> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.loganmartinisaac.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Mr. Vice President, We’ve Both Been to War. Only One of Us Went to Divinity School. - URL: https://www.loganmartinisaac.com/mr-vice-president-weve-both-been-to-war-only-one-of-us-went-to-divinity-school/ - Published: 2026-04-16T17:29:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-07-18T22:28:51.000Z - Author: Logan Martin Isaac A word from a fellow veteran who actually studied this stuff. JD Vance stood in front of a crowd of college students in Athens, Georgia this week and [told the Pope](https://www.nbcnews.com/video/vance-says-pope-should-be-careful-when-talking-about-theology-261400645540?ref=loganmartinisaac.com) to “be careful when [he talks](https://x.com/Pontifex/status/2042588417578668338?ref=loganmartinisaac.com) about matters of theology.” I’d like to offer a gentle, fraternal word of my own: Mr. Vice President, that’s a hill I’d think twice about dying on. Let me be transparent. I deployed to Iraq in 2004 with the 25th Infantry Division, the same division that has been in every major American conflict since World War II. I’m a professed monk. I hold a Master of Theological Studies from Duke University and a second in Systematic and Historical Theology from the University of St Andrews. I’ve authored three books specifically about the intersection of war, conscience, and Christian faith — one of them [published by InterVarsity Press](https://loganmartinisaac.com/reborn-on-the-fourth-of-july?ref=loganmartinisaac.com), another by Mennonite publisher [Herald Press](https://loganmartinisaac.com/for-god-and-country-in-that-order?ref=loganmartinisaac.com), and the most recent by [Hachette Nashville in 2022](https://loganmartinisaac.com/god-is-a-grunt?ref=loganmartinisaac.com). I traveled to Rutba, Iraq. I’ve stood on the ground we were talking about. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/17/6a/176af55d-3866-4b2a-84a2-298ad9e4b215/content/images/2026/04/B6FE2A6A-A532-49AF-A78A-EABC73F48F46_1_105_c-1.jpeg) I spent my 23rd birthday with my infantry platoon in Kirkuk, IZ. I am not saying this to brag. I am saying this because JD Vance just told the Bishop of Rome — a man who [holds a doctorate in theology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%5FLeo%5FXIV?ref=loganmartinisaac.com#University,%5Fseminary,%5Fand%5Fearly%5Fpriesthood%5F%281973%E2%80%931998%29), who was elected by a College of Cardinals to serve as the Vicar of Christ — that he needs to be careful about his theological claims. And the person doing the correcting is a man who converted to Catholicism through adult RCIA, served in the Marine Corps as a combat correspondent (a military journalist — his own description), and whose theological formation, as best anyone can document, amounts to reading and some conversations with a priest. I want to be honest: I have real respect for *anyone* who enlists. Vance went to Iraq. He served four years. That matters, and I won’t take it from him. But he himself wrote, in his own memoir, that he was “lucky to escape any real fighting.” He was a corporal. He took photographs and wrote stories. At least once, when he was assigned a civil affairs mission, he provided security for a meeting with school officials and met some kids. This is not nothing. I know because I did it every day, sometimes several times, with my infantry platoon in Iraq. But here’s the thing: I’m not primarily writing this to contest who had the harder deployment. That’s not the argument that matters. The argument that matters is this: JD Vance invoked just war theory in order to correct the Pope on just war theory. As though he's qualified to opine himself. Just war theory is a theological tradition with more than a thousand years of development, as Vance himself noted. It runs from Ambrose through Augustine through Aquinas through the Reformers through contemporary Catholic social teaching. It is not a meme. It is not a talking point. It is a rigorous, contested, intellectually demanding framework that trained theologians spend careers arguing about — and that the Catholic Magisterium, through careful deliberation, has actually developed official positions on. The Pope was doing was doing theology. Whatever you think of his conclusions (I do not agree with his [social media post](https://x.com/Pontifex/status/2042588417578668338?ref=loganmartinisaac.com)), he was operating within his lane with demonstrable competence. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/17/6a/176af55d-3866-4b2a-84a2-298ad9e4b215/content/images/2026/04/image-3.png) Pope Leo XIV Vance, by contrast, was doing what politicians do with theological concepts: he was selecting the parts that validate the policy and conveniently discarding the rest. That’s not theology. That’s apologetics for a predetermined conclusion. There is a difference, and someone with formal training would know it. I’ve spent years trying to get people with actual institutional theological power to take war seriously as a theological problem — not just a policy one. I’ve documented at length how Christian gatekeepers, from [*Christianity Today*](https://gijustice.com/blog/christianity-yesterday?ref=loganmartinisaac.com) to [*Christian Century*](https://gijustice.com/record/20260311-century?ref=loganmartinisaac.com), have managed and muted the voices of combat veterans who brought hard theological questions from the field. What I know from that work is this: **the people most resistant to prophetic challenge are usually the people with the most to protect.** The Vice President is a Catholic convert who likes it when the Pope agrees with him and wants him to “be careful” when he doesn’t. That is a comprehensible human response. It is not a theological argument. Pope Leo XIV said that Jesus is never on the side of those who wield the sword. You can push back on that, [I certainly have](https://pewpewhq.com/trng/peace-work?ref=loganmartinisaac.com). The just war tradition exists precisely because of that tension. But “pushing back” requires engaging the tradition honestly, including its inconvenient parts — like the fact that just war theory has criteria for ending wars, not just starting them, and criteria for proportionality that serious Catholic ethicists have applied to the Iran war with [significant skepticism](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/timothy-broglio-archbishop-archdiocese-for-the-military-services-usa-face-the-nation-transcript-04-05-2026/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). I’ve been to war. I’ve buried the cost of it in my own bones. I came home and went to divinity school because I needed to understand what I’d been part of. That’s not a credential to wave around. It’s a posture — a commitment to let the hard questions stay hard instead of collapsing them into convenient conclusions. The [terminal lance](https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-Terminal-Lance-in-the-United-States-Marine-Corps?ref=loganmartinisaac.com) correcting the Pope on theology should at least have that. --- *Logan M. Isaac is a combat veteran (OIF, 25th Infantry Division), Hospitaller of St Martin, and author of God is a Grunt (Worthy/Hachette), Reborn on the Fourth of July (IVP), and For God and Country \[in that order\] (Herald Press). He is the Director of Education for the Hospitallers of Saint Martin and operates The Chapter House bookstore in Albany, Oregon. His ongoing work on faith, war, and civil rights can be found at pewpewhq.com.*