Malvern Free Presbyterian Church hosted the memorial service for Colonel Frederick “Rick” Walker on Saturday August 15, 2020. Colonel Walker served with great distinction for 25 years in the United States Air Force, earning multiple awards. Of note in 1980, Rick was selected as the first commander of J6 Communications for the then-unknown Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), a covert counterterrorism unit composed of the US military’s elite special operations forces.

I had the privilege of meeting Rick as he confronted weakness and repeated illness in the latter years of his life. On a home visit, not long after my move to Pennsylvania, I encountered something new in my pastoral ministry. After I had read the Word and prayed, I was about to bid farewell. But before I could rise from my seat brother Rick was interceding with His Savior on my behalf. It was a tremendous blessing to hear him lay hold on the Lord. And so began a pattern that continued up to his passing. On pastoral visits, I prayed, and he prayed. As he prayed, I had the privilege of looking into his soul as he faced death. In his prayers I heard faith and I heard the theology that was the foundation of that faith.
Undoubtedly Rick served his country with great honor and dignity. He must have possessed great authority with his men. Courage and integrity are the descriptors of this man’s character. Yet for me, the mark of the man was how, by the grace of God, he lived his last days. He was a righteous man who was not afraid of evil tidings (Psalm 112:7)

There were dominant truths that recurred in the prayers that I heard. In the midst of sickness and other concerns He prayed to his God in the confident knowledge that God was in control. The Lord knows the end from the beginning, but beyond that we know that the Lord is working out the end for His glory and the good of His people. He is in control of our illnesses and our adversities. It is the Lord who alone has the power to work “all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11). Rick served his country, knowing the experience of the gospel centurion: “For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it” (Matthew 8:9). But as a man of God he understood that he lived under the authority of a higher power.

For some the thought of God’s sovereign authority brings fear. Can this God be trusted? Is He good? Is He kind? As Rick prayed, I heard the conviction, founded on the Word of God and personal experience, that the sovereign God is good, kind and full of compassion. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psa.103:13). Rick prayed for himself, his family and others pleading for the God of all comfort to show his kindness and grace in their lives. He knew that the Lord, seated at the right hand of God, is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Hence, he knew to go boldly to the throne to ask for grace to help in time of need.

It’s so important to live well–serving Christ and others. But by the grace of God the child of God dies well. I’m thankful for the privilege of seeing the latter years of Col. Frederick Walker.

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*Note: this tribute was written as an editorial to be published in the October 2020 issue of Current Magazine. It is presented here with the permission of Dr. Pollock.