William Gerald "Jerry" Boykin (born April 19, 1948) is a retired American lieutenant general who was the United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2007. During his 36-year career in the military he spent 13 years in the Delta Force and was involved in numerous high-profile missions, including the 1980 Iran hostage rescue attempt, the 1992 hunt for Pablo Escobar in Colombia, and the Black Hawk Down incident in Mogadishu, Somalia. He is an author and visiting professor at Hampden–Sydney College, Virginia. He is currently executive vice president at the Family Research Council. Early life William Gerald "Jerry" Boykin was born on April 19, 1948, in Wilson, North Carolina. He attended New Bern high school and was the captain of the football team. He graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) with a bachelor's degree in English in 1971. Military career As a young officer, he served in the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas; with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, and as a company commander in the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Fort Stewart, Georgia. In 1978, at age 29, Boykin volunteered for and completed a specialized selection course for assignment to the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, or Delta Force. He would hold numerous leadership positions in the elite unit, including operations officer, troop commander, squadron commander, deputy commander and finally unit commander from July 1992 to July 1994. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis H. "Bucky" Burruss, who helped with Delta Force selection in early 1978, recalled that Boykin "had a bad knee and I thought he would never make it....I thought, I hate to see this guy busting his [butt], I don't see how he can make it on this bad road wheel, but he surprised us." Burruss wrote at the time that "Jerry Boykin is a Christian gentleman of the highest order." Boykin believed God had a hand in things: "God led me into the Delta Force....And He said to me, 'This is where you ought to be.'" In 1980, he was the Delta Force operations officer on the April 24–25 Iranian hostage rescue attempt. Boykin called it "the greatest disappointment of my professional career because we didn't bring home 53 Americans." Despite this, his "faith was strengthened" believing he had witnessed "a miracle": "Not one man who stood with us in