And it's not only like, oh, here is a tactic that might be needed, but it's like glorified.

Austin Wheeler [00:28:47] Yeah. And that's thing too. Like again, growing up, it wasn't a direct thing on the Timeline of me being raised. But Columbine happened in 99, 6, 7 years old. So the, you know, the false flag was, well, video games are making our kids violent, you know, and I remember, you know, like having kids in the ward that they, you know, weren't allowed to play anything over like a T rated game. And you know, it's like, if you're aware of like the popular games for kids growing up, you know, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1, you know, you had GoldenEye, which is. You're literally just shooting each other, you know, so like that's bad, right?

John Dehlin [00:29:22] Is that James Bond?

Austin Wheeler [00:29:23] Yeah, James Bond, yeah. Honestly, like one of like the best like Nintendo 64 games ever. The, the audio on that, the soundtrack, it's a good one. But yeah, so it's. Or you know, like Grand Theft Auto, you know, like you're glorifying violence, but

John Dehlin [00:29:35] it's like all the first person shooters.

Austin Wheeler [00:29:37] Yeah, exactly. But it's like, so there's this outrage about that. But again, but then read the Book of Mormon. But then you gotta have multiple one hour long lessons about how it was righteous to behead somebody who isn't, you know, who's passed out or nevermind, combat ethics. It's not an honorable way. But anyway, but yeah, stuff like that. So it's like that outrage that they're talking about how bad it is now. Let's go to the war chapters in Alma. You guys spend too much time killing each other. Let's talk about how the people we know definitely believe were real and did this for God. We're doing this, you know, so.

John Dehlin [00:30:18] And not to mention the Old Testament, which is super violent.

Austin Wheeler [00:30:20] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And weird, you know, but as a

John Dehlin [00:30:26] kid, as a Mormon teen, young child slash young teen, you're saying you absorbed that?

Austin Wheeler [00:30:32] Oh yeah, yeah. And again, it was one of those things where it's like you might. I know there are definitely times where I felt that dissonance. Like I felt like this isn't safe or this doesn't seem right. But then I internalize that as I'm broken or like I need to double my effort, you know, like if the siren's going off, this is unsafe or this is problematic. It's, you know. Yeah, it's me to blame, like internalizing the defect there.

High School Years and Military Culture in Norco

Margi Dehlin [00:31:09] So in high school, in high school, if you were going to kind of describe yourself as you went through high school, how would you, how would you describe yourself in high school? Interests, how you spent your time, how

John Dehlin [00:31:22] did all this shape.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:23] Yeah. Who you are.

Austin Wheeler [00:31:25] Yeah, So I mean, I think a big part of like my socialization and like my identity was like wanting. If I got enough, if I had enough people that liked me or looked up to me, then maybe that would fix how I felt about myself in private.

Austin Wheeler [00:31:45] So I was extremely extroverted. I was. My grades were always good enough, but yeah, so I was like, I was involved in a lot of stuff, like multiple varsity sports. I was really involved with the choir kind of as an effort to help my older part brother who really openly struggled with Mormonism.

Austin Wheeler [00:32:12] It was one of those things where I actually, I spoke with him a few days ago talking about this when he was, when he was 8, he actually didn't want to get baptized. And he told my parents that he didn't. It didn't feel right to him. He didn't want to do it. And you know, we just kind of reflected on that coercion, you know, that the eight year old had. And there was like, well, you know, your grandparents will be disappointed, you know, like the bishop will be really disappointed. So that continued with my brother, you know, who was like a year and a half, two years older than me.

Austin Wheeler [00:32:48] So like, everything that I experienced, you know, he was just right there with me. But he, when he got to like junior high, high school, he started having real trouble with authority, you know, acting out a lot. And he had a really strained relationship with my father.

Austin Wheeler [00:33:05] And I saw again, my mind, like, I saw the disconnect that they had was because my brother wasn't trying his hardest to be Mormon. So that was another layer of like, well, my dad will love me more if, you know, if I'm the teacher's quorum president, if I'm the deacons quorum president.

Austin Wheeler [00:33:29] But you know, with my brother, that wasn't the case. So he got into. We had like a friend of the family that told him, hey, like, you need to be in this choir program. Because the choir director was very, a very religious guy, like, just super Christian. Like he'd open up like Monday, like at least once a week. Like there'd be like a prayer in class and like every, every trip, you know, or like every musical. Like they'd have a big old prayer circle before, you know, before hello Dolly or before a Little Shop of Horrors. Everybody prayed for glory to God and not forget their lines.

Austin Wheeler [00:34:12] So it wasn't Mormonism. But there was, at high school, there was like for high school, 400 kids. There were maybe 30 of us. So it's like you knew everybody in the stake, you knew everybody in the ward, you knew everybody in the community who was Mormon and who wasn't. So for my dad to have what he saw as the closest analog to Mormonism, he thought that that would really help my brother. So my brother was in the choir, trying to keep him out of trouble. And then I joined the choir just because it's.

John Dehlin [00:34:44] In your outline you mentioned, you know, sort of like fourth of July activities at church where they would do pancake, sort of patriotic pancake breakfast. That's very Mormon. You mentioned references to the Mormon Battalion a lot as part of your Mormon upbringing, which was a militaristic aspect to early Mormon culture. And then you mentioned a lot of law enforcement officers, you know, in your ward warden stake.

Austin Wheeler [00:35:15] Yeah, yeah. So I'll try to touch chronologically what you listed off. And thanks for that. Yeah, so it's one of those things, like literally every, every year, and then I can kind of double down. And I see my dad probably once, once my parents got divorced, I think he really threw himself into Mormonism. Trying to be an example of like, we can get through this if we have this. And I will say too, like, my mom was present, like, they, they co parented very well after their divorce. They, like, in my mind it was kind of like a weirdly, like, amicable, like, divorce, you know, like they, they like, still, like they're friendly enough towards each other.

Austin Wheeler [00:35:54] Like, you know, I'm grateful in that regard, but like, but again, like, my dad was really like, you know, this, again, like, this is the church like this. Like, you know, I lost my marriage, but like, this is what I can do to fix my life.

Austin Wheeler [00:36:09] And it was all faith for him. I have no doubt in my mind how unyielding that belief and faith was that if he, you know, if he had Monday family evening, if he paid his tithing, if he paid his extra fast offering, if he had us do fast offering with the, you know, the elderly women in the retirement home.

Austin Wheeler [00:36:32] You know, if we went to seminary and we're on the stake president's seminary council doing an extra three meetings a month, like all this stuff, he felt that if we did that, then life would be okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:46] Yeah. So he kind of, it feels like really doubled down and the church kind of was the answer.

Austin Wheeler [00:36:55] Absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:57] And then just to refer back. So what I'm kind of hearing, especially with what John kind of just mentioned in your outline. So it wasn't just that you had, Was it a stake president that. The stake president that was in the, that shared a lot of the military stories and the. But what I'm hearing is actually your ward as well.

Austin Wheeler [00:37:19] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:20] That culture, that ward culture definitely also had either members that were in law enforcement or. But there was actually a military influence right there as well.

Austin Wheeler [00:37:31] Yeah. So I will say outside of the, you know, the Mormon community where I lived, Corona, Norco area. Norco is North Corona, Horsetown, usa. Like, they don't have. They don't have sidewalks, they have horse trails. Like, they. They love their Western culture. So as that, they are very, very Republican. Very openly, you know, like, you know, a lot of Rush Limbaugh quoted on fast and testimony meetings growing up. But. But with that, just like the culture of Norco in general was very much like support the troops. You know, like the banners up for everybody who had ever joined big old Memorial Park.

Austin Wheeler [00:38:10] You know, like the, the local, you know, politicians would come to, like, our pancake breakfasts and tell us, you know, talk to us about how great, you know, again, like, how great America was. Like, how unique the experiment of democracy has been in our republic. Which a lot of stuff I do still agree with. But then there was that extra, like, you know, once the city council member left, it was like, yeah, but we know, actually, you know, or like every camp out there was, you know, around the campfire was talking about the importance of America. And, like, and sometimes they talk about the enemies of America and how people sleep peacefully at night because, like, you know, like strong men or whatever willing to do violence on their behalf.

Austin Wheeler [00:38:57] I butchered it, but it's one of those things. It's like you'd hear a lot of quotes, like, a lot of quotes about, you know, like, the need for violence and how, like, having a capacity to violence was like, what made you special. And again, with. When you have Nephi was okay with killing somebody, he doubted a little, but he still did it. So it's like, if a prophet of God can do this, maybe if I have violence inside of me, that means that I'm called to something or God is trusting me with something that not everybody else is trusted with.

Austin Wheeler [00:39:27] But. Yeah. And then with. So Norco again had a lot of. A lot of, like, CHP officers. You know, there was a few FBI agents. One of those things, you know, like, brother, so and so CHP is California. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:37] California Highway Patrol. Right?

Austin Wheeler [00:39:39] Yeah. So, you know, LA County Sheriff. There's one gentleman who was an ex CIA agent who everybody, you know, the open secret was he had to get interviewed by one of the. Or the lore was he had to get interviewed by one of the 12 because he had killed so many people in the CIA, they weren't sure if he'd be allowed to be baptized, but he was baptized, so I guess he killed only bad people. Or, you know, like the, the FBI agent that had a fanny pack and everybody knew that there was a gun in his fanny pack at church. And, you know, if anything bad happened, he'd go. He'd go out guns a blazing. And that was very much like the culture I was raised around.

John Dehlin [00:40:17] You know, your outline also mentions, and I think this is an important thing to not leave out, is that Joseph Smith enshrined in the Doctrine and Covenants, the teaching that the United States Constitution was inspired by God. And my memory, growing up in a similar culture is that it wouldn't be wrong to say that the Constitution is actually part of the canon of the Mormon scriptural canon. That if someone were to say, yeah, it's Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the US Constitution, there's plenty of Mormons that would not bat an eye at the Constitution being US Constitution being included in the scriptural canon because this is God's one true country. And the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and Mormon culture today kind of all affirmed that.

Austin Wheeler [00:41:04] Right?

John Dehlin [00:41:05] Is that right? Yeah, I don't want to impose that on your shoulder.

Austin Wheeler [00:41:07] No, no, no. I'd say, and I think that was really illustrated and I don't know how many people have thought about or picked up on it, but one of the Paul brothers talked about when they swore an oath, they didn't say they swore an oath to the Constitution, they swore a covenant.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:25] Right.

Austin Wheeler [00:41:25] And that's one of those things where it's like, that's not a word that exists in any of the legal stuff for the military. That is a uniquely Mormon word. Or I guess lawyers will say it, but like, like that, that that sentence really meant something when the way he said, like, they swore a covenant to protect the Constitution. Like there is again, with, like the, with the view of, like the primacy of America and this being the Promised Land, you know, they kind of get into broader topics of, you know, American exceptionalism or Christian nationality on just this idea that, like, God has ordained this document. So if, you know, if it's ordained by God, how do you view it in any other way other than canonical or Scripture?

Margi Dehlin [00:42:06] Right, yeah. Right.

John Dehlin [00:42:08] Yeah, yeah. Really quickly you mentioned prepper culture associated with this militaristic, patriotic, nationalistic culture. Do you want to just give us a flavor for that?

Austin Wheeler [00:42:20] Yeah, I Mean, it's. Again, it's one of those things, like, I feel like, I feel a hard time having a succinct point of conversation because like, there's just, maybe that's just like the nature of Mormonism is there's so much going on, it's kind of hard to keep track of, like all of the things that make normal people like raise their eyebrows or kind of do a double take. Yeah. You know, I grew up, especially my youth. It was, it was Hinckley. Yeah. Gordon B. Hinckley. And it was all about food storage. You know, like the millennium was coming, it was imminent. You know, there are going to be whispers that you were alive when Hinckley was, type of little cultural things like that.

John Dehlin [00:43:11] That you'll be alive when Jesus comes, comes back.

Austin Wheeler [00:43:13] Right? Yeah. Like that the end is so nigh, you gotta have two years. So that's another thing too, again with like the prevalency of Mormonism in my life. Like, it wasn't uncommon to go to the bishop's storehouse and to spend a whole Saturday canning gallons of creamed corn and jello, or loose oats being vacuum sealed and stuff, or the, the sign up for the 55 gallon water drum going around in elders quorum. And I got a couple of those.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:48] We had a few in our garage.

John Dehlin [00:43:49] Yeah, we sure did.

Austin Wheeler [00:43:51] And that's a whole different layer of. And honestly, I think one of the things that scared me to a degree into the military was like, the Bible does not paint the return of Jesus as this fun experience.

Enlisting and the Path to West Point

Margi Dehlin [00:44:04] Right.

John Dehlin [00:44:04] No, no one.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:06] I remember my kids coming home from that lesson, like in primary, like, terrified.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:11] They were like, we don't, we don't want Jesus to come.

John Dehlin [00:44:14] Jesus, please don't come.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:15] It's terrifying.

John Dehlin [00:44:17] Hail and fire and murder and death, destruction and earthquakes.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:23] So in high school, would you say you had already set your sights on, like, did you know you wanted to go into the military in high school?

Austin Wheeler [00:44:32] Yeah. So my uncle on my mother's side, he was in the army. He actually, he was enlisted for a few years and then he went to West Point. So as one of those things, like I, you know, I used to send him like Christmas letters, calling him GI Joe and stuff and telling him he was a hero and he's doing the right thing. And he graduated, you know, know 2003, you know, so it was one of those things like we were, I remember nine, 11 happened and there was a lot of speculation that like West Point might have been an additional target for, you know, for the for those suicide bombings. But that was, you know, so that was my experience. It wasn't just like, you know, you see the guy getting a free grand slam once a year, and you say, thank you at Denny's.

John Dehlin [00:45:26] Are you saying, yeah, okay.

Austin Wheeler [00:45:30] You know, it was my uncle. Right. Like, it was real.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:34] So at this point in your timeline, it feels like you are very conditioned in Mormonism.

Austin Wheeler [00:45:41] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:42] And you're also. There's a cross section. You're also very conditioned for military service.

Austin Wheeler [00:45:48] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:49] Would you say that?

Austin Wheeler [00:45:49] Absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:50] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [00:45:51] Because I think the other thing, too. And, Margaret, I think I mentioned to you before we started recording, there was a period of time where I had, like, my local congregation knew that I was going to the military. And about half of them were like, oh, that's great. You're serving. You know, you're doing what people need to do.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:13] Duty.

Austin Wheeler [00:46:13] Yeah, right, Duty. And then the other side of it was like, well, you really need to go on a mission. You're only 17, and you're signing up for the Army. Like, you're gonna lose your faith, so

Margi Dehlin [00:46:22] kind of like you're not actually doing the most important thing.

Austin Wheeler [00:46:25] Right. Yeah. And it's one of those things, like, I love. I love my old man, but there was. There's one thing that's always bothered me, so I need to. I need to get this out there. He always said, and he was consistent, and he'll say, I always said, you got to do your duty to God, then country.

Austin Wheeler [00:46:40] And I'm like, okay, that's great. But, yeah, that's like. That's the Boy Scout slogan, you know, like, that's. It's not doctrine anywhere. Like, yeah, absolutely conditioned. Again, like, because the military wasn't just this thing that people had to do or, you know, stuff in movies. Like, it was. It was a calling. Right? Like, it was.

Austin Wheeler [00:46:56] It was something that. You were potentially preordained to do. Right. But it's one of those things where it's like, I had the conversation with my uncle, and he was one of those things like, hey, I know you enlisted. Have you looked at West Point? And. Yeah. So for those that don't know, West Point is the United States Military Academy at West Point.

John Dehlin [00:47:23] What state?

Austin Wheeler [00:47:23] That is in upstate New York. So it's about 50 miles north of Manhattan right there on the Hudson River. Some historical context. It is the longest continuously garrisoned army post in the history of America. It has been running since 1802.

Austin Wheeler [00:47:43] And, yeah, it's especially for somebody who. I wasn't poor by any means, but you know, like, I'd say lower middle, you know, middle class. I didn't have any, like, college savings or anything. Well, that's not true. I did have. Sorry. I did have a, like, great aunt who was a nun who made a trust fund for all of my grandpa's grandkids. So there was some money, but.

Austin Wheeler [00:48:09] But I didn't see myself wanting to use it. I thought, like, I'm just going to join the military, do my thing, do it for a few years. My. My thought was, I'll do it for three years, get a couple deployments, go on a mission, and then go back.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:23] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [00:48:24] But the conversation was like, if you want to do the military thing, you should really look at West Point because it's a free education and you'll commission as an officer, which is like, not just like, you know, do something till they break your body, but it's like, it could be like a full career.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:39] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [00:48:40] And, you know, you're not. You're not just doing grunt work, like, you're going to learn how to lead people. And, you know, that appealed to me. So I applied, but I actually, I initially got rejected, but I got. Instead, I got a offer to. They have a prep school program which is different from like, some of like, the Southern, you know, like the Citadel or what's the one that our future president went to, like VMI or Norwich.

Austin Wheeler [00:49:14] It's not like those. It's actually like, you're gonna be. You're gonna become enlisted. Your job is going to be to prep to go to West Point for a year, and if you don't get in, then you'll have to sign some additional paperwork and that's it. And thanks, or you go to three years of military service. So I was like, I don't know what that means. And my uncle's like, hey, like, the prep school was developed to get, especially post 9 11, to get people who had combat experience who hadn't been in school for a few years to give them opportunity to return. So it was for actual, you know, like, somewhat older soldiers who were still under that threshold of 25 to get into West Point.

Austin Wheeler [00:49:55] It also started really getting used as a red shirt year for college athletes, like, football reference recruits. And then, like, I had a few, like, classmates at the prep school who were like, their dad was a colonel. They were cool dudes, but they were. They're as dumb as rocks. So they needed a lot of tutoring to, you know, get their SATs up to qualify to get into West Point.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:13] I see.

Austin Wheeler [00:50:14] But. But yeah, so I did. I. So I ended up, you know, coming out of high school, you know, did basic training with. With the prep school. And where it gets really unique is the year I went to the prep school was the first. It used to be at Fort Miles, New Jersey, but they actually moved it to a corner of the campus. So I actually spent, you know, as a cadet and cadet candidate. I spent five years, you know, at West Point, specifically in that role. So, you know, I saw over a decade, you know, before and after, of cadets go through and, you know, military, you know, the Mormon military families. I saw the, you know, the branch become staked.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:52] I see. But how was it for you going from California, really thinking about the military, thinking about what it would feel like. Be like to be part of the military, and actually then going to West Point, actually participating in basic training. Your experience of it, how would you describe it? Was it what you thought? Was it harder than what you thought? Was it a good fit for you at that time?

John Dehlin [00:51:23] And you said there was some. You enlisted before West Point, right?

Austin Wheeler [00:51:27] Yeah, so when I was still. So it was a little dicey. So I graduated when I was 17. I have a late birthday. I actually forged my dad's signature to give me the age waiver to enlist. So I had.

John Dehlin [00:51:45] Because your dad wasn't.

Austin Wheeler [00:51:47] He didn't want me to go until I went on a mission. Oh.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:50] So a little bit of a control thing going on there.

Austin Wheeler [00:51:53] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:54] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [00:51:56] So I don't think anybody. I think my uncle might have known. So I don't think anybody knew that I had an active date. I had a, you know, I had the recruit bonus ready to go. I was gonna do, you know, so this would have been like 2010, 2011. So there was like a $50,000 signing bonus. I was supposed to go to a. Well, in my mind, as a 17 year old, I was gonna go. I was gonna try out for the Ranger regimen. I was gonna get in and show them how badass at high speed I was. And I was gonna kick indoors with cool guys. Realistically, what happens to like 97% of people is they go. They go to airborne school. That's cool. Which was where that would have been Fort.

John Dehlin [00:52:40] So Fort Breck.

Austin Wheeler [00:52:41] Yeah. Or Fort Moore now. Yeah, but yeah. So airborne school. And then normally you go through Ranger selection, you wash out because, like, most 17 year olds don't have the muscle mass or like, you know, the endurance to deal with that.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] And this is what Marty Ross talked about in our interview. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, yeah, he did he did Ranger. Yeah, he was a Ranger. So for those of you who want to hear about that, Marty can speak to that.

Austin Wheeler [00:53:06] Yeah. So, yeah, I'd say realistically, like I said, like, the burnout rate's high, but you still end up in an airborne unit because you went to an airborne. So that's Vincenzo, Italy, with 173rd, that's 82nd Airborne, which is like a very, you know, as far as like main army, that's like one of the more like high speed, you know, like, they do like, they were doing a lot of. They had really high deployment tempo and they technically were the only airborne unit to do an airborne drop since World War II, so. Or, you know, like the 101st technically was airborne, but that's really. Sorry. But.

Austin Wheeler [00:53:38] So it was one of those things where it's like, I wasn't, you know, like, I knew I wasn't going to become a cook, right? It was like, I'm going to throw my hat in the ring if I make it. I'm doing really cool stuff. If not still in a pretty cool place.

Austin Wheeler [00:53:49] So that was kind of. It was like option four, option 40. It was like the thing that like a guaranteed, you know, and I was supposed to, I was supposed to report in like August of 2011, but instead I got this, you know, this offer to go to the prep school. And my uncle's like, dude, you gotta take it. Like, you're in. He's like, if you show up, he's like, they want you to succeed so bad in this program. Like, they believe in you, you're just not quite there. And. Which again, like, I had straight Bs, but, like, I had. Yeah. So like, my GPA was terrible, but like everything else, you know, like all the extracurriculars, like, I looked like a good candidate.

Austin Wheeler [00:54:23] So he was just like, you got it, you got to take it. So they, you know, they, they cleared my additional. My, my contract and dropped my basic date. And then they did their own abbreviated basic training for cadet candidates because again, like, half of them were just coming straight out of high school, but the other half had already been through basic training. They had already been through ait. I had a few guys in my class, great dudes and females. They, you know, like, they had a couple deployments already, you know, like, I had one of, one of my classmates.

Austin Wheeler [00:54:57] My. The following year, like, he got his Purple Heart awarded to him in front of the entire corps of cadets, like all 4,000, you know, and from when he had gotten blown up like three And a half years prior when he was still, you know, sergeant. So. And so, um. So yeah, so there was, you know, that abbreviated one. But, you know, I still like went through the gas chamber. I learned how to, you know, give somebody an IV and get an iv. Had to ruck, you know, carry stupid weight. So it was one of those things, like I was excited for, you know, like at the time, I think, like part of like the civilian, the subversion of military recruitment.

Austin Wheeler [00:55:35] There was like all those like discovery channels showing like, like all the hell week stuff or like selection or, you know, like what seals, you know, the SEAL selection or ranger tryouts or sapper school. So it was one, it was one of those like mainstream medias that were like, I readily consume. Like, oh man, that's gonna be so cool. So. And I like, listen, like, I grew up camping, so it's like the, the field stuff was like, that was, you know, that was the meat and potatoes. Like, I was, I was ready to go. Like that's what I wanted to do again. Like, I've been conditioned that like violence is necessary.

Austin Wheeler [00:56:09] I think I have the disposition where I could act violent and not have that destroy me, you know, Like, I had the, I could compartmentalize that in whatever way. Like, I don't know how a 17 year old me really thought, like, it would, it would be okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:26] I see.

Austin Wheeler [00:56:28] So yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:30] So you went to that school.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:32] So where was it again?

Austin Wheeler [00:56:32] So that was. So it was on West Point. Yes, it was, it was on base. It was away from the main academy, about like a mile and a half, two miles.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:40] But it was like a prep. It was a prep for the main academy.

Austin Wheeler [00:56:44] Yeah. So the, the, the battalion. So it's, it's a single battalion which is three companies and they had a total of like 300 cadet candidates. And cadet candidate could be everybody from me who, like, I had no connection to guys that were, that were football recruits. And when they're, you know, NCAA football rules don't apply. Like so, you know, trying to use that as a recruitment piece or like I had a buddy who, he got in, but he tore his ACL like two weeks before he was supposed to go to basic training. So they, so he didn't like lose his eligibility or whatever or get lost in the sauce type of thing. They gave him an offer to the prep school, so he was ready to go to college. So he was there, his ACL healed up and then we all matriculated with the class of 2016.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:43] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:57:45] Plus it's near the birthplace of Joseph Smith and the founding of the Mormon Church. I'm sure that didn't escape you.

Austin Wheeler [00:57:50] No, it did not. I actually, on three separate occasions for young adult activities for the West Point Branch ward, I was the one that had to rent out the 20 passenger vans from the motor pool and I drove us up to the Finger Lakes.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:10] So I'm noticing just a parallel. If the church has a purpose for you and a use for you, and they create this identity to have that their purpose for you and their use for you fulfilled. Did you feel that with the military, too, they're kind of training you up with a certain purpose and to use you?

Austin Wheeler [00:58:34] Definitely.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:35] Right.

Austin Wheeler [00:58:36] So. And I think that's one of the things too, that, you know, I talked about earlier was like, that feeling of brokenness. Like, the military gave me a framework that. We don't care what you looked like coming into this. We're gonna build you an. Our image.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:53] Yes.

Austin Wheeler [00:58:53] We're going to make you what. Yeah. And it's so liberating to a point to basically be told, like, we are going to tell you your potential and then we are going to expect you to meet that. So that was one of those things. You know, I was like, I was all in on Mormonism. And then, you know, especially, like, West Point. Like, it's funny with Utah, right? Like, my mom remarried somebody who lives in Utah. And like, when they say West Point, they're like, oh, like Riverton Area High School. Like, and it's like, no, like one of the oldest institutions in America. You know, like, the. Just the historicity of it is lost. Which, again, I think goes to the breakdown and relationship between the civilian population, military population. But.

John Dehlin [00:59:42] And just to really put a fine point on it, would it be accurate to say that your theological worldview, your sense of meaning and purpose in the world was that sort of like Christian God, Mormon God wanted you to become a killing machine? Like, is that simplistic?

Austin Wheeler [01:00:03] Yeah, I'd say in the time, I think that's how I reconciled it or like, how I saw it. Right. Like, it was one of those things where it was like, my dad has very traditional views of masculinity. You know, so when I'm, you know, when I have these traditional, you know, heteronormative, you know, again, like the. The 6, 7 prior special forces guy talking about, you know, in my mind, that's like, that's the archetype for masculinity. That's the archetype for, you know, manliness or. And that's also from from the Mormon standpoint, like that, that man, you know, with with reverence, that man is a Stake president.

Austin Wheeler [01:00:42] Like that is the archetype for a priesthood holder. Like, wow, what like a spiritual giant, you know, so it's like it was almost a way of, of trying to see like I don't, you know, so I'm not, I'm broken. But if I make myself whole in this way, like maybe God can use me for that purpose, you know, like with, in the Book of Mormon we talk about the. Oh man, I'm forgetting it. So cool. I'm forgetting these names.

John Dehlin [01:01:17] You like that?

Austin Wheeler [01:01:18] So with Ammon, right? Like he had like five or six brothers all go out at the same time as him. Like, I don't know, I feel like there were, there were a couple duds in the group we didn't hear too much about. You know, not everybody was, was killing or whatever, right. But they were still successful, you know, told that they were righteous and stuff. So like I kind of saw it as like, I may not be one of these guys. Like I may, you know, again, like I may, like I may have been broken so somebody whole doesn't have to get damaged by, by this aggression or by this violence. I think that's really, that's really.

John Dehlin [01:01:56] Maybe it gives meaning to your imperfections that you can become a killer so that a more virtuous, you know, Nephi, like which ironic Nephi is the one who chops the head off. But like a more virtuous Peter, priesthood holder, Mormon boy can not have to be the killer. But I'm broken already, so it may as well be me that does the killing.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:18] So are you like offering yourself up in a way?

Austin Wheeler [01:02:22] Yeah. I think that's honestly like the type of viewpoint I would have had. Just kind of tangential at one point when I, in my career, when I knew the post I was supposed to be going to, it was the National Training center in Fort Irwin, California. It's like the middle of the desert, nothing around, but everybody who's going to deploy goes there. And then there's like the, they. They play, they play army. And the opposition force or OP4 is just, they just pester, you know, the guys who are about to deploy. So you do a lot of time in the field. So I remember telling this one guy and he was like, he was very sincere.

Austin Wheeler [01:03:02] He's like, dude, you're going to be so lethal. He's like, oh dude, I'm so jealous of you. Like, it's going to be such a good first command. And it was one of those things where it's like, in the context, I was like, yeah, yeah, I am going to be. And then now it's like, I guess it's a really weird thing to. To, like, take as a compliment. Yeah.

Reflections on Military Culture and Violence

John Dehlin [01:03:20] I'm totally tracking, like, just yesterday, the new nominated Secretary of Defense was in front of, I think, the Senate for a Senate confirmation hearing.

Austin Wheeler [01:03:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:36] And that word just kept coming up. He's like, we need to make the military more lethal. More lethal. I'm going to improve the lethality.

Austin Wheeler [01:03:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:43] And on the ones. In the one sense, that word's so jarring. In the other sense, that's exactly the point.

Austin Wheeler [01:03:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:49] You know. Right. Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:03:51] I mean, and that's the thing. It's like, if you come at it from the framework of, like, violence is the universal language. Again, it's like you get. You very quickly get into, like, the quotes that are picked up by, like, alt right people or like militia groups, you know, like, you. You'd rather, you know, just. Just like the love of the movie 300, you know, it's like, oh, we're not. We're not poets. We're soldiers. Like, that's all we are. We're warriors. We're fighters. Like, right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:19] That's the vibe I got from the Paul brothers, that they were romanticizing the violence, ennobling it, and that their Christianity, Mormonism, informed the ennobling of sort of violence, which, again, every country needs to defend itself. So, like, I'm not even dissing that. I'm just. Just trying to describe what I'm seeing and hearing that a religious worldview, a Christian worldview, a Mormon worldview can be a way to kind of smoothen or grease the wheels of the glorification of lethality. Yeah, right.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:56] Which isn't new. I mean, this is like.

John Dehlin [01:04:59] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:00] So much of humanity. Right. That we. Religion becomes the tool in which we dehumanize and justify.

Austin Wheeler [01:05:06] I'm sure we could find Sumerian text where murder's tight.

Mormon Community Life at West Point

John Dehlin [01:05:09] You know, it's like, really quickly, I'm curious how your branch or ward culture at West Point was similar or different than your branch or ward or state culture back in Southern California in terms of all the patriotism stuff and nationalism stuff and military.

Austin Wheeler [01:05:29] I mean, it was expected, I guess, would be, you know, like, we're so a big thing was we didn't have our own meeting house. We met in the third floor of Thayer Hall. So, you know, it's like where, you know, one of the rooms I had my stats class or, you know, where I had my Middle Eastern studies class with my instructor who was missing a leg because it got blown off in Afghanistan. Like the sunbeams met there, you know, so there was that, like.

John Dehlin [01:05:57] Oh, family, too.

Austin Wheeler [01:05:58] Yeah. And that's the thing. So you have. You had, you know, these colonels, majors and stuff. Like, very similar to Mormon culture. The military, for better or worse, really incentivizes the nuclear family unit. So you had a lot of people, especially of West Point, they get married within a week of graduation and they have a. You know, they're pumping out kids, you know, within a year or two of that.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:29] So some overlap.

Austin Wheeler [01:06:31] Yeah. So, I mean, and it was. It was frustrating being a young adult, given the narrative that I had to find a spouse and start having kids, that there wasn't really a singles ward. So the West Point experience was really. It was. Again, it was that microcosm because. So I guess so on the one hand. I guess so. First things first is going back to my year at the prep school. I think that's, like, really important, kind of foundational, figuring out how the rest of the rest of it worked. I went with this chip on my shoulder that I wasn't going to lose my faith, that there was enough people at my home ward that said, oh, you're not going on a mission. I had to prove them wrong, that I had to prove that the military wasn't mutually exclusive to serving a mission or just the church in general.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:34] So that was still in your mind, that you were absolutely going to serve a mission, too?

Austin Wheeler [01:07:40] Yes. And that's one of those things where it was kind of the softening with my dad. It was like, hey, dad, there's Mormons that go to West Point and they go on a mission during West Point. And that program actually.

Austin Wheeler [01:08:00] So, so sorry. So the way West Point works is you, you know, you get your offer. You have to. You have to be. You have to be nominated by a senator or a congressman or like, your parent has to be like a colonel or higher to get, like a direct line kind of in. But somebody has to, you know, nominate you. And everything you get in the first two years you're at West Point, you don't owe anything to any. To the American taxpayer, anything whatsoever.

Austin Wheeler [01:08:28] You can fail out. You can just say, I don't want to do this anymore. Leave no questions asked. The first week of the academic year, in your junior year, you have what's called, like. So the junior class is called Cows. It comes from an old term where, like, the first major break you got was during your junior year. So people would just wait outside the gates of West Point and somebody like wrote about it, talking about it looked like the cows coming home. So the cow class, the juniors, you have what's called cow commitment, which is you all get into an auditorium with your 1000 classmates or your 900 that are still left, and you do an oath saying not only that you're going to finish West Point, but that you're going to owe the army five years of active duty as an officer after that.

Austin Wheeler [01:09:19] And if you don't, you have to pay everything back. So if you get kicked out of West Point as a senior, you could owe 300 or $400,000 to the army. So it's like a really big point. So back in, I believe it was the 70s was the first one it happened, somebody realized that they could resign and then just reapply and go on a mission and then come back. So the second, I believe he was the second cadet to ever do it. He actually was a retired colonel and he came back. He actually, he served his adult, you know, married senior couple mission. They started.

Austin Wheeler [01:10:04] So that's another thing they started when I was there. They started having military like prior military service member couples serving senior missions to be like liaison for the community. And it really became like liaison for the cadets. And it was like pretty effective kind of attrition, you know, buffer to help keep the, you know, the, the cadets involved. Like, I spent a lot of weekends, you know, like at the senior missionary, like hanging out with senior missionaries. And they were just like, you know, like they had a washer and dryer that we can use that was better than like the, you know, the military solution of like, you send it back and hope you get your bag back type thing.

Austin Wheeler [01:10:50] So, like, yeah, so starting again, like, I think he would have been in the 70s and then since then. So by the time I had gotten there, there had been over 100 missionaries that, you know, or like members that went to West Point for two years, resigned their sophomore junior, summer, left for two years, and then came back and then finished up West Point.

Austin Wheeler [01:11:16] But yeah, so that was definitely something I remember. Like, again, I wrote in my journal, like, it can be done, it will be done. I was like, it was a very, it was a very faith affirming experience for me to see that. Like, I can still do this. I can still be faithful. Like, they are doing this. They are being faithful.

John Dehlin [01:11:35] Oh, shoot. Were you gonna mention people getting sent away?

Austin Wheeler [01:11:38] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:40] It's okay to jump Back.

Austin Wheeler [01:11:41] Yeah, sorry. We'll go back to that. Okay. So my brother, my dad again, my dad, like, tripled down on the church. And that really didn't work for my brother. So my parents divorced my brother halfway through his senior year of high school. Actually got sent off to live with my grandparents because, like, my dad just couldn't handle the challenge. And to both of them, like, they. They need a third party help. Like, you know, like my dad and I, like, I think we have a really good relationship. And a lot of what I learned was kind of the placation to a degree of just like, hey, if they don't cause a problem, there won't be a problem.

Austin Wheeler [01:12:29] And if I do the church stuff, my dad is happy, so I'll just try to do that. But yeah, so, like, my brother got sent off and it's one of those things where looking back now, it's so normalized for your cousin your. So that's. So my brother got sent off.

Austin Wheeler [01:12:51] In our ward. We had a close family friend. She got sent off for six months to her family members, like in Central Valley. It was one of those weird things. Like, it was like, wait, like, she was like, she was kind of my sister's friend. But then she was gone for a year, so she had to like, repeat a year of high school. So all of a sudden she was like in my, like, high school group.

Austin Wheeler [01:13:13] My sister was like 4 years old on me, so there was just enough. I was like, oh, wow, this is weird. She's here now. Like, okay, she's cool.

John Dehlin [01:13:19] But I'm imagining you would get set off for either having sex, getting pregnant, or getting involved in drugs and alcohol. I mean, those are the only things I could think of.

Austin Wheeler [01:13:28] I mean, honestly, I think that's the narrative.

John Dehlin [01:13:33] Well, yeah, yeah, that is the narrative. Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:13:39] I think it's just parents sincerely struggling to navigate a troubled or a team that doesn't fit the mold of Mormonism.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:51] Totally.

Austin Wheeler [01:13:51] Like, I think about Jess Jesse Hildebrand.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:55] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:13:59] There was no in exception. Like, I was a boy. They were texting at one point in time. And our texts consist of like, hey, what are you doing? Oh, that's cool. Oh, maybe we should hang out. Oh, okay. Maybe not. Okay. You know?

Margi Dehlin [01:14:15] Yeah. So like, it was even in their interview. It was like asking questions.

Austin Wheeler [01:14:20] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:20] Them being genuinely curious.

Austin Wheeler [01:14:23] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:23] Or noticing things in Mormonism that put up a. A red flag for their parents of like, wait, you're not in an obedience compliant mindset. Therefore trouble, like danger. We need reinforcements now. It's Almost like the normative teen brain of differentiation, individuation and a bit of pushback. Right when you're trying to. Or whatever. I think within Mormonism contextually, it's like the, that's a danger, you're now a threat to our system, our family system and what we're trying to create here. Would you agree?

Austin Wheeler [01:15:00] Absolutely. Yeah. I think, and I think it really highlights how incompatible Mormonism is with reality. When age appropriate mental, you know, like growth is seen as a threat or you know, outgroups. You.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:19] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:15:20] Like, like when else is, you know, if I, if not as a teenager, when are you supposed to say, hey, is this really, you know, when are you supposed to try on identities and stuff like that is completely expected, normal, healthy thing to do. And, and yeah, so with, you know, with Jess, it's like I never, and I feel bad because I will say like culturally like if a girl kissed a boy, it's like, oh, you knew and she was a slut. Right. Like women were demeaned, they were devalued. My sister was brutalized, you know, by like a handful of guys in the ward because like she kissed a guy, you know, and there's like this weird piety dichotomy with like, you know, you're a boy, you're full of hormones and you want to make out or do other stupid stuff.

Austin Wheeler [01:16:13] But, but yeah. And that's the thing with like, you know, specifically my experience with Jess. It's like, it's not like there was this unfair like pure assertion that they were living in sin or doing terrible things. Like they were just, they were just being, you know, being a kid really.

Austin Wheeler [01:16:36] And then they just vanished. And I didn't even know that, that the context of them vanishing, but it was just another drop in the bucket of parent doesn't understand why teenager is struggling with a high demand organization. Yeah. Like my sister in law, I found out that like my wife's family, like they moved to Utah for two years because she was being a problem child or whatever, but like she just got sent off. And yeah, this is one of those things that's like my buddy lived on my couch because his parents are just like, eh, you're 18, you have nine more months of high school. We just don't want to deal with you.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:21] That's right.

Austin Wheeler [01:17:22] So it's just. Yeah. So it's like, it's one of the things that always bothered me if like the families are forever type of thing. And it's like, I don't know if it's just like that, you know, the parallax adjusted to infinity. Like if you view everything on the infinity timeline, no mess up you have right now will be so bad that they won't get over it in time and come back around. And I think that like perspective really hurts Mormons who need to have authentic familial connections and communications.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:58] Right? That's right.

John Dehlin [01:18:02] Okay. And so I just wanted to make

Austin Wheeler [01:18:04] sure you had a chance to connect. I appreciate it. Yeah. Sorry. So I guess, yeah, I was like pre mission West Point, like I said, a big thing was there was like the, there was that senior missionary couple who kind of adopted all of the strays and which was all cadets. Right. We didn't really have anything going on. And they also, again, like culturally, the first ones especially love them to death. But they were very, very transparently of the mindset of like we need. Well, there were only two or three female cadets pretty much my entire time, like at West Point, female female LDS cadets.

Dating, Worthiness Interviews, and Early Romance

Austin Wheeler [01:18:47] So most of the time was we need to get these boys good female, you know, good active Mormon girls to talk to, otherwise they're gonna lose their light. You know, they're going to make them, you know, they'll mess up before their mission. So there's like this weird, like, you know, retirees throwing parties for 19 year olds to meet girls, like at West

John Dehlin [01:19:13] Point, like nannies that were, you know, back east from Utah.

Austin Wheeler [01:19:18] A lot of, a lot of like au pair nannies in the city. Like, you know, girls that went to Seton Hall. I was really good friends with like one of them like over the years. But yeah, I was just one of those things. I was like, it was such. Looking back, it's like, what a weird way to meet somebody. Like, somebody was literally just like, hey, you want to meet some, you want to meet some marriageable Mormon boys? Like from West Point?

Margi Dehlin [01:19:41] Highly trained.

Austin Wheeler [01:19:42] Exactly. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:46] But highly trained and disciplined.

Austin Wheeler [01:19:49] And then.

John Dehlin [01:19:49] But also for you, like, we've rounded up a bunch of young women that we want. I know with them.

Austin Wheeler [01:19:55] So it was. Yeah, it's like Mormonism makes young adulthood weird, man. I will say, like, I like whatever deity I owe or like the, the branch was not a young single adult ward. Like they just didn't have, they didn't have the resources to support that. So I wasn't awkwardly trying to date 40 girls, you know, every night of the week. It was, well, I've got CTR 7s, you know, I gotta make sure that, you know, they know the planet salvation.

John Dehlin [01:20:28] You're teaching primary to 7 year olds.

Austin Wheeler [01:20:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:30] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:20:31] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:20:31] As like a 19 or 20 year old, you know. So like I said, I think I missed out. Well, I briefly had it. We're about to get to that. But yeah, Singles ward is so not

John Dehlin [01:20:44] a robust dating life at West Point.

Austin Wheeler [01:20:45] No, not at pre mission. No, not at all. But I still like met girls, you know, like that's the thing. And Instagram was still like this new weird frontier, so there was like a Mormon girl that like I flew up to like be my date to like every, every class has like one formal a year. So if like plea. Parent weekend you have.

Austin Wheeler [01:21:06] Yeah. And then yearling winter weekend and then 500th night, which celebrates 500 nights until you graduate. And then 100th night is 100 nights to graduate. So junior senior year there. But yeah, so like for yearning winter war. Yearning winter weekend, we all like, we all got dates. Like some of the, again, some of the Seton hall girls like asked them to like call up their friends in like Riverton or whatever. So I had like a really tight knit group of like classmates for like the 2016, 2018 group.

Austin Wheeler [01:21:47] Like one of them, he was in my basic training squad for all the Beast. Like I talked to him every day. Like he's, he's still, he's my, you know, he's a brother for sure. But. But yeah, so it's one of those things. It's like we all got the idea that we knew girls are scary and dangerous and we were within a year of putting in our mission papers, so we couldn't let girls get us alone in a room because they would, you know, we're just weak little men. And you know, everybody knows in Mormonism that girls make you do bad things. So yeah, so we rented, we Airbnb a house in Brooklyn and we all, like, all 10 of us or whatever, total with our dates, like stayed and like had like the weird like nanny, like separation of bed, you know, for nighttime or whatever.

Austin Wheeler [01:22:32] And again, just, just really weird to have like that level of. It's like guys like, like 20, like 19, 20, like I don't know, 21. Like we should have been drinking. You know, we should have been. We should have making stupid little decisions. Not like if, you know, if, like if, if they, if they touch me, then, then I'm going to hell.

Austin Wheeler [01:22:53] And I failed God, right? So. Right, yeah, so I did, you know, I failed God in that instance. All of our, all of our, you know, our safety measures couldn't, couldn't triumph, you know, human evolution. So nothing, like, nothing, nothing Even real happened, right? Like, you know, like, not to embarrass too much, but like the first, like, you know, I lost my virginity to my wife, you know, but it's like. But I still did like a fooled around. And it was devastating to me. You know, it was like eight months out from when I was supposed to leave on a mission. And I was like, you know, I was broken.

Austin Wheeler [01:23:31] Everybody who had said anything negative about me was right, you know, how dare I be 20 and sexually attracted to somebody? And it was. It was devastating. I remember again, I remember bawling to the drummer in the West Point band about how terrible I was and how unworthy I was and how I've ruined everything and how there are people that I was supposed to find on my mission and save.

Austin Wheeler [01:24:07] There were generations of people that were. The eternity was upended because I wasn't strong enough. It was devastating. And bless his heart, like, he. He, like, he was one of those wins in leadership roulette. Very few truer Christians I've known that.

Austin Wheeler [01:24:34] Yeah, this gentleman, but, you know, he's, you know, he's like, objectively like, yeah, you messed up, but nothing's permanent. Nothing's forever. Like, let's talk about it, you know, what are we doing forward? So, you know, like, obviously I had to stop talking to the girl because she was evil and wrong and dumb and. And honestly, like, kudos to her. I think she was also really like, my first experience with like, non orthodoxy, right? Because, like, my thing was this, like. Like, oh, like you. You know, it's like, oh, like you've made me feel the way. Like, I love you. And she's like, no, no. Like, we were just having fun.

Austin Wheeler [01:25:07] I was like. I was like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. Like, if I feel this way, I have to love you. We have to be wed.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:13] Right?

Austin Wheeler [01:25:13] Because that's what Marmym does to you. You know, if you feel any sort of sexual attraction, like, it has to be stifled and damped down real hard. And that's why you see people getting married like a month out of, you know, at BYU and divorced five years later with four kids.

John Dehlin [01:25:29] Like, it either needs to be tramped down or a sign that you're supposed to be eternal companions.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:36] Yeah, yeah, that's right. So you would marry them to make it okay that you actually have feelings for each other.

Austin Wheeler [01:25:44] So, you know, it's one of those things where it's like. I don't know how prescriptive the leadership handbook was, but I met weekly and monthly with both my stake president and branch president, and they ultimately decided that I was, you know, I was penitent. You know, shame has never been a difficult thing for me to feel, you know, so they definitely felt that I was truly repentant. And, you know, like, I wasn't trying to mess around with anybody. You know, I wasn't watching porn or anything stupid. Like, so they were like, hey, like, you're good to go. So, like, I felt like everything was good, like, you know, summer of 2014.

John Dehlin [01:26:36] So I just. I just want to note I'm noticing a parallel, and I don't know if this will ring true for you, but it's almost like the Mormon worthiness repentance process is its own form of spiritual or religious basic training, because it breaks you down to the lowest point to then build you back up and make you feel subservient to the organization or to the power structure. That's a parallel that just kind of occurred to me, and I'm wondering if you experienced it that way or not.

Austin Wheeler [01:27:10] Yeah, it actually reminds me of, again, a little bit of an older talk that I loved, and it was using the allegory of the current bush. I think it actually became when the church was playing around with their little YouTube video, Mormon messages stuff. I think it got made into one of those. The artsy videos. But, yeah, it talks about how we need to have the faith to be cut down by God and that when God does cut us back, similar to the current bush, we shouldn't say, why God? I was so beautiful. I was growing. I was doing everything you want. We need to say thank you so much for loving me enough to cut me down.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:04] Interesting.

Austin Wheeler [01:28:04] And I think that also, that type of mindset speaks to the high control aspect of things. You know, it's not that you should be alarmed or you should feel on edge when somebody tries to normalize tearing you down. It's that, no, no, no. This is actually good. This is how we improve. This is how I get better. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Entering the Mission Training Center

John Dehlin [01:28:28] Okay. So is mission next?

Austin Wheeler [01:28:30] Yeah, yeah. So I'm on my mission. I think the summer of 2014. Yeah, sounds right.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:40] Where were you called?

Austin Wheeler [01:28:41] I was called to the Taiwan Taipei mission. And yeah, like, you know, it was one of those things. Like, my best friend, he was called to Myanmar or Thailand, but he ended up in Myanmar. Fragments of mission. I had a buddy, he ended up in Mozambique, Another guy. We weren't super close, but he was still a good dude.

Austin Wheeler [01:29:04] He was in the Taichung mission. So there were, like, everybody beyond everybody that went to yearling winter weekend ended up like putting in papers and leaving at the same time. But, you know, so that was cool because like we left. I show I was first at the MTC and then my buddy was a week later and then a few weeks after that. And then because I was going to Taipei, I had a super long MTC experience.

Austin Wheeler [01:29:33] Mine was actually even longer. And that was one of the first real jarring things with Mormonism in general was very basic government paperwork is very clear cut. At the beginning of 2014, Taipei changed a form that needed to be filled out for visas.

Austin Wheeler [01:29:52] The church travel department submitted like 80 something visa requests in like May with a six month expired form. And they literally just hoped that it would go through because God wants his missionaries there. So my eight weeks at the MTC became 12 and a half weeks at the MTC and it was all because somebody was just bad at their job.

Austin Wheeler [01:30:22] And it was one of those things where I remember being reprimanded because I was like, this is stupid. Somebody messed up and they're like, no, no, no, the Lord works in mysterious ways. You just weren't meant to be there.

Austin Wheeler [01:30:33] I was like, why would the Lord mean for someone to be inept at their job? You know, it's like again like the binary thinking, right? It's like this person was bad at their job. That's. Why did God make them bad at their job? That's stupid. This is dumb. You guys are dumb. God doesn't have to be in everything. He doesn't have to be in people's stupid mistakes. Like they could just be mistakes and we can move on. But yeah, so the MTC was, was terrible, jarring. I hated it.

Austin Wheeler [01:31:02] I felt like I had lost all my autonomy. Even though I was 20, I would been on, you know, I'd been paying taxes for three years. I'd been on my own for three years. I'd voted in an election.

Austin Wheeler [01:31:14] I just. And I was, I was being infantilized. I was being talked down at a kid who literally was like barely 18. His name was a general authority's name. So magically by revelation, he was the zone leader for our group.

Austin Wheeler [01:31:38] And, and that one again bothered me because I didn't know about cronyism and Mormonism because SoCal isn't the holy land. There was racism. There's a lot of racism, I think the, in the MTC to this day. So having been stationed in New York, Georgia, living in Southern California, you know, visited my brother a bunch in Alabama, spending some time in Texas. The most I've ever heard A or just the use of the N word was at the MTC. What,

John Dehlin [01:32:20] in 2014.

Austin Wheeler [01:32:22] 2014. And I will say, I don't think it's because everybody secretly has a dad who was, you know, a Klan member on the side. I think it's because in Utah there's a blindness to the existence of minorities. It was just a word that people got upset by. Like, I think it just wasn't real to them. I think a lot of them had never seen a black person in their life outside of rap music videos or tv, you know, so it was. And it was one of those things where like, I tried to like, hey, like, guys, this isn't okay. And you know, they laugh. I go, no, we're just playing around.

Austin Wheeler [01:33:01] It's like, no, like guys, like that's. It's not something you play with. Like, you know, like words have meanings and like, there's a lot of context with, with this. And, and I will say, like, most of them, you know, at least respected me enough to not say it around me. But it was one of those things, like the first, like night was just jarring, you know, it was one of those things, like after there was like a weird like 10, 15 minute period between like last class or devotional and like shower time, lights out. So there was like this really like, that was like just the squirrel brained 18 year old boys just getting their wiggles out.

Austin Wheeler [01:33:38] Like it was just a bunch of stupid dudes being stupid dudes. And unfortunately one of their, the most jarring manifestations of that was just casual racism. Yeah. Wow. But yeah, the mtc, I will say, like my, my MTC companion is one of the best dudes ever. Like again, if there, if there is, if there's a God, like, he was like one of the most significant proofs I have for the existence of a loving deity. Like he was, he was calming, he understood where I was coming from. He shared in a lot of my outrage, which I think was helpful. Was helpful.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:22] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:34:23] Yeah. And I was. And the other thing too, it's like I. I was very, I was very athletic at West Point. Like, I enjoyed athleticism. I thought, you know, being athletic meant I could be violent and effective. So I had fun, you know, like, you know, like, like every mora, you know, like boring BYU boy. Like I actually, I liked rock climbing. I like mountain biking. You know, I grew up shooting guns. Like, I played water polo. I swam well. Like, you know, I did wrestling, I did combatives at West Point, you know, that type of stuff.

Austin Wheeler [01:35:01] So, like, I got really stir crazy at the mtc. You know, it's like, that was like, you could run around a little bit, but it's like if your companion didn't want to run, you had to be their commander, you know? So it was like, luckily he was ready to. And he was like this super, like, just this super athletic ski kid, you know, like, we'd be in class, like, in our, like, mock, like, interview sessions or whatever, like, you know, meeting with an investigator, and he would, like, tilt. And I could tell he was just, like, imagining, like, doing a backflip on his skis type of thing.

Austin Wheeler [01:35:33] Yeah, he was. He was. He's a goofy kid, but he was a good dude. But, yeah, I found out that I established a legacy that got reprimanded by one of the 70 at the MTC. We found an old room that wasn't being lived in, and we started a fight club.

John Dehlin [01:35:56] Oh, my goodness. You started a fight club in the Mormon mtc?

Austin Wheeler [01:36:00] I did.

John Dehlin [01:36:00] Mission training center.

Austin Wheeler [01:36:01] That's why I'm here now.

John Dehlin [01:36:02] Like, punching each other with fists in the face.

Margi Dehlin [01:36:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:07] What?

Austin Wheeler [01:36:08] So the time that I was in, there was also a naval midshipman who was going to Taichung, or. No, he was going to Australia, but Mandarin speaking. And there was also a Air Force cadet or, you know, zoom. Yeah, I think it's cadet who was also going to. He was going to Taichung. So we had, like, me, my buddy who, you know, my buddy from West Point who, like, did Krav maga growing up. Like, we would once a week, like, tackle and grapple, you know, just, again, just being stupid, you know, having fun, doing jujitsu type of stuff or whatever.

Austin Wheeler [01:36:51] And the naval midshipmen, he was actually on the wrestling team or the judo team. And it was one of those things where we were just like, again, during that 10, 15 minute window of just, like, people taking showers. You don't have to shower with your companion. So it's like, oh, they're going out to the showers. I'm just staying here. Write a letter or something stupid to get writing a letter to the girl who's gonna do drown me in a week type of thing. So we just found this room, and I was like, hey, dude, you want to roll around for a bit?

Austin Wheeler [01:37:20] And they're like, no, that's dumb. And then, like, the next day, like, at lunch, he was like, yo, dude, we should roll around tonight. I was like, okay, cool. So we just started doing it, and it was one of those things like two people became four people, became 10 people became 20 people.

John Dehlin [01:37:35] What?

Austin Wheeler [01:37:36] And then I left and it was still happening. And I had heard that they had a, like, you know, it was a zone conference, but they had a conference for the entire building like six months later. Like, one of the guys on island, you know, I was thinking like in Taiwan, it was like one of the things someone was like, you know, like, just talking, you know, like on splits and stuff. Like, oh, like, how's the MTC and stuff. Like, oh, it's pretty good. We got in a lot of trouble the first week though, because I was like, why? He's like, well, somebody started a fight club and like, somebody like, people got hurt or something and they said like, it's not Christ. Like. And like, we just all felt really bad. I was just like, I just remember that's like, yeah, you're like, oops.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:22] Like, imagine that.

Austin Wheeler [01:38:23] But someone. That was probably the only way I got through that thing. Like, it was like I said, it was. It was devastated. So one of the. So my grandfather, I have to ask,

John Dehlin [01:38:33] would you have ever done a fight club at West Point?

Austin Wheeler [01:38:36] Oh, yeah. I mean, you don't, like, you know.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:38] Yeah, it's part of classes, probably.

Austin Wheeler [01:38:41] Yeah, you're graded on it for one. I actually broke my hand in a midterm for combatives, and I actually broke my back in a higher level combatives class like a year after that.

John Dehlin [01:38:53] So it's basically Mormon mtc. Combatives.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:55] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:38:56] When I say combatives, it was just like, you don't hit in the face unless both parties agree to hitting in the face or just hitting in general. And you go until somebody taps out or just says they don't want to go. Because that's thing. Because, you know, like, there are some

Margi Dehlin [01:39:09] guys that are ethics there ethics.

John Dehlin [01:39:12] So, bro, face hit or no face hit? Face hit. Okay, face hit, let's go.

Austin Wheeler [01:39:17] Exactly.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:18] But I think what you're speaking to, I mean, in a small way, I relate in that what you're. No, let me explain as someone who ran in college where every day there's training. I'm training every day to go from that to a place where I have no release energy wise, to what I'm used to. To what the physicality of what I'm used to every day to change that up to like, you're gonna sit a lot of your day. You're gonna be listening to, like a lot of learning a lot. Or I do think that is like, that. That flip is huge for a body. If you're used to physicality kind of day in, day out. That energy outlet, that training, I really can see needing some type of something to meet you. Otherwise you have this feeling like energy wise that you're just teeming all the time.

Austin Wheeler [01:40:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:40:21] Also I think infantalize, I think you used that word. I think that is an appropriate word for, for Mormon missionaries because like where, at what age are you never allowed to be alone? Like I don't know, five? You know what I mean? But that's what a Mormon missionary is. They're literally not allowed to be alone and they're treated like they're babies kind of, or little children in some ways. And that's gotta be for someone who is in freaking West Point on your own. Like you said, that's gotta be just stir crazy. Gotta drive you crazy.

Austin Wheeler [01:40:53] Yeah, yeah. And the thing that really bothered me was every criticism was well you can't say that because this is the Lord's way, you know, and it's like. Yeah. And that's like with the physicality. It's like I woke up every morning, like I woke up at 5:30, I'd swim a mile at least and then if, and then if I had time I'd run two miles and then my day would start. And then usually like every semester you had some sort of class. Like whether it was boxing or combatives or like they called it military movement which was like basically this like, I don't know, like early ninja warrior type of like haze that you just have to do like you're like crawling under stuff and doing like pull up over this and running, you know, sprinting three laps around this, this little track and stuff and you know like lifetime sports.

Austin Wheeler [01:41:42] Like I did scuba diving and like you have, you have like combat survival swimming. So it's like you're swimming but you have like a dummy rifle with you and you're like 10 pound helmet and you're a 20 pound plate carrier and stuff and you have to like, you know, swim laps with that type of thing and stuff or like, you know, so I was like, yeah, like it was very jarring to go from you know, burning you know, a few thousand calories a day and like really working out and stuff to being told like you have like a 45 minute window in the morning or one hour and you know people are playing four square or walking outside too.

Austin Wheeler [01:42:17] It's like you get people that would just walk around. Like you couldn't do the track because like people just walk in a line and block off the track. So yeah, it was. Like I said, it was just stir crazy. It was tough fun.

John Dehlin [01:42:29] That's a fun story.

Austin Wheeler [01:42:30] Yeah. Yeah.

Mission Field Experiences and Disillusionment

Margi Dehlin [01:42:31] I think you had kind of mentioned earlier, too, feeling like you were exposed to a church you didn't really recognized during that time. Do you want to talk about that for a minute?

Austin Wheeler [01:42:43] Yeah. So, I mean, again, growing up Southern California, the church is true. You know, Dallin H. Oaks visited when I was like 9 or 10 and gave a talk, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. And then I heard the same talk two years later, and I was like, oh, that's a bummer. He used the same thing.

John Dehlin [01:43:02] He didn't even bother to change the documentation.

Austin Wheeler [01:43:05] Exactly. It didn't change anything. It was like his jokes were better timed, I guess. But I'm pretty sure that's just because, like, morms are conditioned to laugh at bad jokes in conference settings. But. But yeah, so it's one of those things, like, I assumed everybody was having the same experience I was and then coming to, like, even so the church is anemic on the east coast, you know, the. The geographical spread because of the low numbers, you know, Again, it was one of those things that's like. We didn't have a. We. We were a branch. We were definitely big enough to be a ward, but we didn't have a meeting house because, like, there just wasn't, you know, there wasn't enough to justify, like, you know, building another thing close by.

Austin Wheeler [01:43:53] But so going from that, especially, you know, where it's like you had to drive an hour and a half to go to like, stake priesthood se to, you know, it's like, oh, you know, like we're all from the same high school 10 minutes down the road. And I don't know why that guy's here because everybody knows he did. He did hand stuff on prom night with his girlfriend, you know, just like all this weird stuff and you know, like, you know, like the last name stuff, you know, and like, like Huntsman. I'm like, okay, what's that? You know? And I was like. And. And so I got along with him really well.

Austin Wheeler [01:44:31] He was a good dude, like a Huntsman, you know. And it was weird. Again, one of those weird, jarring things because, like, we would just be sitting and people would be like, how much money do you have? And I was like, what culture is that okay to ask? You know? And I think maybe that's why we got along okay. It's. Cause I guess I didn't know what the Huntsman name was. Or like, the affluency that was, like, associated with that. But he was just a good dude and he wasn't weird. Like, some of the other dudes were really weird. And I think that's. Dude, like, Mormon culture makes a lot of people weird.

Austin Wheeler [01:45:03] And I say that, you know, Like, I know, like, the military makes it strange. You know, you gotta screw this. But it's like, man, there's some stuff. It's like, y'. All. Y' all didn't have any other archetypes to try to emulate? Yeah, yeah. The culture of Provo, like BYU kind of adjacent was just really weird, really unsettling to me.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:33] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:45:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:34] Okay. So anything kind of important from your mission for your. For your story?

Austin Wheeler [01:45:41] Yeah, I got really sick

John Dehlin [01:45:50] in Taiwan.

Austin Wheeler [01:45:50] In Taiwan. Well, actually, I started getting sick in the mtc and I, like, kind of tried to hide it. Didn't want to mess up, you know, the window or anything to go. So, sorry, I don't want to do this too much, but going back. So when I was at West Point, I had gone to Oklahoma for some travel thing, and I ate a raw bull testicle, like, straight off of the bull. I got an infection from that. But we don't. We don't know that. So I got sick in the mtc and I got hit with the. Well, there are any sins you didn't confess to? And I had sinned, but like I said, I was very penitent, very, you know, like the self flagellation type stuff. Like, I was like, nobody thought less of me than me for my weaknesses.

Margi Dehlin [01:46:48] And you had talked to.

Austin Wheeler [01:46:50] Exactly. You had already talked and I had disclosed it. So I honestly answered in the mtc, like, I don't have anything unresolved. Like, I want to be here. I know I'm worthy to be here.

John Dehlin [01:47:00] Was the bull testicle like a dare?

Margi Dehlin [01:47:02] Like, could we follow up on that? Like, what. What type of situation or motivates someone

Austin Wheeler [01:47:09] kind of a deal.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:10] Wrong bull testicle.

Austin Wheeler [01:47:13] It was a dare. It was a hazing thing that this, I guess this guy did to all the missionaries. And I was meeting his daughter, so he thought it'd be funny to haze me too. And I guess everybody just always.

John Dehlin [01:47:24] So a church member encouraged you to eat a raw bull testicle in what state?

Austin Wheeler [01:47:29] Oklahoma.

John Dehlin [01:47:30] Oklahoma.

Austin Wheeler [01:47:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:31] Got it. All right. You did say Mormons were weird,

Austin Wheeler [01:47:36] but. But anyway, so that happened.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:41] All right, so you're getting sick?

Austin Wheeler [01:47:43] Yeah, I'm getting sick. I'm throwing up because of that. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:47] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [01:47:48] Yeah. So again, the delay happened. So frustrated they Decided that they didn't want us sitting longer than 12 weeks. So they sent us on like stateside ish missions to visa wait. And I went up to Ogden for like two weeks and then it was a miracle that they. I was like, no, there's just a 90 day wait. Yeah. Anyway, so we got our, we got our stuff. We were again like, we were a whole transfer and a half delayed. And we were a big group because like I said, we were like one of the first like 18 year old waves from when they did the change and then mission age change. So there was like 90 plus of us coming in all at once. We literally doubled the mission size like in one transfer. So.

John Dehlin [01:48:39] Because there are women too. Yeah, half women.

Austin Wheeler [01:48:42] A lot of. Yeah, a lot of them. So that it was like my, my MTC time was like, you know, a couple of my, my, a couple of my military buddies type of thing, you know, like cadets or what have you. And then a bunch of, you know, a bunch of girls who had done one year at BYU or BYU Idaho, you know. And because of that, you know, they were all infinitely more mature than everybody, especially me when, you know, I'm supposed to be the grumpy old man and I'm encouraging people to get into fist fights. But we get on island and you know, I get my trainer, he's a good dude. And I'm throwing up more and more. It's the summer in Taiwan and I start throwing up blood. I was like 185, pretty good muscle tone. When I started my mission, I got down to like 130.

John Dehlin [01:49:37] Whoa. Yeah, that's £55 I think.

Austin Wheeler [01:49:43] Yeah, it wasn't good.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:46] And

Austin Wheeler [01:49:50] I just kept asking for help. You know, God bless them, the Taiwanese people, the members there, they believed with all their heart they wanted to help me. You know, like they. There's this like Gatorade basically called Su Pao. It's like it's grapefruit Gatorade. And they were convinced that like, if I just drank more, if I drank more Su Pao, I'd be healed. And I'm like, guys, I appreciate it but like I'm really, really. This isn't working for me.

Margi Dehlin [01:50:16] What about your mission precedent though?

Austin Wheeler [01:50:19] So. I don't know what he thought about me, but he was convinced that I was sick because I had sinned. And it got to the point where again, I was throwing up blood and lost incredible amounts of muscle mass.

Austin Wheeler [01:50:44] And like, from what I understand, like my companion had been directed to try to draw it out of Me, because I had met with him a couple times en route to, like, a doctor meeting, you know, and basically was like, one. You know, maybe. Maybe it's this, right? Like, literally, like, you know, like, got blood on my cheek type of thing. Like, maybe it's because, you know, maybe. Maybe. Maybe this is happening because I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not really worthy.

Austin Wheeler [01:51:20] And then, you know, so my companion has me call the mission president, and he just says, I know. So I go, you know, right next to the temple. And then within that day, like, you would think that I was.

Austin Wheeler [01:51:44] I don't know, you'd think I was, like, murdering children or something. Like, within 48 hours of that, I was interviewed. Really creepy interview. Just. Well, what did you do? What did she do? What do you mean? She didn't. Every man wants that weird stuff.

Sent Home Early and Returning to West Point

John Dehlin [01:52:15] Wait, so this is a worthiness interview about what happened before your mission?

Austin Wheeler [01:52:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:19] Things you had already repented of. Multiple things.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:21] Because the lens was that you were. This is so painful, I would imagine for you, too, because it plays into the whole broken thing, but you're actually having a legitimate illness, a reaction to eat. And you didn't know it then, but instead of getting you to a doctor or someone who can really do a read on the situation, they're taking the lens that you've sinned in some way, the reason why you're sick, you're throwing up blood, you've lost 50 pounds, is because of some past thing you've done. Is that right?

Austin Wheeler [01:52:54] Yeah. This transgression that it was a sin,

John Dehlin [01:52:56] sick soul that, by the way, you had already repented of.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:01] Sounds like multiple times. Yeah, that sounds horrible.

Austin Wheeler [01:53:04] Yep. So I came home. I got back home the day before

John Dehlin [01:53:09] they sent you home to the United States.

Austin Wheeler [01:53:11] They sent me home to the United

John Dehlin [01:53:11] States not for illness, but for worthiness.

Austin Wheeler [01:53:14] For worthiness.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:17] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:53:21] How many months into your total mission?

Austin Wheeler [01:53:26] Would have been just shy of six.

John Dehlin [01:53:29] Dang.

Austin Wheeler [01:53:30] Yeah, so. And that's one of those things, you know, it's like. Like I said, I came. It was the day before my 21st birthday. Yeah. I flew in. They made it really clear I needed to be released as fast as possible because there's some sort of missionary superpower that I wasn't entitled to. And then they made sure I knew that it was a dishonorable release.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:58] I'm so sorry.

John Dehlin [01:54:00] And again, you didn't have sex with some woman in Taiwan or date women or break mission rules in some way that was.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:10] Well. And by the way, you're so sick. You are throwing up blood, you are suffering. You have lost like 50 pounds is a lot of weight on one human body, you know. So now what you're. You're having psychological, emotional suffering now instead of seeing a doctor intending to that. Right. You're now being punished, sent home, kind of in shame, really wanting you to feel the shame, too.

John Dehlin [01:54:38] And there's a shame parade to be sent back to your home ward because everybody knows you came home early and they're going to assume that you had sex with somebody. Right?

Austin Wheeler [01:54:48] Yeah. Why do you come home early?

John Dehlin [01:54:49] Because that's the assumption. That's the only real reason someone would be sent home. Either you're sick or, or you had sex, but if you. If you're being sent home without honor, then the only option is you had sex with someone.

Austin Wheeler [01:55:02] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:55:03] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:55:03] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:55:04] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [01:55:05] So, yeah, I mean, that was the circumstance I came back with. It was like I said it was. It was devastating. Like this, this, you know, again, this is something I believed in. This is something I wanted. Like, you know, I would. I would. Folly, sure. But I felt crushing remorse for.

Austin Wheeler [01:55:23] For that, you know, and. And I was still sick. Like, that's, that was the other thing too. It's, It's. I wasn't. I wasn't getting any better. Like, I was throwing up water. And it was one of those things where it's like I'd have to eat just hoping stuff would stay down, just so I was getting, you know, getting something. But I obviously wasn't getting that much because I was still losing so much weight.

Austin Wheeler [01:55:49] I will say the one thing the church did right is I had Tricare. I had military medicine up until I left on my mission. I had resigned. So I was no longer in reserve status or anything with the military.

John Dehlin [01:56:08] So she lost your health and health care.

Austin Wheeler [01:56:10] Yeah. So the church said if I were to see doctors in the Salt Lake area, they would cover the medical bills. So. And I will say the other thing too, like that's important. That again, one of those, like, just, just the bottoms dropping out for me. Was the stake president at the time was again this spirit, like my homeward or my dad's homeward. The ward I hadn't attended in three years, they made him release me. And he was the one who was the Green Beret. He was the one who was the, you know, the military man and the. Who had been a pillar of Mormonism and righteousness my entire life, you know, childhood.

Austin Wheeler [01:56:59] And he, I think, set me apart, but it was literally just like, yeah, he got the okay. From again, from. From my leadership that I'd been with for three years, the congregation that I'd been a part of. And when he came back, he just. It almost felt smug, just the way that he said, I knew you'd be here.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:24] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:57:25] He said, I knew you weren't worthy to leave. And I know it's painful, but I'm so glad you're here now. And that was just like, so many layers.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:42] Like, that was just so devastating.

Austin Wheeler [01:57:45] Yeah, it was. That was brutal.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:50] I'm really sorry.

Austin Wheeler [01:57:51] Thanks.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:52] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [01:57:53] So I. Very much ashamed, feeling like a pariah. I think I stayed in town for about 10 days, and then luckily, by that time, my mom had remarried, and she actually married somebody who lives in Park City. So my mom was like, hey, you could stay with me for. You know. And so I moved in kind of with my mom. And again, I was one of those things where it's like, I'd been fully independent, like, you know, in the military, but I was like my own man, you know, paying taxes, like, whatever. And here I am, like, living at, like, my stepdad's garage. And, like, I just felt like just the most pathetic person in the world, you know, And.

Austin Wheeler [01:58:38] Yeah, so I just kind of. I had to double down, you know, So I found the singles ward, and I went. And it was awkward and uncomfortable, and every time I. Then I didn't know if I can go back to West Point, and I was still throwing up blood, and.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:54] So have you. Have you not seen a doctor yet?

Austin Wheeler [01:58:56] Not really. I didn't see a doctor until, like, eight weeks after being stateside. So the lowest my weight got was, like, 131.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:04] So looking back on that, what is the reason for that?

Austin Wheeler [01:59:10] So I actually didn't get closure on it until later in the story.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:14] Okay, so maybe we'll wait on that.

Austin Wheeler [01:59:17] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:17] Like, I'm just feeling so much for you, though.

Austin Wheeler [01:59:20] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:20] Right now, so. Because it feels a little neglect. Like, there's some neglect here for you.

Austin Wheeler [01:59:27] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:27] Yeah. For people who are witnessing you.

Austin Wheeler [01:59:30] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:31] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [01:59:31] So. And I will say, like, my dad. Like, my dad offered the help that he could, you know, but he's an electrician, you know, it's not like he really has. Outside of church. It's not like he had, like, connections or really anybody he could. He can get me into type of thing, you know, and my mom, same thing. Like, she. You know, when there was an offer for medical care, like, they. You know, at least my parents, I know that they really.

Austin Wheeler [02:00:00] I know it was heartbreaking for them. And I will say my dad, out of how orthodox he was, the I think the trials that he's faced in his life gave him a more nuanced view than I was able to see Mormonism or to see my own experience.

Austin Wheeler [02:00:14] So he never made me feel like I was broken or bad or in that way I did, you know, he, he loved me the best way he could and you know, he definitely, he didn't make it any worse.

Austin Wheeler [02:00:33] But yeah, so I guess I'm stateside, I'm living in Utah now. Like I said, I'm in this really weird limbo because I have, the way I saw it, I had a two year window to be on a mission and at the year mark I was supposed to start reapplying because that's the thing, you don't just get back in to West Point. To West Point? Yeah, you have to reapply, you have to get a congressional nomination again. You have to do the physical fitness test that all entry are required to do.

Austin Wheeler [02:01:06] So concurrent to figuring out whether or not I was going to go to West Point a year, you know, a year early or what, I saw a doctor and they were basically just like, oh, it looks like really bad food allergies. You know, MSG is really big in Taiwan and, and at the time I didn't, I didn't have the, the wherewithal to be like, well actually like I started throwing up like in the mtc.

Austin Wheeler [02:01:35] So I went on a really strict deletion diet, like essentially just like really regimented veganism just because you know, the idea was that like, you know, it could be preservatives, it could be this, you know, but we're at this point like we know, you know, like you should be able to hold this down. And so it was a combination of like a very restricted diet and then just some like really heavy like anti nausea medication, you know. And it was one of those things where it was like it started, it stabilized but then it started kind of going into like a cycle.

Austin Wheeler [02:02:12] So then they were like, there was a period of time because it unfortunately. So it was looking like I was getting better. And the other really arbitrary thing was the mission president said the way I see it, you have to have been, it was like a year and a half or two years from the sin.

Austin Wheeler [02:02:35] So he basically said, you know, it's November right now. If you're worthy in February, you can come back. So he sent me home for two months in his mind. But who was I to question the Lord's anointed Who was I to, you know, obviously be an advocate for myself really?

Austin Wheeler [02:03:02] So I actually got a doctor to sign off saying that I'd gotten better in like March, April timeframe. And the stake president up in Park City was just a rad dude. You know, I think it's one of those things, like the amount of money in Park City makes him less of a, less of a full Utah Mormon, kind of sees the world through a more nuanced view. But he was great. He, you know, helped. He helped make me feel worthy and loved and capable and like I deserve to be healthy and to be a missionary again.

Austin Wheeler [02:03:42] And I decided not to reapply to West Point because I wanted to go back out on the mission. And I went back and I like, kind of felt like I had this weird like homecoming thing where like all of my contemporaries were now training people and my, my trainer was the one of the assistants of the president.

Austin Wheeler [02:04:10] And you know, and like, and in that regard, like there was a cultural what there was like a hey, like, you know, you made it. We're so happy, whatever. And it just felt weird that like I had to carry shame for being sick.

Austin Wheeler [02:04:27] And I went back on the week before this. The mission presidents changed. So the last act of the mission president that sent me home was that he wasn't sure I was living a righteous enough life, you know, in Utah, going to doctor's appointments, working a job.

Austin Wheeler [02:04:51] So he wanted me to redo the entire like and you know, 12 week training program. So I had to be retrained on island and had to go back through, you know, and had a kid who really was like 18, fresh out of high school, be my trainer. And I'm like 22 at this point or 21 and a half, you know, and. But again, like I had to take it. It was, you know, Lord's anointed, you can't speak ill of them. So.

John Dehlin [02:05:22] Seems humiliating.

Austin Wheeler [02:05:23] Yeah, it was. Yeah. And it was one of those things where again, like, I don't want to, I don't like to like prescribe like malice, but there's a few like interactions I've had in my life where it's like, I don't know how to view this, like I don't know how to give you the benefit of doubt. Like this just feels petty, like this feels punitive.

Austin Wheeler [02:05:48] So started again going through the 12 week program and bless his heart, the kid who was training me, like he was so sincere, you know, we, the living conditions for missionaries are atrocious. I don't know how I'M sorry, this is a complete random thing, but one of the distinct memories I have is there was a two bedroom apartment that we had all to ourselves in this city, Elan.

Austin Wheeler [02:06:17] And it was like on the kind of like, north coast. And one of the rooms was just locked shut. And it had become the missionary dumping room where, like, floor to ceiling, there was just garbage. Like old, like missionaries going home didn't want to bring luggage with them. And there was black mold on the entire, the entire room. I remember just like trying to have a conversation with this kid, like, hey, dude, like, we need to, we need to clean this up. Like, this isn't safe. This is healthy. And they were like, oh, well, the mission home just told us to lock the door, so.

Austin Wheeler [02:06:53] Well, I have, you know, I have some pictures of. It was. It was so thick that I was able to write my name in Chinese with a sponge of bleach on the wall. That's how much black mold there was.

Austin Wheeler [02:07:07] So, you know, it was one of those things where he was, he was very obedient and strict in his obedience, but he was also willing to work with me when I was like, hey, like, we need to clean and we need more time to clean than the 15 minutes, you know, like, we need to wake up an hour early to clean this today. Because, like, this is a health hazard. So he tolerated that. And then I had to start, like, I had to start applying to West Point again. So he dragged himself to the, you know, to the track with me where I would run five miles in the morning.

Austin Wheeler [02:07:36] And, you know, he was supportive and things were going pretty good. And one of the sister missionaries in the area was one of, like the mtc, you know, sister missionaries. So it was like, really cool to see her and she was nice and, you know, but I started throwing up again after being there for about 10 or 11 weeks.

John Dehlin [02:07:58] Is it possible? And I, you know, I had, I got sick on my mission. I got sent home, and for me it was respiratory problems, like asthma, and it was severe.

Austin Wheeler [02:08:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:11] And I finished my mission in Arizona. But, you know, I later I was tested and it was discovered that maybe I had a dust mite allergy. And the particular dust mites in Guatemala were super bad. But then going to Arizona, it was better. But I also look back and it's just factual that my mission was incredibly abusive and traumatic. So I've wondered whether, you know, there's this idea the body keeps the score.

Austin Wheeler [02:08:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:43] So I don't, I don't want to minimize whatever severity of the. Your Medical situation or mine. But it's always been in the back of my mind, was my body just reacting to a situation that was actually just super unethical or super problematic? Have you thought about that at all or.

Austin Wheeler [02:09:05] I have, yeah. And it's one of those things, like now, like, you know, I'm half a little over halfway through, like, my graduate studies in, you know, marriage and family therapy, clinical psychology. So, yeah, there's been a lot of. A lot of deconstruction, you know, just sitting with myself, like, I don't think, you know, so, like, I feel like that would be kind of getting into the realm of almost like a conversion disorder. Yeah, it was one thing, like, I was technically, like, being looked at for. Treated for at one point, which pretty quickly it wasn't the case.

Austin Wheeler [02:09:40] But which isn't to say that that would have made it any less real or any less dangerous or significant. Yeah, I think. I think conversion disorders especially have a really bad rap. When you say it's all in your head. It's like, well, it'll still kill you, so we still really need to.

Austin Wheeler [02:09:54] But yeah, I don't say lucky, unlucky. There was a very western medicine approved diagnoses kind of one of those things, like, once it was actually identified, like, you know, two months of one specific pill, Things have been generally fine since.

John Dehlin [02:10:10] Let's just jump to that. What was the diagnosis?

Margi Dehlin [02:10:13] Intestinal.

Austin Wheeler [02:10:14] Yeah. Yeah. So it was one thing that kept tipping the other off and then they just kept kind of going. Was it like C. Diff or so E. So eos. So eosinophil esophagitis and then H. Pylori. Oh, H. Pylori. So the belief was the H. Pylori infection came from, you know, body temperature, raw bull testicle.

Austin Wheeler [02:10:38] And that went really untreated for months. And eventually that got bad enough where I started getting ulcers. And then the aggravation of the. The ulcers then just kind of caused this, like, cedar totter effect of like, the ulcers would commonly throw up blood, but then, like, the ulcers would also cause issues further down my gi. And then, like, so really it was just back and forth. And then there wasn't really any good intervention, which is. Which is why, to a degree, that, like, the deletion diet did help in some, because I'm sure there was, you know, like, like everybody, like, there probably was like some minor dairy that was causing a little bit of, you know, or, you know, like gluten or whatever, you know, so it's like there could have been some sensitivity that wasn't helping it, but I was by no means better.

Austin Wheeler [02:11:30] And it's one of those things where I was, I was getting treatment, you know, fast forwarding now it took like a full year, almost a year and a half back. Like I was, I was in the middle of my senior year at West Point when they finally said, this is what it is, this is how we treat it. We're not going to let you commission as an officer unless we get this fixed. And they got it fixed and they let me commission.

John Dehlin [02:11:51] Was it antibiotics? Like what fixed it?

Austin Wheeler [02:11:53] Yeah, so antibiotics. There's a bunch of stuff. So I was, because of again the prevalence of the vomiting, they had me on GERD medication essentially. So I was like, I had stuff for stomach acid, I had stuff for like a different regimen of antibiotics for the infectious stuff that was actually in there.

Austin Wheeler [02:12:17] There was one of those things like if they said it had failed, their next step would have been like fecal transplant, but didn't have to have to get all the way there. But it was just one of those things where it became a full regiment. And the other thing too, the military, for their part, they were like, hey, we need to fix you up or you need to get out.

Austin Wheeler [02:12:36] So they fixed it up and it was one of those things where it was kind of weird because there was like a two year, two, three year period almost where it was just like, oh, like I'm, you know, you have. So they just called it cyclic vomiting syndrome. You know, so syndrome is really not helpful. And where they basically, you know, are you smoking weed? Like no, I'm not smoking. Like oh well, people throw up a lot. Sometimes if they smoke it's like, well I don't smoke weed, so what's next?

Austin Wheeler [02:13:04] So they, you know, they just kind of shrugged their shoulder and said, well you're like the current medication we have you on, like the anti nausea stuff like that makes it go from like non stop to like three or four days at a time. Three to four days is manageable, you know. So that's kind of how they saw it. And that's where it stood for a while, while they did because as actually like as a cadet like I had to go down to like Walter Reed and stuff. And they were doing endoscopies and they were, you know, doing all, all sorts of labs and whatnot.

Austin Wheeler [02:13:33] But it did get fixed, it did get resolved and, and it wasn't because I should feel like a dirty little boy for being attracted to women yeah. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:42] Oh, gosh.

Austin Wheeler [02:13:43] Yeah. So, yeah, so with that, I guess, spoiler alert. I threw up one time, and my. And the new. I would say the new mission president, they. They have to have gotten briefed on me. But they were loving, they were supportive, they were kind.

Austin Wheeler [02:14:03] They. They actually went out of their way to try to get me, like, medical attention if I needed it. But I threw up one time, and it was immediately throwing up blood. And they're like, really sorry, but, like, if you're throwing up blood, like, it's not safe for you to be here. You have to go home. And I was like, you know, you don't understand. Like, I'm supposed to be here. Like, you know, like, God healed me to be back out here, you know, like. And that's what I was saying this, like, you know, in the moment, I was like, you guys don't get it.

Austin Wheeler [02:14:28] Like, I. You know, it's like, respectfully disagree. Like, you don't understand. Like, I'm supposed to be here. You know, it's like, I've overcome. I've overcome my weakness. Like, I've overcome my shortcoming. Oh, my gosh. And so. So I came home early a second time.

Austin Wheeler [02:14:44] At least this time they gave me a day to, like, call my parents, let them know. So my parents actually, by this point in time, my sister had moved, like, up here. So, like, they, you know, I got my little arriving in the Salt Lake airport, and they had a little sign for me.

John Dehlin [02:15:05] You had a home. You had a homecoming at the airport.

Austin Wheeler [02:15:07] Yeah. But I still felt like I wasn't supposed to be there and stuff. And I actually tried working with doctors so I can get cleared and go out a third time. I actually applied a third time, and I got told by it's one of those things. Now I'll never know if he actually submitted my paperwork or if he just sat on it and said, hey, buddy, we need to talk. You're loved. You did enough.

Austin Wheeler [02:15:36] Or if that came from the mission department. But I was told March of 2016, when I resubmitted my paperwork again, that, like, no, like, you've done enough. Thank you. You can move on with your life. And that was like, move on with your life. Go have kids. You know, and that got really hard because I was 22, twice returned missionary, I think total. I had a little less than, like, a year out in the field, and I was living in Utah again. It was one of those things, like, my sister, like I said, just bought a house. So they were still pretty early on in Their marriage.

Austin Wheeler [02:16:20] They didn't have kids or anything, so they're like, hey, we have, like, three spare bedrooms. Do you want to, you know, want to live in one? You know, until you go back to West Point? Because West Point, like, you could only leave or return, like, in the summer cycle. So I was waiting for the summer of 2016 to return and, you know, pick back up.

Austin Wheeler [02:16:41] And, you know, I did. Like, I went to the Taylorsville Ysa Ward, and it was uncomfortable, and I was, like. I was in this really weird position. It was like, a pressure to meet a girl because there weren't really, like, Mormon females back there. Back there.

John Dehlin [02:16:58] So her didn't get married. He could bring the wife back.

Austin Wheeler [02:17:00] Exactly. Yeah. Or like, one call, like, baby trap, but, like, relationship trap. A girl that will be okay dating you long. Cause that's the other thing. You can't be married as a cadet at West Point. So it's a really hard sell to tell, you know, a young Mormon woman, like, hey, let's date for at least two years. Like, that's. That's an eternity.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:22] And it's quite counter to the narrative.

Austin Wheeler [02:17:24] Exactly. So. And, you know, I'll be honest. Like, mission made me weird. Like, I had that, you know, like, Mormonism infantilizes men. Like, I don't know if you. How you feel about that, John, but it's like the, you know, the discourse around the patriarchy and stuff. Like, I've never seen a more, like, impotent male than like, a bishop who thinks. Who legitimately thinks that they can control the heavens and the earth and that they think they have authority or they. They. That they believe people owe them reverence or something. Yeah, Just kind of.

John Dehlin [02:18:04] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:18:05] Yeah. So, you know, it's one of those things I was like, well, grappling with the, you know, the sexist ideas of, like, well, God will provide a woman for me, not I should be improving myself or, you know, make sure that I'm not being socially awkward. Like, it was. No, just keep praying. And.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:24] And.

Austin Wheeler [02:18:24] And a woman is a prize, so I will be provided with one because I held up my end of the bargain.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:30] Right.

Austin Wheeler [02:18:32] So. Right. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:34] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:18:35] But. And that's when I actually met my wife. Yeah, She's. She's great. And, like, just. I don't know. It's like. It's one of those things, like, I didn't realize at the time, but it's like every woman I had ever seen before, for her, I was just kind of, like, blurry, you know, Like, I never really saw anyone in Perfect clarity. Until I saw her and she had wanted nothing to do with me. I met her. So while I was on island the first time, there was a girl who, you know, so one of the sister missionaries. She broke her leg riding her bike during a typhoon warning. And she had a compound fracture. She had to be flown home with her, like, femur popping out of her leg. Like, real gnarly. So she was actually like my one friend here because she came home early

Marriage, Trauma Bonding, and Faith Doubts

John Dehlin [02:19:26] and yeah, you trauma bonded, basically.

Austin Wheeler [02:19:29] She got it.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:30] Because you.

Austin Wheeler [02:19:30] Both.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:30] That is traumatic. Both of you have experienced significant.

Austin Wheeler [02:19:34] Yeah, so I was like. She was like. We hung out and it was annoying because my sister's like, you're gonna marry her. And I was like, dude, you know, it's like, I don't see her that way. Like this. Let's let this just be a friendship. Like, you know, it's like I was thinking, it was like, all my West Point buddies are on their mission still. It's like, I just need a friend, you know? So it was actually, it was her birthday and one of her. One of her, like, pre mission, like, kind of roommates, you know, like, she lived down the hall. They went to UVU together their freshman year.

Austin Wheeler [02:20:03] And yeah, like, I met her. And again, by this point, like, I had. I had sincerely tried, you know, I prayed, fasted to meet a girl that would wait for me to go to West Point and back and would be, you know, the type of woman that could handle a long distance relationship and stuff.

Austin Wheeler [02:20:22] And, you know, like, every. Every date I had been on that, like, I was actually hoping would be an actual date or like, was. It was one of those things where it's like, you know, you, like, you hit it off, whatever, things are fine. Nothing really is being said. But when the mission came up, it was just like, there was just no salvaging the conversation after that. Yeah. So I would say the two reactions and it was always. It was Jesse, except for again, like, my wife really was just like, indifferent. Which was honestly, like, the best I could ever hope for.

Austin Wheeler [02:20:55] The one reaction was like, you know, like, oh, where did you serve your mission? Not like, if you're going, you know, whatever. So, like, they're in. The marriage mindset has to be an rm, you know, so it's like, where'd you go? I was like, oh, I went to Taiwan. Like, oh, that's great. How are you there? You know, I was like, oh, well, I actually just got back. Like, oh, really?

Austin Wheeler [02:21:12] When did. You know? When did you leave? You know, and like, and, you know, so you'd see the mental math of like, that's less than 24 months ago.

John Dehlin [02:21:19] They're fishing to know if you had a full two year audible return mission.

Austin Wheeler [02:21:24] So. And there, there were a couple. Like, I don't blame them. You know, it's like, kudos to them for know what they want. And especially like, I know it's always hard. Like, you know, there's social pressure for, for women to, to say yes to someone when they don't want to. But like, I had a few that were just like, oh, you know, the. Oh, my, my roommate is having an emergency. I'm so sorry. Like, we, we, we, we, we do this another, you know, And I was like, all right, yeah, that's, that's cool.

John Dehlin [02:21:47] So they dumped you when they found out?

Austin Wheeler [02:21:48] Yeah, yeah. I was like, 10 minutes into the first date was like, over. I'm like, oh, okay.

Margi Dehlin [02:21:53] Let me ask you this. At this point in time, are you conceptualizing the narrative? Like, are you on board with the narrative that you've received from the bishops, or have you differentiated from this narrative that you're broken or disappointing or that what really happened on your mission was like, how did a diagnosis and it being an actual thing? Like, oh, yeah, that was an actual thing. Despite all that pain and suffering I went through, are you at the point now where you're kind of feeling like, well, that was wrong. Well, that was a mess. And you know, where are you right now?

Austin Wheeler [02:22:38] Unfortunately, not yet. Okay. I will say, like, my real hard deconstruction didn't really start until after I returned. Returned back to West Point.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:47] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [02:22:47] But because at this point, again, so, like, you know, sorry, I jumped a lot of chronologically, but there, there is that, like, I got a syndrome so far.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:58] All right.

Austin Wheeler [02:22:59] And, and you know, and having a cursory understanding of like, mental health stuff, I was like, I do know that there are, again, there, there are, there are conversion disorders. Right. So it's like, well, they call this a syndrome, but is the syndrome the way that science is failing to describe the impact of the human soul? Type of. I think that was the framework. I was still trying to. I was so aggressively trying to hang on to the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints and their version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:34] Okay, so you've met your wife.

Austin Wheeler [02:23:38] Yeah, so I met her. And, and I thought she was absolutely breathtaking. But my experience was another thing too, is I met her in Provo for my friend's party. So I'm like, there's no way this girl who probably goes to BYU is gonna talk to me. So I remember I just asked her the stupidest question I could think of, which in my mind was like, what's your church calling?

Austin Wheeler [02:24:03] So my wife had already begun her deconstruction of the church. She hadn't been in over a year. So when I asked her that, she thought I was this hyper Mormon dude who was hoping to marry her a month from now.

Austin Wheeler [02:24:16] So she was like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm the ward chorister or something stupid in the ysa. But yeah, and then I think I had a motorcycle. And so I was like, hey, I'm going back to California. You're from California? You want to come with me? She's like, no, you're a stranger. I was like, fair enough.

Austin Wheeler [02:24:35] So, yeah, she wasn't interested, but I'd say reached back out eventually and things worked out. But yeah, so nothing I'd say outside of meeting my wife, nothing really meaningful happened. I would say, like me trying to be open.

Austin Wheeler [02:24:55] Well, actually, I will say so, like, kind of texting, you know, this girl I met at a party who very clearly wasn't that interested. You know, like one of the things she mentioned, she's like, oh, I'm actually like, you know, I'm like, I dated this guy who actually said like, he knows a lot about like the Mormon Church and like, there's actually like a lot of really messed up stuff that it's been doing. And like, they lie about a lot of things. Like they, like, they punished his family member for just saying like, honestly, like some of the stuff that they're doing.

Austin Wheeler [02:25:32] That was, that was where. Yeah. So I guess in a weird way, I owe John, I owe you thanks for helping my wife deconstruct before I was ready because. Yeah. But. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:47] And what was that like for you?

Austin Wheeler [02:25:50] I mean, I'll be honest, my wife is like all like, by the time I met her, she was basically already at that kind of Zen point of like, she's just so far removed from it. Like, like I said, like, where I'm. I sometimes like dwell on like forgetting the made up names in the Book of Mormon. Like, she has been burdened with that for nearly the entire time because, like, her, her side of things, like, she was very much like Mormon royalty and it's all a lie. And I think she was pretty disenfranchised really.

John Dehlin [02:26:25] She decided from her study that she felt like it was all a lie.

Austin Wheeler [02:26:29] Yeah, just like, just a fundamental level of like, this is. This is bull you know, like this, this is, this doesn't feel right. This is, this doesn't, you know, like I'm seeing this hurt people around me, like I don't want to.

Austin Wheeler [02:26:43] So. And I would say like, so West Point, you know, when we started dating, we did date for over a year and then we're engaged for like eight months before we could actually get married. During that time, like we very much were, I would say, like a mixed faith couple, you know, partnership. And I really didn't start deconstructing until after like a major trauma because there was a period of time too where like I had a lot of stuff hit really fast. But I had that narrative of you can't be mad at people, people aren't the church, you know, and that was one of those like really thought controlling, thought stopping.

Austin Wheeler [02:27:27] It's an effective tool, right. For a high demand organization. You know, if you, if you just have these little, you know, these. What's the term I'm looking for? You have these platitudes that keep people from having to really feel something or think about it. Right. You know, to analytically look at it. It's really easy to maintain that control.

Margi Dehlin [02:27:52] Yeah. So you, you head back to West Point.

Austin Wheeler [02:27:55] Yeah, so I head back to West Point. Yeah. And I had failed God because no girls wanted to talk to me. And I was back at West Point. So there was, I was gonna probably have to be a bachelor and you know, try to just be a sad old man who had to kill people for the military again. That's, that was probably where I saw myself, the cringe inducing self pity there.

Beginning to Deconstruct at West Point

Margi Dehlin [02:28:20] But during this time, is this the time that you begin deconstructing this time when you're at West Point?

Austin Wheeler [02:28:27] Yeah, when I came. So it's one of those things, like I came back. The summer's always really hard. Like you get the chaplains or the senior missionary couple that they're really just able to do. It's one of those things where I don't want to call it a full trauma bond, but it really crystallizes your identity to be in the middle of a training environment. And so like West Point itself, it's Camp Buckner. So it's really pretty, like old timey looking like Lake resort.

Austin Wheeler [02:28:59] But it's a military training camp. So there's like just like really like really picturesque place. So it's like you're sitting there, you know, it's like you're, you're learning how to shoot, move and communicate and you know, you're, you're learning. You're doing stuff like the water confidence course, where it's like you're holding onto a zip line over the lake and you have to let go. So you, like, know how to, like, hit water, like, at high speed without like, breaking your legs.

Austin Wheeler [02:29:26] Just like, you know, like little. Little stuff like that. Just like the fun summer camp things. So you go from that to. You have this reverent moment where, you know, you sing Come Come Ye Saints on somebody's iPad, and you have your little portable military sacrament set, you know, and you pass sacrament to your four buddies. And you haven't seen them in a month, but they're doing okay because you saw them at church. And so it's like there's this, you know, there's that, like, extra layer of camaraderie and identity that gets built in with being able to be like, hey, we're Mormon.

Austin Wheeler [02:30:06] Like, this makes us different. Like, there's only 10 of us right now, but we're all together. We're all on the straight and narrow. We're all stripling warriors. So.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:17] Okay, so what I'm hearing is kind of, at least initially, you're feeling not only reinforced, but kind of like a cementing of identity. So what happens from there?

Austin Wheeler [02:30:33] I'd say the first major crack in my shelf, or I think really the first opportunity I gave myself permission to be honest and critical of my experiences in the church came when I, like, two weeks into the semester, you know, things normalize.

Austin Wheeler [02:30:52] I was asked to give a talk with like, one of the. One of the guys. So Branch became a ward colonel, is now the bishop. There was this really weird, like, I was really jarred by that because I was like, there shouldn't be ranks in church.

Austin Wheeler [02:31:10] God is not a respecter of persons. And I remember that was one of those dissonant things where it's like, God's church shouldn't be so strictly regimented. It shouldn't be so hierarchical. It shouldn't be based on who you know or what, you know, what your profession is. It should be based on the spirit and honesty that was.

Austin Wheeler [02:31:33] So that. That going into. I was asked by a high counselor to give a talk somewhere, you know, so like I said, we drive like an hour and a half out to, like, New Paltz or Newburgh or something.

Austin Wheeler [02:31:50] And I'm supposed to go first, right? I'm the softball opener, you know, try to try my hand at, you know, my testimony voice or trying my hand at, you know, a bad, you know, Sunday pulpit joke and, you know, say One cool thing about my mission and sit down so they could talk about tithing or whatever the message of the month is for the High Council.

Austin Wheeler [02:32:20] So I remember getting up to the pulpit, they were already running late for, you know, like, for whatever reason. But I remember they were running late and it really aggravated the guy I was with, who he's, I mean, he was. I thought he was a really good friend of mine, but yeah, he was.

Austin Wheeler [02:32:44] He was retired. He was a retired, so retired Special Forces colonel who was working as a civilian at West Point. And I remember just starting talking and there was this kid sitting in like, when I say a kid, like, there was like this 18 year old guy sitting in the front row with like his whole family. It was one of those things that was like, it's not a big ward, but the entire front row was stacked and he was just like crying a lot.

Austin Wheeler [02:33:19] And I felt moved by the spirit. And I bore my testimony that like, I was like, you know, like some. To the effect of like, I came home early from my mission twice and I got really vulnerable and this kid looked up at me and like, just like I felt like right now, like talking to you, John. Like, I just like, I had this conversation which ended up being about 15 minutes about like, this is a gospel of hope and you're not beyond redemption. And I had like no context. I didn't know who this kid was, but I think I felt the spirit. I felt compelled to tell this kid a lot of the, A lot of the things I told myself, like, this is a gospel of hope.

Austin Wheeler [02:34:03] Like one of the things that when returning to my mission and I started looking for a lot of stuff that focused on like perfectionism or, you know, because there were, there were, there's only like four or five. But there were a small handful of talks that tried to give people a little bit of grace and saying, hey, you don't have to be perfect, just try that. Unfortunately, that didn't catch on with the mainstream. So they're just kind of obscure conference talks. But yeah, so anyway, I remember just telling this kid, like, hey, essentially, hey, like it's, you know, you're loved, God loves you, it's okay.

Austin Wheeler [02:34:39] And that was it. I didn't really think anything of it. And then this guy, you know, the high counselor, the man in authority, he says, well, this is. There's only five minutes left to the top of the hour.

Austin Wheeler [02:34:55] You guys didn't start on time. And the Lord needs you to understand how important punctuality is and that his house is A house of order and how important it is. So he's like, so I'm going to abstain from speaking to you. We will now sing the hymn one verse and we'll have the closing prayer to make sure we're out of here by the top of the hour.

Austin Wheeler [02:35:15] And I was like, oh, you know, weird, weird decision, but okay. And then it ended real quick. Like I said like one, one verse, closing song. And then I remember the kid like walks up to me and he says, hey man, we don't know each other. Can I please hug you? I said, absolutely. I just hugged this stranger for like two or three minutes. And then somebody called him over and then his grandma was like, he just got sent home from his mission yesterday. Like he's got, he had really bad anxiety. Like he just couldn't handle it. But she's like, he needed to hear everything you said.

Austin Wheeler [02:35:56] And you know, they were like, we were worried about him. Like, you know, we were worried about self harm this morning. And, and you know, and it's like. And he hasn't like talked to anybody or said anything like until he asked you for a hug.

Austin Wheeler [02:36:11] So it was one of those things that was, it was a very faith affirming moment for me. You know, it was like, I can be in a place to help somebody else and you know, so I was just like, don't worry about it. Like, I honestly didn't, I didn't expect to tell you guys about my mission experience, you know, like that. And that was it. They said thank you again, like, thank you so much. You know, they're like, I think I gave him my phone number. Like, hey, if you need anybody to talk to, like, I've been there, you're okay, you know.

Austin Wheeler [02:36:42] And then we get in the car, like I said, hour and a half drive back to back on post. And it was like weirdly quiet. You know, this guy normally like really likes, really talkative guy. And I was like, hey, is everything okay? And he's. And it was just immediate, just, it became a wall of being berated.

Austin Wheeler [02:37:03] You know, it was like, that was so selfish of you. I was supposed to. So I was supposed to give a talk about the importance of fast offering and how everybody needs to double their fast offerings because that's what they need to receive blessings. This came directly from the stake president, which came directly from the area authorities. So Austin, because you were so vain that you had to cry up on. Because I remember I got a little choked up, you know, but he said you were so vain that you Felt the need to cry in front of everybody that they won't receive the blessings of fast offering.

Austin Wheeler [02:37:45] And I'll be honest, I just, I kind of checked out after that. But like I said, it was an hour and a half drive and maybe 10, 15 minutes into it, I finally broke the silence and said, hey, is everything okay? And for the rest of the time it was. It was just him telling me how selfish I was, how disappointed he was, how weak it was to see, just they see. So that was one of the things that they liked to do, like little dog and pony show is we had to be in our uniforms for church.

Austin Wheeler [02:38:20] And then being a high council guest, you know, I'm an hour and a half away or wherever, New Paltz, Newburgh, you know, just upstate New York. And I'm in my West Point cadet uniform, you know, so I have, you know, my little ribbons for participation, my airborne badge, my little, my golden eagle saying that I did the German armed forces thing, you know, my made up cadet rank, my little, you know, hat, you know. So like, it's very much like, it's an optics thing, you know, like they. And that's one of the things I remember saying. He's like, you know, like, you, you were in your uniform and like, and you. And you looked weak. It's like you made, you know, you made West Point look weak by being vulnerable.

John Dehlin [02:39:02] Emotionally vulnerable.

Austin Wheeler [02:39:03] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:39:04] Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:39:06] So that was one of those things, like I said, like, I don't remember much. I just, like I said it was somebody who I saw as a friend until that encounter. And that was really one of the biggest ones where. But even with that, I started thinking critically, like first about that relationship, but then about his interaction with other people and just church stuff as it was going on, you know, real time with all of this, this new chain of command type of stuff that was introduced to the ward. And like, I would catch myself wanting to appraise it honestly, and I would, like, I could see myself in real time, like, thought stopping, like. No, you, you can't think that. You just think that because.

John Dehlin [02:39:50] Can't think what?

Austin Wheeler [02:39:51] Like, well, just, you know, anything critical, really. Like.

John Dehlin [02:39:55] Like these leaders are abusive.

Austin Wheeler [02:39:57] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:39:58] Or controlling.

Austin Wheeler [02:39:58] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:39:59] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:39:59] Or they did something wrong or. Yeah. Or like. No, I, I don't think it was wrong of me to tell somebody who was in pain that Jesus loves them, you know?

John Dehlin [02:40:11] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:40:12] Because it is a dangerous thought. Right. Like, if you're open to being critical of one, you know, that's how like deconstruction happens. Right. Like if you're, if you could admit that there is no historicity to the Book of Mormon, what else can you accept?

Austin Wheeler [02:40:27] So you better just. No, sorry. It's like one of the things that I think for the Book of Mormon musical. Right. There's a song, turn it off where I think most people connect to it on, you know, it's about homo homosexual tendencies or eroticism. But I think it does a really good job at just illustrating this thought stopping techniques of Mormonism.

Austin Wheeler [02:40:53] That's what you have to do. You just have to turn it off. You can't entertain that. Because if I'm open to the idea that this person who is supposed to be having discernment, if they could have this bad of a reading, you know, like how, you know, where do I go next?

John Dehlin [02:41:13] It also strikes me if you think about the temple ceremony specifically, at least the way it used to be. It's like Elohim tells Jehovah, we're going to do this Jehovah, go and tell Michael and then Jehovah I will go down Elohim. And then Jehovah goes and Michael, we've been commanded by Elohim to blah, blah, blah, go and tell Adam and Eve in the garden, blah blah, blah, we will go down Jehovah and then Michael and then he goes down in the garden and Adam and Eve, I have been instructed by Elohim and Jehovah to further the Lord of the Veil. And it's just very hierarchical.

John Dehlin [02:41:53] Right. And then it's also very authority based and obedience based on. And so I don't think it's a stretch to say that kind of the Mormon priesthood authority hierarchy being authority and obedience based could very easily parallel kind of the military mindset of authority and obedience. Is that fair to say?

Austin Wheeler [02:42:18] Yeah, and it's one of those things.

John Dehlin [02:42:19] And how could you not, if you're processing one, how could you not start thinking about and processing the other, start seeing it?

Austin Wheeler [02:42:25] Exactly. Yeah. And that's exactly it. And I think that's why I had such a painful deconstruction. Because it wasn't just, it wasn't just Mormonism or Christianity. It was also my military identity that I ultimately lost.

Parallels Between Military and Church Conditioning

John Dehlin [02:42:41] But, and just. Sorry, one more parallel. We've already mentioned it, but the breaking down, the shame of the military culture and the building back up physically could easily be paralleled with the shame and the spiritual psychological breaking down of Mormonism to then build you back up, kind of killing your identity, your instincts. Like you talk about, you had instincts all along the Way of things not being right or things not being good for you. You didn't even want to go on a mission necessarily. Right. You weren't sure about that Maybe, or. I don't know. It just seems like I heard several points along the way where you had a voice in the inside telling you one thing, but then you'd beat it down and say, no, I'm shameful.

John Dehlin [02:43:25] I'm bad. I'm broken. I need to just turn it off and make it right. It seems like that reminds me of kind of boot camp and military training, just psychologically and kind of spiritually. It seems like some really good parallels there.

Austin Wheeler [02:43:41] Yeah, I'd say there's definitely parallels. I think the only. Again, the thing I'm reluctant is one, like, again, like, people will try to liken the MTC to, you know, basic training, whatever. I'm like, no, because at the end of the day, like, as I mentioned really early on in this, like, the expectation for any military force is for a person to be able to kill another person. So if that's the fundamental expectation of that organization, it's not ethical. But I get why they do it. Like I said, like, you don't. You don't want your. You know, you don't want your snipers to be thinking before they shoot at somebody who's rigging a bomb, I wonder what their kids will do tomorrow.

John Dehlin [02:44:31] Right?

Austin Wheeler [02:44:31] Like, we don't.

John Dehlin [02:44:32] We don't wonder if they have a loved one back home.

Austin Wheeler [02:44:34] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:44:34] Yeah. You don't want.

Austin Wheeler [02:44:35] Yeah. Like, I wonder what. I wonder what loss pushed them to fight against a superpower. You know, like, you don't want. You don't want that humanization. Right. And part of dehumanizing others is dehumanizing yourself. Right. So you don't view yourself as a human who's capable of being injured.

John Dehlin [02:44:56] Right.

Austin Wheeler [02:44:57] Like, you don't want your soldiers to learn what moral injury is. Right. You want them to, you know, to be the Spartan, to be the faceless guy that was broken but now can find wholeness through this act. Where, again, I'm not saying, like, war is an impossible thing to argue ethically, but at least war has a purpose, I guess, versus, like, what's what. Why. Why do my. Do Mormon boys need to be broken down? Why do Mormon girls need to be taught that they're worthless, that their only value is in sexual purity or ignore their inner voice. Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:45:42] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:45:43] So it's like, again, it's like, not. It's. I know. It's a different plane of moral Ethical reasoning. But it's like, at least the military is saying, like, we need you to suspend your thought and your reasoning because you're going to do something really bad. But like with Mormonism, it's this, where's the so what? And I think that's one of like the questions I had was like, why does this organization have, like you said, have so many parallels? Why is it so controlling? To what end? Right. How does this, which is supposed to be the immaculate representation of a loving God and, you know, super powerful deity, like, how is this the structure that, you know, they decided to use?

John Dehlin [02:46:38] The answer would be to get you to the celestial kingdom to help you become a God someday. To keep you on the straight and narrow. That would be the answer.

Austin Wheeler [02:46:44] I don't know if anyone told you, John, we don't get a planet anymore.

John Dehlin [02:46:49] I mean, the church has stopped emphasizing that.

Austin Wheeler [02:46:51] I know, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:46:52] But it is, you know, eternal families, blah, blah, blah, social kingdom worthiness, purity.

Austin Wheeler [02:46:57] Yeah. And realistically, everybody in Sunday school is still talking about how they will still become gods eventually. So I don't know. That's what you get when you have like a bunch of PR people as the top brass, you know, But I

John Dehlin [02:47:09] guess if that's real, then maybe it's okay. But if it's just what a bunch of dudes said to kind of because they've been fooled or because they want to incentivize you, then it's a huge waste of psychological energy and additional stress and depression. Potentially. Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:47:26] I mean, I guess my, like my, my issue with that would be is like, I've got really limited experience, but I could think of a thousand better ways for people to, I don't know, just like the plan of happiness is like there's, I don't know, it's like if someone who's like five or six can look at it and say like, that's got holes in it. It's like, is that real? If that is the you knowing suspension of disbelief here, if that is the deity in this reality that we're bound to like, man, we got the short end of a stick. Like Mormon God is such a weak. Like to have all, to have all of eternity be interrupted or upset or confounded by a handshake, like, that's a pretty bad plan.

John Dehlin [02:48:22] Meaning if you don't learn the right handshake in the temple, you don't get to pass the gates that lead to eternal salvation.

Austin Wheeler [02:48:29] Exactly. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:48:31] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:48:32] Or if, you know, if you were born in, you know, if you were born in Taiwan, the island of Formosa. Literally any time before. Like What? Like the 1800s when the Jesuits eventually ended up there. And it's like, it's just every. Are just most people just, you know, I mean, I guess like family history or whatever is supposed to be the fix for that, but I don't know, it's just like there's too many holes in that to wait.

John Dehlin [02:49:04] What were you saying about being born in formosa before the 1800s?

Austin Wheeler [02:49:06] Oh, just like the idea that like, again like just simply existing can put you in a place where like you will never know about God or you

John Dehlin [02:49:14] know, Jesus specifically while you're in this life.

Austin Wheeler [02:49:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:49:18] So it's an advantage. You're born in the 1990s in Utah. Why do you get this massive advantage to learn God's one true path, whereas if you're born in the 1700s and foremost, you go your whole life and you never get to hear the true path and the true messages.

Austin Wheeler [02:49:35] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:49:36] Is that what you mean?

Austin Wheeler [02:49:36] Yeah, yeah. There's an absurdity to, to it that. Which is one of those things where it's like I wasn't comfortable.

John Dehlin [02:49:45] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:49:45] I wasn't comfortable looking at it even at that point in time. But again, it was, it wasn't until like just being again being torn down, somebody. Somebody putting in the effort to tear me down because I had the audacity to bear a testimony.

Austin Wheeler [02:50:02] It gave me permission to see when I said things like God's church isn't, you know, it's not about who, you know, it's not about cronyism. Right. I remember like a jarring memory I have was there was a guy who was in the Stake Presidency when I was a kid who moved to like actually like here. He moved to Holiday because he wanted to put himself in a position where he can be next to the 12 or 70 and he want, he needed people to notice him so he couldn't become a general authority. And I was like, that's not, you know, 10 year old me. I was like, no, that's not how it works.

John Dehlin [02:50:43] God doesn't need to have to call his chosen people.

Austin Wheeler [02:50:44] Exactly. Yeah. God. God doesn't nep. Doesn't support nepotism, you know, cronyism. That's not a, it's not a Mormon thing.

John Dehlin [02:50:52] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:50:53] But that would surely be an indicator of a faulty structure.

John Dehlin [02:50:58] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:50:59] And just like a bunch of stuff like that, like it all just kind of cascaded really quickly. Where I got to a point of it was just exhausting trying to do what was supposed to Be the right thing.

John Dehlin [02:51:14] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [02:51:15] And when I reached out, it was just like a. Well, you know, this is what your leadership says, so this is how it has to be. Or like it just felt. It felt way more corporate than, than Christian.

John Dehlin [02:51:27] Yeah. Really quickly in your outline you mentioned your home stake falling apart because of multi level marketing scams.

Austin Wheeler [02:51:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:51:36] Did that happen? Do you want briefly just tell us what happened there?

Austin Wheeler [02:51:39] Yeah, I mean, it's very morbid. Yeah, it does. Yeah. So I mean, I feel like there should be. I feel like there should be like a subcategory of Mormon stories podcast on affinity schemes. Again, it's one of those things where you look at an organization that makes you susceptible to undue influence. You're gonna be susceptible to undue influence. So, yeah, Lularoe came in. Oh, this is.

Margi Dehlin [02:52:04] Oh, we saw that documentary.

John Dehlin [02:52:05] Yep.

Austin Wheeler [02:52:06] So it was really weird, all the drone shots.

John Dehlin [02:52:08] What?

Austin Wheeler [02:52:09] I said it was weird to see like all the drone shots. I'm like, I've been there, you know.

John Dehlin [02:52:12] These are the weird leggings. Yeah, the weird crappy leggings.

Austin Wheeler [02:52:16] But they got Disney. So, you know. But yes. Anyway, so Lularoe came in and I will say, you know, like, Mormonism, like Lularoe isn't special to Mormonism, but Mormonism is special to MLMs. It's an easy mark. But you know, like I remember like Isagenix was a thing and stuff when I was a kid. But yeah, so Lularoe came through.

Austin Wheeler [02:52:38] You know, there were a bunch of women in my ward that got the Mexico special where they lost a bunch of weight. And I hope, I'm glad that they got that. But yeah, you know, it's like I heard the horror stories of people that ended up having to move to Tennessee because like they lost everything and like they had to sell their house and you know, the property value of a California home was barely enough to get them in a smaller place in the south are in much more affordable markets.

Austin Wheeler [02:53:09] Yeah. Just like the folks who run it there, they made a big point of utilizing Mormonism as a selling point of why they could be trusted and had a bunch of women who got in early enough that they became the success stories for it. And you know, like one of the guys I knew, he was always trying to pass the bar, but then he was making so much money from Lularoe that he stopped trying to become a lawyer, I guess, or something like that. Like, this is one of those things. Like when I say came through the stake, their distribution center was for a while in Corona and they employed probably 80 to 90% of the youth that were trying to have jobs in high school.

Austin Wheeler [02:54:03] And. Yeah, it just, I mean, like the documentary showed, you know, like it was. Yeah, a lot actually happened in Corona. A lot of happening in Mormonism in the Inland Empire.

John Dehlin [02:54:15] So were people getting ripped off, losing life savings?

Austin Wheeler [02:54:19] Yeah, it's like, I think the term came from, what's it called, Like Amway, I think, or one of the other just dirtbag organizations. But the term is garage qualified. However, people have a hard time selling their product because remember, the product isn't the product, the product is the pyramid. So they purchase the minimum number of items they need and they get to a point where they keep purchasing it every month and they're not selling it. And eventually they have their guest bedroom and their garage is just full of unsellable product, whether it's soap. Yeah, Soap, protein shakes, candles, special juice, essential. Essential essential oils.

John Dehlin [02:55:16] Or in your case, Sir Lularoe, really crappy, cheap, ugly leggings.

Austin Wheeler [02:55:24] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:55:25] And. And then. And they lose, Lose a ton of money that way because they're at the bottom of the pyramid and nobody wants that crap anymore because it's out of fashion.

Austin Wheeler [02:55:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:55:34] And they've lost a ton of savings and.

Austin Wheeler [02:55:36] Yeah, man, I'd say. And it's one of those things that's hard. It's like, I don't want, you know, I, I don't wish any individual, like active member of the Mormon Church, ill will or like bad things to happen, but like, you gotta, you gotta be open to like, why are so many of us getting grifted and grifting each other? You know, it's like driving up here, young living is a blight on humanity.

John Dehlin [02:56:07] That's your. I mean, there's going to be people that defend young living. So that's your experience.

Austin Wheeler [02:56:10] That's my experience. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:56:13] So anyway. Okay. So did you lose your faith your junior year at West Point?

Austin Wheeler [02:56:18] I'd say it was a big part of deconstruction. Just opening myself up to the idea that Mormonism had a lot of shortcomings. That specifically the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints was failing to represent the entirety of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you know that. So. And honestly, like, there was a brief period of time where it's like that thought, I think could have really opened me up to a lot of like alt right ideology because I don't want to advocate for violence, but like watching something like the. Under. Under the Banner of Heaven, you know, with the Laffey Brothers or Pretty much every non Brighamite sect.

Austin Wheeler [02:57:05] It's really, I think it's really good bad publicity for the Brighamite sect because most of what they're saying, you know, it's like there's new scripture they come out with. But a lot of their fundamental claims come from claims that, you know, Joseph Smith made or they come, come from things that are foundational to Mormonism. You know, so it's like, well, I don't condone the violence. It's like, you guys have this written, this was written. I get it. Mormonism has a history of militia activity. But how do you expect people not to take this from this when this is. How do you expect violence to not happen when you advocated for violence in your holy book?

John Dehlin [02:57:49] So while you're at West Point, do you find out about Desnat, do you find out about ultra right wing Mormon prepperism? Like, was that something you even became exposed to and flirted with?

Austin Wheeler [02:58:01] Yeah, I mean, I was always aware of it. So it might have been a good indicator for you. But like, I'd say like one of my hobby, like interests is like affinity scam, you know, multi level marketing. But then the other thing too is like more recently interest has been like hate groups or you know, just militias in general. Right. Like being military population lacking a sense of community. Post military is one of those really like critical times that people are recruited and people are vulnerable to extremism or to, you know, hard, you know, hard either right or left ideologies.

John Dehlin [02:58:48] I remember Marty Ross in our interview with him just saying there's no happiness that he has or will ever feel. Like some mission in Afghanistan or whatever where he's with his buddies and they're on the top of a hill.

Margi Dehlin [02:59:03] It was a moment he was describing, a moment he had on the top of a hill with the sun. I think the sun was coming up or going down. To me it felt like he was just very fully present in a moment

John Dehlin [02:59:18] of meaning and purpose and identity, his

Margi Dehlin [02:59:20] group with his community there, when in that moment they weren't threatened, they were just existing, but one with the purpose of being there.

John Dehlin [02:59:32] And the idea is that if you can never, if after you get to civilian life you lose that and you can't find anything better to replace it with. Is that right?

Austin Wheeler [02:59:41] Yeah, yeah. So one of the kind of, I guess predecessors or kind of jump off points because there really is like. And the FBI has some like really good, you know, studies datas around like the development of extremism.

Austin Wheeler [02:59:57] But one of the things is we talk about like three percenter clubs. Right. Which is inaccurate. But this idea that there was a percentage of the population that swore an oath to defend the Constitution. So you're now an oath keeper. Right. So you're externalizing this identity and that, you know, I may be a veteran, but just because I'm not getting paid by the DOD anymore, I'm still like, my oath isn't over. Right. So it's being able to leverage kind of those philosophical frameworks to, you know, so on one thing, it's like, oh, like this person is just saying they want to uphold the oath they held, but then the next step of that is there's a threat to the thing that you swore to defend.

Austin Wheeler [03:00:49] And then the next step of it is identifying the threat, and then it's identifying the immediacy of the threat. So, you know, I don't think you're ever like, same, you know, with Desnat, like, I don't think you're gonna run into somebody at Smith's. You know, I'm being like, oh, I see you. You know, I see you like that brown sour cream. You should really join my militia. You know, it's a lot more subtle. And I think Desnat specifically, like, I don't want to condone any violence they do or, like, intimidation or anything, but when they have something that they view as the word of God and they interpret it literally, like, I feel like that's.

Austin Wheeler [03:01:33] I don't know, I want to say on. On us, but I think I. I personally, I see that as like, a moral imperative for the authoritative branch of the Brighamite sect to, you know, to disavow it, to say this, you know, to. To give them the. The current prophets, you know, belief on blood atonement or. Or, you know, something of that nature. But also, I think they are a useful tool for a corporation that likes their money and likes their control.

Margi Dehlin [03:02:06] Yeah, I kind of hear in that, too, that if your identity, if you have an identity within the military, let's just say where you're fighting for something and your existence is about fighting and protecting something, and you're uniquely qualified to do it.

Margi Dehlin [03:02:27] Right? And you're right. You're also right, or at least superior to those that you're fighting against in some way. Right. Then you're living this. This life where you're at war and there's always a threat. And so when you're discharged, it's kind of like you recreate the same situation.

Margi Dehlin [03:02:46] Is that right? It's like you're fighting against something you're uniquely that you're uniquely qualified and you're protecting as well. It just feels like that loss of purpose when you're, if we're talking about this, kind of discharged, that you recreate something in its place that meets a lot of the same identity criteria so you get to keep the identity piece. Do you understand what I'm saying? Does that make sense?

Austin Wheeler [03:03:14] It does, yeah. And I think you're really along the right track. I think that's, that's a very fair assessment of that transition and how vulnerable you can be. I will say not misrepresenting my full military career timeline. I spent my entire time in Tradoc. Right. I never deployed, so I can speak to the culture of that though.

Austin Wheeler [03:03:42] I had classmates who dropped out of West Point, bought a one way ticket to Spain and then walked all the way into Turkey and started fighting and you know, just started fighting against isis. And I actually one of them ended up a few years later with a mystery AK47 slug in his leg in Chicago.

Austin Wheeler [03:04:09] It was, yeah, like that was a classmate of mine. So 911 happens. America is galvanized. There's a clear, clearly definable threat and people believe that there's an imminent threat. So actions are taken. You could try to argue whether or not the right action was taken, but it also gets to a point where it's hard to say what, you know, it's like. For me, like the bias I always got was we didn't know whether or not there were WMDs, but we sure as hell knew that there was an ied, you know, that like we didn't know if somebody had nukes, but we knew that somebody was still trying to blow us up.

Military Career, War, and Its End

Austin Wheeler [03:04:57] So when you're like, you know, you introduce like that the concept of like the fog of war or like real, you know, the, the reality of combat. There's this unfortunate like, well, so what? Like, well, we're here now, now what do we do? And, and I think the withdrawal from Afghanistan made that really difficult because it was like, what the hell was the point? You know, it's like nobody, nobody found any, any WMDs.

Austin Wheeler [03:05:26] Osama bin Laden wasn't, you know, like, wasn't in either of these places. You know, like half the guys were Saudi, right? So it's like when you used to be able to say, like, well I'm looking to the guy on my right, the guy on my left, making sure they're okay. Like that I think is one of the big like things that you have to do to try to Grapple with that. And I think that's one of the things that I feel fortunate now. I never had to try to grapple, but it's one of, like, I can't imagine, you know, it's like I had, again, I had an instructor who.

Austin Wheeler [03:05:55] Who lost his leg, you know, and he was building a school, like a girls school in Afghanistan. And like, that's not there anymore, you know, and then it's like, what was it all for? And I think it's really hard to see that what it was all for and to have that yearning, that void to fill, you know, And I think, like, just like, you know, the militias in general really offer that. And the other thing, too, it's like with the divide again, that civilian military divide, I would say it does skew more conservative, because in general, if you're open to being critical of U.S. foreign policy or capitalism or colonialism, you might not run out to sign several years of your life away, you know.

Austin Wheeler [03:06:52] So, yeah, there is kind of that echo chamber that I think exists. And then, you know, again, when you're normalized to that elevated experience, and then you don't have it anymore, and also you could find it again, like, that can be really appealing.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:06] Yeah, I can see that.

John Dehlin [03:07:08] So how did your military career end?

Austin Wheeler [03:07:11] Yeah, so kind of abruptly unsecured. Yeah, just.

John Dehlin [03:07:16] Did you graduate from West Point?

Austin Wheeler [03:07:17] Yeah, so as I mentioned, I had. I had continued problems up until about halfway through my senior year. I did get a diagnosis that was very treatable and just got it worked on. They approved me. While I was doing that, I actually broke my back. So I was. I was all. I was all broken up. There was actually, like, a lot of talk about whether or not they'd even let me.

John Dehlin [03:07:42] Let me graduate from something in training or just.

Austin Wheeler [03:07:46] That's one of those things that I'll never know for sure. I think I injured it doing, like, a combatives class thing, but it took me months to get imaging done. And then when they did the imaging, they're like, oh, you have an extra vertebrae now. Like, that one broke in half. So.

John Dehlin [03:08:01] But it wasn't like, on your mission or.

Austin Wheeler [03:08:02] No, no, no, no.

John Dehlin [03:08:06] Surfing, training?

Austin Wheeler [03:08:07] No, no. It wasn't me being. It was me doing an active thing that the army was expecting me to do. Yeah, service connected, for sure. But I graduated. I was a medical holdover, though, just over the summer. They wanted to make sure that my back was healing up okay.

Austin Wheeler [03:08:23] I was doing PT tests to prove to them I'm still physically capable of doing this because I Branched, a combat infantry. I was supposed to be a tanker, like an armor officer. And I was supposed to. So branched armor officer was supposed to go to Fort Irwin, which is the National Training center. And I was supposed to be hopped for, for, you know, a few years, play around in the sand and then.

Austin Wheeler [03:08:47] But because of that, that's a cavalry unit, which is light. They're not all tanks. They have smaller stuff. So because of that, I was supposed to go to ranger school. So when I got cleared, while I was waiting to get cleared to leave West Point as an officer, I was, you know, I was, I was in a couple of different shops, like the, you know, like S6 or S2, whatever, like just doing random odd jobs for higher ups, trying to stay out of trouble. I was on my way to a physical therapy appointment for my back on post and I crashed my motorcycle going about 10 miles an hour, maybe 15 tops.

Austin Wheeler [03:09:25] I was in first gear. I caught my handlebar perfectly to my stomach and it blew up my spleen. So I had to. So I self admitted to the hospital on post. I didn't know I had ruptured my spleen or anything. I was just worried because I was like five minutes late for my physical therapy appointment and you know, free healthcare. So they're like, oh, well, you know what hurts if you fell off a motorcycle, let's just take a look at you and kind of, you know, like, you know, my glove came off in a little slide. I think I might have broken a rib. You know, other than that, wearing a helmet, you know, all the gear all the time, wasn't too worried.

Austin Wheeler [03:10:09] And then all the, you know, so they did, they did a CT scan first and then waiting for them to scan my hand to see if I broke it. And they're like, hey, it doesn't matter. You've got a lot of internal bleeding.

Austin Wheeler [03:10:19] It's the end of the month. The surgery staff isn't here, so it'll take longer for them to get here across post than it would be to just life flight you to the closest civilian hospital. You need emergency surgery. You're dying if we don't stop the bleeding. So I was like, oh, okay. So at this point in time, I graduated, I was married. I had like a few weeks of leave and then I had to go. My wife was finishing up her degree at the University of Utah. So I had to call up my wife, like less than a month and be like, hey, like crashed, but I'm okay.

Austin Wheeler [03:10:52] But also I'm about to get emergency surgery. So that was A pretty terrible thing. And she was actually, she was doing a internship with I think KSL for. She was doing her undergrad, was in strategic communications. So she was working with the TV folks. And she had her phone off because she was actually like doing like camera work that day.

Austin Wheeler [03:11:15] So I remember just like calling her a bunch, like trying to let her know, like, hey, like about to get on a life flight. So I had the life flight. It was only about 20 minutes long, lost, just kind of faded in and out. At one point, woke up with one of the flight nurses, like mounted on me and she's like, oh, hey, you've been dead for three minutes. Like, welcome back.

Austin Wheeler [03:11:41] So that happened. And that was the first one, you know, no near death experience, no, no nothing. Just, I don't know, waking up. Yeah, I just woke up with a sore chest. Like, what's going on? Like, oh, you were dead for a few minutes, but you're fine now.

Austin Wheeler [03:11:58] And then I don't know, a couple weeks after that I survived. I got emergency surgery, have a scar like full length of my front side. They put me on emergency leave because there wasn't anything I was going to do with a foot and a half long stitches up my stomach. And I ended up feeling really sick actually here. They let me spend a couple weeks with my wife here while I was in Utah.

Austin Wheeler [03:12:29] One day I was feeling really sick. So we got up, go to the ER just to make sure everything's okay because like I just gotten the staples removed the day before I got put into a CT scanner. And I remember if you've ever been in a CT scanner, like they give you a contrast dye and normally you get like this really weird metallic taste in your mouth and then you like, you feel a little warm and then it's done. So I remember like I got a ct, like two weeks before it goes, you know, I'm sitting there waiting. It's only like 30 seconds, but it got really hot and then I felt like burning.

Austin Wheeler [03:13:00] And I remember just thinking like, like, like don't, you know, don't be weak, like five more seconds. And then I woke up like three days later. I ended up having a full anaphylactic reaction to the CT contrast. So I had, so they put me in a medically induced coma.

Discharge from the Army and Aftermath

Austin Wheeler [03:13:21] And that was the second time in like two weeks where I had social workers asking my wife if she knew if I had a will. Yeah, any of that stuff. Luckily I did because, you know, military, they keep you on top of that.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:34] But what a time.

Austin Wheeler [03:13:36] Yeah. And so I will say, like all that major trauma, like all of that stuff I dragged my poor wife through, I don't know, there was no comfort. There was no. I don't know, there was no visitation. There was no simple small voice.

Austin Wheeler [03:13:55] It was just emptiness. And that was like really, like terrifying, you know, because like I knew, you know, like that little trademark phrase. I knew the church was true. Like, I knew that there was a plan for everybody. I knew that there were things I was called to do and.

Austin Wheeler [03:14:26] Just, I don't know, like, I just wasn't there anymore. I remember that was the first time I ever told my dad. Like, even like, I think my senior year, I basically just stopped going to church. Like, I'd still check in with the senior missionary couple because they were super sweet and super supportive, but, you know, like, the bishop weirdly was like, well, can you pass the sacrament? I'm like, no, not. Can't do that. No. And then he's like, okay, well be safe then. And that was it. And I was like, okay, well, weird, weird conversation for a 25 year old to have with a grown man. But okay. But yeah, I was just.

John Dehlin [03:15:10] He was asking if you had had sex.

Austin Wheeler [03:15:11] Yeah, yeah. With, with my wife or, you know, my fiance and all before you, you had been married. But honestly, like that too. That was a huge thing that again, my wife had really deconstructed. But my wife was really concerned to have physical intimacy with me because there was a legitimate concern that I would blame her for something. I would feel remorse that she tempted

John Dehlin [03:15:35] you or caused you to transgress.

Austin Wheeler [03:15:37] Yeah. And that's so sad.

John Dehlin [03:15:43] Courtship can be such a beautiful time.

Austin Wheeler [03:15:46] Right? But. Yeah, but we, I know, I feel like we navigated that. You know, like I said, we got, we got engaged, had. It wasn't, wasn't two weeks long and. Yeah, so. But anyway, like the first time I like told my dad or like anybody, like, I don't want a blessing, like, I just, I don't like, please know. Was when I was in the hospital. Yeah. And then.

John Dehlin [03:16:11] So you didn't want a blessing because why.

Austin Wheeler [03:16:15] For the first time in my life, it really felt pointless.

John Dehlin [03:16:18] And this is a healing blessing to heal you of your sickness. You're just like God's. In my experience, God's not going to do anything.

Austin Wheeler [03:16:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:16:26] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [03:16:26] Okay, so. And then like, it was really quick with that, you know, But I think it wasn't a healthy deconstruction in the first part because simultaneously that I was trying to keep my military career going, I healed up Enough where I got approval. I actually went down to Georgia starting armor basic officer leadership course because of that unit I knew I was supposed to go to. I got earmarked to have to go to ranger school.

Austin Wheeler [03:16:58] Had to do a ranger PT test. I did the PT test and doing there's like a five mile ruck run. I think I re injured my back and sucked. But by this point I'd been through it enough to know like just gotta talk about this, gotta take care of it. I have to recycle. That's annoying. But I'm here because the thing is I had a whole year after graduating West Point before I even left like to go to basic offshore leisure course. So I had like this really weird like year of like you know, staff officer experience.

Austin Wheeler [03:17:37] But yeah, I go. And then there's this random, random, I don't know what it is with colonels, but they don't like me. But this random colonel is, you know, like oh hey, you don't have a spleen? Like no. It's been over a year. He's like, oh well that makes you non deployable. So you need to get out of my army. So like just completely out of nowhere I just was told that I was going to be med boarded.

Austin Wheeler [03:17:59] So then that process again took like almost a year. So you know, I just spent a lot of time like waiting, trying to, you know, trying to find a purpose or identity and, and you know, similar to being open to being critical of, you know, the church kind of started being open to being critical of the military. You know, like one of them was like there's a program called DOD Skillbridge. It's for soldiers who are getting out to have a job lined up where they do an internship while they're still active duty and that way they have something to go to. And I had done all the paperwork and I was trying to do a DOD Skillbridge internship with the FBI field office in Atlanta and the captain of the TRADOC unit was just like, no, I don't want to, to reward you for quitting on the army.

Austin Wheeler [03:18:55] So instead of like, you know, getting a skill set, doing this thing that could have been like a complete career transition, I was like sitting out at like three times, four times a week, 24 hour guard duty to like sign people in who were coming to officer basic.

Margi Dehlin [03:19:14] And that's so it's reminiscent a little bit to me of your mission experience also. But also they told you you couldn't, it wasn't you quitting, you were blindsided by that, by the way.

Austin Wheeler [03:19:31] Yeah, for sure.

Margi Dehlin [03:19:32] You were like, I would serve with no spleen. Not a problem for me. It was a problem for you all.

Austin Wheeler [03:19:40] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:19:42] So, okay, so how did it end?

Margi Dehlin [03:19:44] Interesting.

Austin Wheeler [03:19:45] Just really unceremoniously, I. December of 2019, it was December 23rd, and I was able to get my orders cut and I had like a couple months of leave time accrued. So there was like, you know, technically my end of term date wasn't until like the end of January or middle of February 2020.

Austin Wheeler [03:20:08] And, you know, I was hopeful that I would find something to do, you know. And then in America in February of 2020, so we actually, my wife and I, we moved back here. I got a job working a security company and that was. That was one of those things that was really difficult for me to navigate because, like, I don't know from like an ethical standpoint, like, I remember I had to work on the Young living building and I was just like, the entire time I was like, these people are. These are known, just not just MLMs in general are bad.

John Dehlin [03:20:49] You feel like they're grifters.

Austin Wheeler [03:20:51] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And also there's like this really weird, like, shrine to D. Gary Young in the headquarters.

John Dehlin [03:21:01] Oh, so you were speaking, having worked on premises when you were speaking of Young living.

Austin Wheeler [03:21:07] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:21:07] Okay.

Austin Wheeler [03:21:07] I read all their propaganda, talking about how great he was too. And. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:21:11] Is this where you worked the security where you. Okay, so this is all part of that experience where wasn't it for the church you ended up?

Austin Wheeler [03:21:20] Yeah. So another thing that really, like again at the time alarmed me, but it's just like I don't know what to expect in the same way that I don't know how I could expect anything different from like designat folk, how subversively violent the official church is. And I say that very directly in that there is here in the valley, in what is very deliberately designed to look like a Deseret Industries warehouse, a security training center that has multiple shoot houses, 150 yard indoor ranges, you know, $40,000, you know, gun safes with all, you know, like the actual machine guns, you know, not just not semi auto, but like full auto, short barrel rifle, suppressor stuff that they use for training for their executive defense.

Austin Wheeler [03:22:27] I guess they think that, that the quorum, you know, Q15, it's like one big Jason Bourne movie where they need to get into shootouts every general conference or something, but they had a full one to one scale of the standard stake center pulpit where they had lines so they could teach their. I'M guessing their new agents, they were very proud of their what to do if a.

John Dehlin [03:22:57] If a terrorist comes in podcast.

Austin Wheeler [03:23:03] Whatever.

John Dehlin [03:23:03] What? Hey, wait. But, but if, but if a shooter breaks into a stake meeting while the general authority is there.

Austin Wheeler [03:23:10] Well, the high value person's there. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:23:12] Training to take out the shooter.

Margi Dehlin [03:23:14] It would be training. Security detail.

Austin Wheeler [03:23:17] Yeah. So exact executive security training. But yeah. And just the level of it too. They were. The guy I initially spoke to was very dismissive until I mentioned that I went to West Point. And then he opened right up.

Austin Wheeler [03:23:34] He really, he just told me, oh. I was like, so what is it you guys are doing here? And he said, oh, that's above your pay grade. And then I was like, well, I recognize this stuff. I'm familiar with it. Like, one of the things I did, I actually like one of my smaller side jobs while I was an officer at West Point was I got to be a range safety officer. So we actually had the FBI Hostage rescue team and Secret Service come up and use some of the shoot houses on West Point. So I got to see some of the cool guy stuff, the Secret Squirrel type of things.

Austin Wheeler [03:24:02] So I'm familiar with a lot of stuff. This is really weird for a church to have. And yet again, he was like I said once I mentioned I was a West Point grad, he was like, oh, well, that's different. He's like, you should actually look at applying. We use the exact same application process as Secret Service. He was very proud that they had a one to one copy of the Secret Service interview, but then they also added like a 15 plus year history of interviewing all of your former priesthood leaders. So like, they would, they would go back, you know, so.

Austin Wheeler [03:24:43] Yeah, and that was just one of those. Just weird. Like, like, it's one of those things that's like, I can't understand. Like, if I look at it as like the, the, the C suite of a corporation that has, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and like net worth. Like, I understand that. You know, like, it's, it's not a surprise that, you know, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk have highly trained security details.

Austin Wheeler [03:25:14] But they're not like trying to pretend that they're God's one true church. It's like if there was, if there was discernment, like, like, you know, oh,

John Dehlin [03:25:24] you're saying if these, if the church. Yeah, if God's all powerful or if the church leaders had a direct line of communication with God, they could pretty much always make decisions in a way where they would never be under significant threat.

Austin Wheeler [03:25:43] Yeah, they'd see around those corners, you know, I mean, I say this tongue in cheek, but if God protected Donald Trump, surely any of the brethren here are untouchable. Right, Right.

John Dehlin [03:26:00] Okay, so. So that left a bad taste in your mouth for the church.

Austin Wheeler [03:26:06] Yeah, yeah. And that's where I really started seeing it more as an organization. More as just a tax shelter corporation.

John Dehlin [03:26:11] Yeah, A business.

Austin Wheeler [03:26:12] A business, yeah. So.

John Dehlin [03:26:14] Okay. So, yeah, I was just going to say that's significant. That's more than a lot of our viewers or listeners or former interviewees have experienced, because you not only had to deal with the death of your faith, you had to deal with the death of your kind of military patriotism, which is its own form of religion, and then also your identity and your career, both religiously but also professionally. That's a lot of deaths in addition to all the medical trauma, actual death experienced over multiple years. Like, you kind of. It's almost like you're a veteran of war, but of psychological war and disillusionment, identity disillusionment.

Disillusionment, Nihilism, and Finding a New Path

John Dehlin [03:27:10] So that's, on the one hand, a lot of tragic disappointment and disillusion. But on the other hand, you escaped deployment where you could have been literally blown up and. Or had to kill people. That could have potentially leaded to moral injury. That I think is a topic you care about. So talk about maybe all of that. Like, trying to make sense of all that. Whether you're happy or sad or broken or healed.

Austin Wheeler [03:27:42] Yeah, I mean, and I think it weirdly came up in. In the. The Paul brothers. You know, like one of the things they. They mentioned. Right. Like.

John Dehlin [03:27:53] Cause they're like, hoorah, we're gonna be deployed. You know, we're excited.

Austin Wheeler [03:27:56] It was. And it came out bad. And I know the moment they said it, they realized it sounded weird. But then I think they were afraid to say, like, no, that's wrong. So they kind of like double down weirdly on it. Like the. They wish there was a school shooter so they can essentially like, be the hero. And that's a weird thing to say. And I'm sorry, like, I'm paraphrasing, but in my memory, like, that's how it came across. And I was like, what? One of the ways you lower the threshold of violence is, you know, underselling it. Right. Is you view deployment as being on the away team. Right. So your sport is violence is combat. If you're training the entire time, you're just sitting on the bench. Nobody wants to spend their entire high school collegiate Professional career, being a benchwarmer.

Margi Dehlin [03:28:56] Right.

Austin Wheeler [03:28:56] You want to go into the paint. You want people to see your athleticism, your capability, your expertise, your mastery of your craft.

John Dehlin [03:29:05] Put me in coach.

Austin Wheeler [03:29:05] Exactly.

John Dehlin [03:29:06] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [03:29:07] So. So I think that type of. I think that type of thing is really what they were kind of alluding to was that they wish one of the worst examples possible, but like, they wish for an opportunity where they can be.

Austin Wheeler [03:29:23] Where they can show. Yeah. Show. Show courage, show competence. Right. Because. Because otherwise, like, what mean does that it for? Right. It's like I had to memorize the effective kill range of an M67 grenade and the M203 grenade launcher. You know, the, like however many times I shot Expert with an M4. I mean, absolutely nothing when I'm trying to apply to colleges or when I'm, you know, even like playing Call of Duty with the friends on a, on a weekend. You know, like, it's just you commit so much of yourself to this thing and then it goes away and then you just have to try to make sense of it, you know, like, that's the thing is like more and more I saw it was really interesting that like my, my generation, you know, from a military standpoint, like, we've only ever known war. Like, we have not known a peacetime military.

John Dehlin [03:30:19] Oh, because the Iraq war started in 2000. Whatever.

Austin Wheeler [03:30:23] Exactly.

John Dehlin [03:30:23] 9, 11 happens in 2001.

Austin Wheeler [03:30:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:30:26] And we've been either in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Austin Wheeler [03:30:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:30:28] Non stop for 24 years.

Austin Wheeler [03:30:30] Exactly. Okay. So. But I remember like 2014, 2015, 2016, like, people were concerned that they wouldn't get a chance, you know, they wouldn't earn their red badge of courage. And then, you know, in that regard, like, I know, like, you know, I'll say like, I did, I didn't deploy. I didn't, I didn't get that. I didn't get that sunrise

John Dehlin [03:30:59] that Marty. That Marty Ross talked about. Yeah, yeah.

Austin Wheeler [03:31:04] And. And honestly, like, now I reconcile. But just saying, like, you know, I've got buddies that graduate 2018. They're. They're captains. They still haven't deployed. So it is changing.

John Dehlin [03:31:18] But do you feel like you metaphorically dodged a bullet or do you wish you could have deployed?

Austin Wheeler [03:31:25] Honestly, there's so much of me that still feels like I had an obligation

John Dehlin [03:31:32] with all the training and the investment.

Austin Wheeler [03:31:34] Well, not just that, but like, I, I felt a moral responsibility. Like, and I know it might sound weird because I know I talked about like, like trying to disentangle myself from this framework that like, I had an obligation to kill People or like, I was broken. So that made me capable of doing this thing. And I see the cognitive distortion associated with that. But I'd be lying if I had the opportunity to prevent someone else from having to do it. Like, I still think that. Like, I guess I think, I feel I would be okay. And I just want everybody else to be okay. So if, you know, if somebody has to go, why not me?

John Dehlin [03:32:32] Yeah. So you're not like, dang, man, I'm. Now that I. Now that I'm questioning patriotism, now that I'm questioning American exceptionalism, now that I'm questioning the church as the, you know, Mormon Church as the doctrinal and spiritual justification for war, and even the military structure and authority and the chain of command.

Margi Dehlin [03:32:59] Yes. It's self interest in, you know, having you understand yourself in a certain way. It sounds like there's still part of you that lives inside you, that conditioning

John Dehlin [03:33:10] just still there, running deep. Is that what you're saying?

Austin Wheeler [03:33:14] Yeah, well, I mean, I think a part of it too, that, like, I think it's exasperated by that civilian military divide is like. So I'm gonna say a weird hypothetical out loud, but, like, on the one hand, I understand, like, any. Like the. Was it the Logan brothers? Right? Like, yeah, the Paul brothers. Especially if they deploy. Like, I'm sure if they. They saw this, they'd be like, man, was he. No, trade doc never deployed.

John Dehlin [03:33:51] Right.

Austin Wheeler [03:33:51] Like, what's that term?

John Dehlin [03:33:52] Trade doc?

Austin Wheeler [03:33:53] Yeah, Trading doctrine, command, the schools. Yeah. Like, there's always going to be a degree of gatekeeping. You know, it's like you talk about, like, oh, if the military is a spear, all of support and logistics and everything are the shaft of the spear. And then people that are doing indirect stuff is going to be the head of the spear. But the tip of the spear, the part that actually cuts, you know, that's your. That's your special force or whatever. But, you know, so there's always going to be people that are creating that extra in group or out group. But I'd say from like, a civilian standpoint, like, nobody gets a lot of that. Like, people don't understand, you know.

Margi Dehlin [03:34:37] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [03:34:37] Like, the nuance or the differentiation. So I'd say the first part would be, like, there's. Even though, like, I am out and I am questioning and I am, like, potentially critical of, like, the ethical frameworks, like, I still have brothers and sisters that are out there that will be put in harm's way, you know, have potentially been put in harm's way by people who voted for somebody who doesn't have their best interests in mind. So it's not a matter of whether or not what they did is right and wrong, is they're gonna come home hopefully, and they're gonna be in some form of, you know, either perfect condition or some degree broken.

Austin Wheeler [03:35:19] And it's like, I feel connected in that way that I still need to, like, maintain my own ability to, like, help that community. You know, it's like veterans, like, if a veteran isn't looking out for a veteran, like, that they're on their own, you know? And it's unfortunate that, like, because there's such a disconnect between the military and the civilian sector, it's like, even if I disagree with everything everybody did, you know, unless it's like, outright war crime, like, I'm gonna do what I can to support them, to connect with them, you know, ask them about their favorite.

Austin Wheeler [03:35:53] It's like one of those things that's like, especially having never deployed again, having friends that have been in the army eight, ten years now, still never deployed. When people say thank you for your service, it's like, you know, they mean well generally, but it can be really uncomfortable. Cause it's like, well, I haven't deployed, so like, what really have I served? Have I done anything? You know, I haven't been in harm's way.

Austin Wheeler [03:36:17] And like, that's something I'm cognizant of for myself, you know, that always kind of that slight discomfort of thank you for your service. But I would say if you, like, want to connect with, you know, members of the military, like, ask them, you know, like, what was your favorite moment? You know, like, what was your sunrise? Like, what's something stupid you did in basic training? You know? Cause, like, everybody, like, you know, everybody gets overwhelmed basic training, and they do something just completely moronic and. And it's, you know. Or like, what was your favorite nickname for one of your friends? Right? Like, show, like, interest in the human, like, experience that they had. Because it could be really lonely, you know.

Margi Dehlin [03:37:02] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [03:37:03] And I think that's why I hold on to the. To that part of my identity, is because I think if I let that go, that there's going to be a whole population that gets abandoned.

Margi Dehlin [03:37:19] Yeah. I appreciate you taking the time to explain. How do you put it? The civilian gap?

Austin Wheeler [03:37:27] The civilian. Yeah, just like civilian military divide or gap.

Margi Dehlin [03:37:30] That divide or the. A bit. Because I do think there's a reality difference there. That's. That is. It's very real, it's tangible, and I think it's, it can be part of the reason why we don't hear more from veterans we don't hear more from is because it's so arduous to try to explain things in a way when you've experienced, I think, a part of life, of the world, of humanity, you know, that the average person may not in America, I'll say not in the world, but in America may not necessarily know. So I really appreciate you really taking the time to do that. I really appreciated it with Marty as well, taking the time to explain things that I think can be really, really difficult actually to explain, you know, in an attempt to acknowledge and close the gap a little bit. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:38:44] So really, really quickly. Like again, I listened to a New York Times report this morning on the. The confirmation hearing of the current nominated Secretary of Defense and I. One of the. And I don't have his name top

Austin Wheeler [03:39:03] of head or something like that.

John Dehlin [03:39:05] What's that?

Austin Wheeler [03:39:06] It's H name, right? Like Hutch, Beth or so, yeah, I

John Dehlin [03:39:09] could google it, but I don't want to get political, so I'm even hesitant to want to mention his name because I. We want people of all political persuasions and none to feel safe and welcome here. And so this isn't me getting political, but it's just me describing what I'm picking up from the news and that's that this guy isn't a traditional nominee because he's never really managed any organizations over like 100 people. And that was like a non profit. But he has served in the military, boots on the ground kind of stuff. But I think one of the big things about him was he has some Christian nationalist tattoos and some cross or something that's also militaristic.

John Dehlin [03:39:57] And there's this younger generation of young men in the United States that are kind of turning more to the Republican Party. And Christian nationalism seems to be kind of on a resurgence. And I don't know if that's more or less prevalent here in Utah within Mormonism or if that's just kind of country wide.

John Dehlin [03:40:30] But you mentioned Christian nationalism as a major theme. And so I just wanted to give you a chance to share whatever thoughts or feelings you have about that. But just in terms of your own personal point of view of where Mormonism is going, where Utah culture is going, where the church is going, the directions, but also where the country's going. Again, not to endorse any particular position. We haven't talked about this beforehand, but because you identified it, we want to give you a chance to share what Your observations are around that.

Austin Wheeler [03:41:09] Yeah. So I'd say the context of the mentioning Christian nationalism is really about the trend, the trend towards that. I think again, Mormonism in itself outside of Utah, it's such a small thing in the scope of the world. So we have in the form of desnat, like a very succinct nationalist move, you know, religiously motivated nationalist movement that I think is a really good case study for not only the, like the march towards extremism or to the creation of militias based around these ideologies.

Austin Wheeler [03:42:05] It's hard for me to not trying to respect that primer you gave. I don't see Christian nationalism as a right versus left issue. I see it as like a fundamental danger to a free republic. For those unaware that, you know, just the concept of Christian nationalism or now we're looking at Christian dominionism, just this idea that I'd say fundamentally that America should be a Christian nation and that its government structures and laws should align with broadly streaking evangelical Christian morality and belief and control.

Austin Wheeler [03:43:02] The current political landscape we're heading into is an opportunity for us to reevaluate. I hope there's. So again, it's one of those things, if you're not aware of Project 2025, it is a very succinctly written piece of government wish list, if you will, that was largely put. Put up by a body that supports Christian national ideology.

Austin Wheeler [03:43:45] I guess specifically for, I'd say the. The specifically active Mormon sub part of this culture or audience, I guess would be. To be analytical and not take for granted that or I guess to avoid the belief that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Austin Wheeler [03:44:19] I think there's a lot of stuff we could see in the news and behind the scenes that there's consolidations of power and a desire to impact people's freedoms or to change the law in a way that it biases towards one sect of religion.

John Dehlin [03:44:43] I couldn't help but notice the two sort of terrorist attacks that happened over New Year's. One was the gentleman that drove his car into a crowd in New Orleans and the other was the man who parked his Tesla truck, I think, or when he rented in front of Trump Towers and exploded it and he died. Both were military people. Like, I don't. That could be just a coincidence. We certainly don't want to give the impression that military people are dangerous. But like, did that shock you? Did that disturb you? Did you have thoughts about that at all? Or is that just a total coincidence? And we, you know, I would say

Austin Wheeler [03:45:26] in general it's a coincidence. Like, it's not like there's any sections of the military that are secretly training to lock people up or mow them down or anything, you know, dystopian like that. Everybody I ever knew in the military was really just. They believed in America. They loved America. But beyond that, I think it really highlights one of the other, you know, not just the. That divide isn't just in those who serve, but also in the mental health support that I think exists. It's a little bit outdated, but one of the common figures you would get was that every 22 seconds, a veteran successfully complete suicide. I think there's probably some subsections of the LGBTQ community are the only ones that come within, you know, a stone's throw of that level of risk. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:46:29] And completion.

Margi Dehlin [03:46:30] I'm so glad you brought that up.

John Dehlin [03:46:32] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [03:46:33] So, I mean, they were successful in the degree that I think they hoped they were, and it's a tragedy. But beyond, I think just the important reminder to connect with our military members, I think really should be the takeaway there.

John Dehlin [03:46:54] Better mental health support services for military active duty and veterans.

Austin Wheeler [03:47:01] Active duty and veterans. Well, active duty is hard because it'll kill your career. It can severely limit your career opportunity

Margi Dehlin [03:47:09] if you seek mental health.

Austin Wheeler [03:47:11] Mental health support.

Margi Dehlin [03:47:12] Yeah. It's viewed as a black mark kind of. Right.

Austin Wheeler [03:47:16] It's one of those things like any of the. Any of the schools that look good, you know, that make you eligible for promotion or set you apart from your peers, you can't do those with a lot of them, with that, so.

Margi Dehlin [03:47:30] Yeah, that's right.

John Dehlin [03:47:31] So maybe to end, you know, when we talk about you rebuilding after all these losses, you mentioned confronting nihilism and then kind of overcoming nihilism, which is a sense of meaninglessness. I don't think any of us can really imagine what you've been through, how disappointed you might feel. All the trauma, military, religious, medical, authoritarian, you know, all that. I can imagine you have had some dark days trying to heal from, make sense of, and then rebuild from what you've experienced and the disappointments, both of your mission and of your, you know, your training. Training and service. Any final words you want to say about rebuilding?

Austin Wheeler [03:48:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:48:25] And overcoming nihilism?

Austin Wheeler [03:48:26] Yeah. So, honestly, I think, like, nihilism now gets a bad rap, and it's one of those things, like, I'll talk about with my wife, like, there was a period of time where, you know, if I were to say, like, everything is stupid and nothing matters, like, I believed that, but it was Also accompanied with that sadness, you know, the emptiness, the void of nihilism that I think a lot of us who deconstruct end up finding ourselves in. And I found that personally one of the biggest shifts I had was I had this faith framework, but I didn't lose my biases. So I found that when I was looking at the emptiness of existence, I was looking at it through the lens of there needs to be a loving God who has made this all for me.

Austin Wheeler [03:49:30] And like that obviously, like how depressing, how hard it is, but just giving myself permission to see the opportunity in it. So it's still saying like, hey, everything is stupid and nothing matters. But I think contextualizing in a different way was really meaningful. And I think like that's, I'd say much less concise version of how like people view sunny nihilism like this. This concept is that I didn't, I don't have to force myself to believe in something.

Austin Wheeler [03:50:06] But the belief that things have to be sad because there's nothing is still a belief that I'm choosing to hold onto. So I think once I gave myself permission to be free of that, I was able to like, I've been able to look at things and say like, hey, like this might be the only life I have. So I want to like one. I want to live. I want to continue existing.

Austin Wheeler [03:50:34] I'm not doing it because I'm expected to, because a God will punish me if I don't. I want to be a present husband and father. I want to keep learning things because I'm fascinated by the world. I'm fascinated by all of the structures that we've built for ourselves.

Austin Wheeler [03:50:52] You know, I want to keep getting an education and I want to, you know, put myself in a position where I could, you know, work with veterans or you know, work with people who are trying to recover from high demand organizations.

Austin Wheeler [03:51:07] And just interest or wanting can be enough. It doesn't have to be preordained, doesn't have to be written in the stars. It doesn't have to be on purpose for me to appreciate it or to enjoy it.

John Dehlin [03:51:28] So instead of having your meaning and purpose handed to you by Joseph Smith or Mormon scripture, the Book of Mormon and Doctrine Covenants, or some vision of patriotism or military or national duty, or even some divine being, it's okay for you. It's actually healthy for you to just be able to just say, this is what my meaning and purpose is. And it's not external, it's coming from me. And that's Actually fantastic. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Austin Wheeler [03:52:07] Yeah, I think it's a fair summarization.

John Dehlin [03:52:10] And do you have that now? What is that for you now?

Austin Wheeler [03:52:15] I mean, it varies day by day. Right. I think a constant is just my. My wife being able to love her with reckless abandon. We're having a kid soon. First one.

John Dehlin [03:52:28] Congrats.

Austin Wheeler [03:52:29] Thanks. Yeah. You know, so just like. So I think part of that is like being able to make decisions, knowing that there's future generations. I care about that I want to see humanity succeed. And I conduct myself or try to consistently conduct myself in a way that is congruent with that desire for humanity to succeed and for people to generally be free of suffering or pain or strife.

John Dehlin [03:53:02] Yeah. Beautiful. Any final questions, Margi?

Closing Reflections and Farewell

Margi Dehlin [03:53:10] I don't think so. I think this was really, really amazing. I appreciate you.

John Dehlin [03:53:17] Any, Austin, any final things you wanted to share about your story, just to

Margi Dehlin [03:53:23] make sure, or did you want to mention a book or had you pulled up a book you wanted to mention or.

Austin Wheeler [03:53:30] Oh, I feel understandably, just looking at my story more. If you're interested in the very specific history of Mormonism and its interaction with militia building and military service, there was a book recently published by Sherman Fleek in association with a BYU professor of history. Now, again, one of the things we didn't touch on just, I don't think it worked out. But he has been a military scholar, very deliberate. He is full faith believing member, but he is also, as I understand, a very well regarded historian and just gives a very open and clear view at Mormonism and their relation From, I think 1838 until the 1990s, I think, is what the book covers.

John Dehlin [03:54:38] So check that book out. I know Julie's taking a note of that and she'll include it in the show notes. Okay. Well, it's always a very vulnerable and courageous act to come on Mormon stories in this culture and to tell your story. But yours strikes me as particularly both powerful, but also vulnerable and. And special and important. And so thanks for being willing to talk to us about some really hard stuff and to help us see another point of view. It's a very different. It's almost in some ways an inverse of Marty Ross's story, but there's a huge wide spectrum of military service.

Margi Dehlin [03:55:27] That's right.

John Dehlin [03:55:27] And yours is very valid and it's going to reach the people it's going to reach. And I just. I think it's really important that we. We provide a few different perspectives. So I can't thank you enough, Austin. Wheeler, for coming on Mormon Stories.

Margi Dehlin [03:55:45] Yeah.

Austin Wheeler [03:55:46] Appreciate your time.

John Dehlin [03:55:48] And I gotta drive back to California. Yep. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [03:55:51] Maybe we can feed you first.

John Dehlin [03:55:54] All right, well, so thanks for sharing your story with us.

Austin Wheeler [03:56:00] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:56:01] All right. And Margi, thanks for being here.

Margi Dehlin [03:56:05] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:56:08] All right, well, thanks everyone for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thanks to Brooklyn and Julia and everyone on the Mormon Stories team, Gerardo, that make all this possible. Thanks to our donors who are the reason why we're able to do this. If you're a monthly donor, thank you.

Margi Dehlin [03:56:24] You.

John Dehlin [03:56:26] And of course, if you value this type of content and you want to see it continue, you can always go to MormonStories.org and become a monthly donor. Please subscribe to us on YouTube and on TikTok and Facebook. That's how we keep relevant and recommended by the algorithms and want to remind all of you that if you feel like you have a warm story that people could benefit from hearing, you can go to MormonStories.org, apply to be on the show and we'll, we'll check out your application. And we can't accept all applications, but we're always looking for new stories and, you know, ways to reach people and to share the diverse experiences that are the Mormon experiences.

John Dehlin [03:57:08] So check us out and, you know, thanks. Oh, we always appreciate your feedback@mormonstoriesmail.com but mostly just as comments on these episodes, whether you're watching a short or a long form video on YouTube or on Facebook or wherever, we love your feedback and we read every comment and so please don't hesitate to share with us any feedback or thoughts you have. So thanks again. Be good to each other, Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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