Warrior Soul

By Lauren D'Avolio
It took being a soldier – a wounded warrior – for Allen Clark to understand the spiritual war being waged on battlefronts all over the world.

Clark graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1963, then was commissioned in the Army Corps of Engineers. Two years later he volunteered for a tour in Vietnam, where he served as a military intelligence officer.

“I was a very serious young man. I’m not sure I understood Jesus,” says Clark, who lives in Dallas with his wife. “I understood being good and moral.”

During Clark’s service in 1967 in Dak To, Vietnam, mortar fire rained down on his camp one morning. Clark tried to flee as a mortar round detonated less than two feet behind him, spraying his lower body with shrapnel.

“Oh, God, my legs, my legs! Help me!” he screamed. “Oh, God, I’m dead!”

Clark not only lost his legs but became terrified of what life as a double-leg amputee would hold. He was hospitalized for 15 months, at one time going four days without sleep, wracking his brain with the unknown and unanswerable. He was on painkillers and antidepressants and eventually spent 14 weeks in a closed psychiatric ward with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

Clark says he was saved by Jesus Christ as a teenager, but it wasn’t until around 1973, six years after the mortar attack, that he began understanding deeper aspects of the faith. That’s when Jesus became Clark’s Lord as well as savior, he says. It was during this time of physical recovery that Clark learned to live without legs and submitted to Jesus Christ’s lordship. For a long time, Clark was ashamed that he’d “cracked.”

“I had an emotional breakdown after the four days without sleep,” Clark says. “It steadily diminished over the years after that.”

He was a West Point graduate, after all. An Army officer assigned to Army Special Forces. He’d received a Silver Star for gallantry in action, the Purple Heart, and the Combat Infantryman's Badge.

He came to understand that there was no shame in having an emotional breakdown, because it was one way the Lord radically changed his life. Today, Clark does extensive speaking about his breakdown at places such as military bases.

“I speak publicly about that happening, so I can assure you there’s no shame in it,” Clark says. “If that hadn’t happened, my life would be completely different. It’s a turning point that’s had a very positive impact on me and the lives I can touch by telling my story.”

Clark published Wounded Soldier, Healing Warrior, about his emotional breakdown, telling how Jesus Christ used the loss of his legs to save his soul. Clark’s lay ministry website, www.combatfaith.com, is a Christ-based educational site for active-duty military members and veterans of combat who’ve suffered from severe trauma and battle memories.

Clark is working on a second book, Service with Valor--a collection of first-person stories about Vietnam.

The retired Army captain says God gave him an ability to integrate faith with mental, spiritual, and physical healing.

Spiritual warfare revolves around the ultimate struggle of all history, which is God against the devil, Clark says. The devil has minions that are assigned to attack us at our weak points. That is our struggle on an individual or corporate basis.

“If we have unconfessed sin or unforgiveness to others, there is an opening there. We can be attacked,” Clark says. “If we confess our sins and forgive all others, then these major pathways are closed off for those attack points.”

Clark earned an MBA from Southern Methodist University as he learned to walk on prosthetic legs. When he graduated, Clark’s first job was working for Ross Perot as an assistant for his personal investments. Perot would later write the foreword to Allen’s book.

In 1981, Clark was selected by President Ronald Reagan to be deputy administrator of what was then the Veterans Administration. In 1982, Clark was the Texas Republican Party's nominee to run for state treasurer but lost to Ann Richards, who would later become Texas’ governor.

In 1989, Clark was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as assistant secretary for Veterans Liaison and Program Coordination at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Clark received his second VA confirmation as director of the National Cemetery System in 1991, and retired in 2005 as the public affairs officer for the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas. He has also worked as vice president of a bank, president of three oil service companies, and co-founder of a real estate investment firm.

Clark’s personal life also has been painful. He and his first wife divorced in 1994 after 30 years of marriage. The two have a “very communicative” relationship today that’s been blessed by God, he says, especially concerning their daughters.

He and his second wife, Linda Frost-Clark, re-established their connection as friends in 1995 at a Bible study in her home. They married in 2004.

Frost-Clark never planned to remarry, since she grieved for nine years after her husband -- also a West Point graduate and Army veteran – died in 1994. Frost-Clark had a soul tie of grieving to her first husband then prayed for it to be removed, and it was. That left her open to remarry, Clark says.

“We have developed a very real spiritual connection and love for each other, based in Jesus Christ,” Clark says. “We pray with each other every day. If there’s an issue between us, we pray immediately for wisdom, to get to the heart of the issue and clear it out.”

Frost-Clark has a ministry called Women of the Bible -- www.voices.name -- in which she depicts Biblical women such as Esther through drama. The Clarks also do joint presentations, combining their ministries.

Christopher Kite-Powell has known Clark said 1963, when they met at church. Clark is the single most devout yet reality-based person he knows, Kite-Powell says.

“He is not what one would call a ‘fair-weather Christian,’” Kite-Powell says. “He has been tested far more than most yet remains a firmly committed Christian--and is supportive of his brothers and sisters in faith.”

Clark’s most endearing quality, Kite-Powell says, is his positive approach to life, as well as his unfailing friendship and support. Clark is always the motivator, the action guy, the organizer. He keeps the life moving forward in an upbeat way for everyone around him, Kite-Powell says. There is no “sitting quietly” with Allen around. His energy is contagious.

“Allen has lived the Christian life while passing through problems that would have derailed most people. In his ministries, he has sought to reach out to others who encounter similar problems…and has brought meaningful assistance into all the lives he has touched,” Kite-Powell says. “He persevered with me as tragedy struck, even as he was experiencing problems in his own life. If I need prayerful assistance, Allen is there for me no matter when I ask.”

Allen Clark’s book website: www.wounddsoldierhealingwarrior.com

Clark’s lay ministry website: www.combatfaith.com

E-mail laurendavolio@gmail.com