You know, waging war is so simple, but waging peace is really how we follow the Prince of Peace,

and it's relational and it's connected, and there's a place for every single person at the table right where they live.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology and Ra. My guest today is Diana Ostrich, who is an author, activist, and soldier-turned peacemaker. Diana served as a combat medic on the battlefield of the Iraq War, and she was awarded the Army Commendation Medal and Iraq Campaign Medal. She's a nationally

recognized speaker at the intersection of justice, peace, nonviolence, faith, and how everyday

peacemakers are changing our world. She's also the author of the book, Waging Peace,

One Soldier's Story of Putting Love First, which forms the backdrop of our conversation.

I met Diana just a few weeks ago. We spoke together back to back on stage at the Christ,

oh, sorry, church at the Crossroads conference back in September. And my talk came after hers,

unfortunately, because she actually crushed it, basically said the main things that I wanted to say.

But she was able to bring her testimony as a soldier into her talk.

And it was absolutely incredible.

And so was this really interesting conversation.

So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Diana Ostraight.

Diana, welcome to Theology in the Raw.

It's so good to see you again.

We hung out a couple of weeks ago at the time of this recording.

It was blown away by your talk at the conference that I had to follow, which I did

I was like, oh man, how do I follow this? But right when I heard your talk, I was like,

I need to have Diana on Theology and Ross. So give us a bit of background, specifically

who you are and tell us about your time in the military.

So I live in Minnesota on the shores of Lake Superior, which is a great lake. It's a bit of

a running Minnesota joke that we have the greatest lake. But I grew up in a really small

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