The Sheepdog Mindset: Lt. Col. Dave Grossman on Spiritual Combat

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman dropped out of high school at 17 and went to work on a wildcat oil rig in the panhandle of Nebraska. Bitter cold, 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. He enlisted in the Army at 18. Over the decades that followed, he became a paratrooper, an OCS graduate, an Army Ranger, a West Point psychology professor, and the author of 16 books, including the Pulitzer-nominated “On Killing,” which has sold nearly a million copies in five languages.

But when Grossman sits down with Jeremy Stalnecker on the March or Die podcast, the conversation doesn’t stay on combat. It goes deeper. Into spiritual warfare, the discipline of fasting, the epidemic of sleep deprivation, and a concept Grossman introduced decades ago that has defined how an entire generation of warriors sees themselves: the sheepdog.

The Sheepdog Goes Deeper Than You Think

Grossman holds the U.S. government trademark for the term “sheepdog.” A Vietnam veteran first said the words to him: “I’m the sheepdog. I protect the flock.” Grossman ran with it, and the concept has shaped military, law enforcement, and first responder culture ever since.

But in this conversation, Grossman pushes the idea further. The sheepdog mindset doesn’t require a badge, a gun, or a uniform. It requires a willingness to have your head up when everyone else has theirs bowed. To be alert when the flock is at rest. To dedicate yourself to the protection of others as a way of life.

And then the final step: becoming God’s faithful sheepdog.

“I just want to be God’s faithful sheepdog and rest at the feet of the great shepherd one day and hear those words one time: well done, good and faithful servant,” Grossman says.

He compares the relationship to his own service dog, Charlie, a 10-pound dog who thinks he’s a fierce canine. Charlie doesn’t understand most of what Grossman does. That’s about how much we understand God. But what God asks is simple: love Him and obey Him to the best of our ability. And when the enemy shows up, the response is clear. “You look him in the eye and you tell him: I’m not your dog.”

Prayer Is the Radio

Grossman draws a parallel that every veteran will understand. An infantry officer in combat carries what’s on his back, and that’s not much. But he gets on the radio and calls medevac, calls artillery, calls air strikes, calls resupply, and maneuvers his elements with support from above.

Prayer is the radio.

“The ultimate weapon in spiritual combat is prayer,” Grossman states. He walks through Ephesians 6, the armor of God passage, and points to what comes at the end of the list: pray ceaselessly in the spirit. The final piece of equipment. The most powerful weapon a believer carries.

He tells the story of church security teams where aging warriors, whose aim is no longer true and whose hands are shaky, get moved to the highest responsibility on the team. Their job: put their back to the wall and start praying with their eyes open. That is leveling up, not stepping down.

Jeremy reinforces the point: “Ask the guy with the gun whether he’d rather be carrying the gun or standing with his back against the wall praying. He’d rather be the guy with the gun. Because it’s so much harder to step into the presence of God and pray on behalf of other people.”

The Quiet Professional at Home

One of the most pointed moments in the conversation comes when Grossman addresses a pattern he has seen across decades of training warriors.

“At work, we’re the quiet professional. We don’t lose it. And we go home and we lose it,” he says. A fighter pilot once told him he was calm and collected in the cockpit but fell apart with his family. Grossman’s response was direct: “If you can be calm at work, is it really that much harder to be calm at home?”

Nobody told these warriors that being the quiet professional at work and the quiet professional at home is the same discipline. The same self-control. The same battle.

Grossman has been married for 50 years. He doesn’t pretend to have it figured out. “I still fall short,” he admits. “We pick up the pieces and we pray for each other. We do a better job the next day.”

The episode covers more ground than a single article can hold: Grossman’s work on post-traumatic growth versus PTSD, the global sleep deprivation epidemic and its role in suicide, and the discipline of fasting as both physical preparation and spiritual weapon. All of it points back to the same foundation.

God, family, country. In that order.