The Bulletproof Colonel: George Washington, Providence, and the Responsibility of Preservation
At the Battle of Monongahela in 1755, a 23-year-old George Washington rode through a collapsing battlefield as two horses were shot beneath him and four bullets passed through his coat. Dr. Perry Greene looks beyond the drama of that escape to a harder question: What responsibility follows when a life—or a nation—is preserved?
Dr. Perry Greene opens “The Bulletproof Colonel” far from the battlefield. A storm sweeps across the Great Plains and catches a group of travelers miles from shelter. Wind presses the grass flat. Lightning divides the sky. Rain falls so heavily that the road disappears. One young father later describes the realization that came to him in the worst of it: there are moments when survival itself feels borrowed.
That image establishes the theme of the message. Human skill, preparation, and courage matter, but danger can expose how limited human control really is. Some people walk away from a crisis knowing that their own ability does not fully explain why they survived. Dr. Greene notes that history contains moments like these—moments so extraordinary that later generations pause and ask whether Providence preserved a life because its purpose was not yet complete.
He turns to 1755 and the Battle of Monongahela, often called Braddock’s Defeat. The battle took place during the French and Indian War near present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. British General Edward Braddock led nearly 1,300 troops through the wilderness in an attempt to capture Fort Duquesne. George Washington, only 23 years old, served as one of Braddock’s aides.
Washington had not yet become the commander of the Continental Army or the first president of the United States. In this scene, he was a young officer serving under a British general in a dangerous military campaign. That detail matters because Dr. Greene is looking back at a life whose later significance was not yet visible to those on the battlefield.
French forces and their Native American allies struck from the forest. The British and American troops struggled to identify where the fire was coming from. The formation broke down. Officers fell from their horses, soldiers panicked, and the battlefield filled with confusion. General Braddock was mortally wounded, leaving Washington as the only remaining ranking officer described in the episode.
Washington rode through the fighting carrying orders and trying to rally the troops. He was not observing the danger from a protected position. He crossed a battlefield where officers were being targeted and where the opposing forces could fire from concealment. Two horses were shot out from under him. Four bullet holes pierced his coat. Washington himself was not wounded.
The physical evidence made his survival difficult to dismiss as an ordinary escape. His coat had been struck repeatedly. The horses carrying him had fallen. Men around him had been killed or wounded. Yet he left the battle alive.
Dr. Greene also recounts a report from years later in which a Native American chief told Washington that warriors had deliberately targeted the young officer. According to that report, they fired at him seventeen times and could not bring him down. The chief reportedly concluded, “The Great Spirit protects that man and guides his destinies.” Dr. Greene presents the account with the appropriate qualification: it was reportedly said years after the battle. Its place in the message is not to erase the fog surrounding historical recollection, but to show how unusual Washington’s survival appeared even to those said to have been firing at him.
Washington’s own response is central to Dr. Greene’s argument. In a letter to his brother, Washington wrote, “By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation.” He did not describe himself as indestructible. He did not credit superior nerve, horsemanship, or military skill as a complete explanation. He spoke of Providence and acknowledged that his preservation exceeded what he believed human probability could explain.
That distinction keeps the story from becoming a celebration of personal invincibility. The title “The Bulletproof Colonel” may sound as though Washington possessed some extraordinary power of his own, but the details point in the opposite direction. He was exposed. His horses could be killed. His clothing could be pierced. The battle showed his vulnerability as clearly as it showed his survival. Dr. Greene directs attention away from the myth of a self-made hero and toward the humility of a man who believed his life had been spared by a hand greater than his own.
Dr. Greene frames that belief through Scripture. Psalm 31:15 declares, “My times are in your hand.” Daniel 2:21 describes God as the One who “removes kings and sets up kings.” These passages support the message’s larger claim that history is not governed by blind fate. In Dr. Greene’s words, “The Bible never teaches blind fate, it teaches divine sovereignty.”
He then points to biblical lives marked by preservation. Moses survived Pharaoh’s slaughter. David survived Saul’s pursuit. Paul survived deprivation, shipwrecks, imprisonment, and stoning. Dr. Greene’s emphasis is that their survival was not disconnected from their calling. Their stories were still being written, and work remained for them to do.
The connection to Washington is not that every detail of his future could have been seen in 1755. No one on that battlefield could have watched the young aide ride through the smoke and known the full role he would later play. The point is that a preserved life may carry an unfinished assignment. Washington’s later importance makes the earlier escape especially striking when viewed from the distance of history.
Dr. Greene brings that idea close to the listener. Many people can identify moments they believe they should not have survived. The danger may have taken the form of an accident, illness, violence, disaster, or another crisis that exposed the thin line between life and death. At the time, the reason for survival may not have been clear. Looking back, however, some begin to recognize what Dr. Greene calls traces of God’s hand.
The message does not leave preservation as a comforting memory. It attaches responsibility to it. “If God preserves a life, there’s a purpose and accountability attached to it,” Dr. Greene says. Being spared is not presented as permission to drift into comfort, pride, or passivity. Preservation raises a question: What is the preserved life now responsible to do?
Dr. Greene answers with a practical contrast. He calls listeners to live with gratitude instead of arrogance, stewardship instead of complacency, and faith instead of fear. Each contrast addresses a different danger.
Gratitude recognizes that life and opportunity are gifts rather than personal achievements. Arrogance treats survival and success as proof of self-sufficiency. Stewardship asks how a preserved life, a position of influence, or a season of freedom should be used. Complacency assumes that what has been received will continue without care. Faith moves forward under God’s rule. Fear allows danger to become the final authority over a person’s choices.
The same principle becomes national in scope. Dr. Greene argues that free nations survive only when people recognize that liberty is not self-created. Political institutions, military strength, and civic effort have their place, but liberty cannot be safely separated from humility before God and responsible stewardship of His blessings.
To develop that point, Dr. Greene recalls Washington’s first inaugural address and its warning not to forget “the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men.” Washington’s language linked national life with Providence. The warning was not merely to remember a religious phrase. It was to resist the pride that comes when a people begin to treat themselves as the sole authors of their success.
“A nation that forgets providence soon begins worshiping its own power,” Dr. Greene warns. That is a moral danger as much as a political one. Once a nation sees strength as self-generated and self-justifying, its achievements can become objects of devotion. Pride then obscures the moral foundations that sustain liberty.
In Dr. Greene’s framing, Providence is not a claim of American superiority. He speaks more cautiously. Perhaps America has survived many dangers not because it is stronger than other nations, but because God in His mercy has continued to give it opportunities to repent, rebuild virtue, and return to Him. The wording matters. Survival is treated as mercy and opportunity, not as proof that a nation can do no wrong.
Repentance acknowledges failure rather than hiding it behind national pride. Rebuilding virtue requires more than admiration for the past; it calls for moral responsibility in the present. Returning to God means recognizing that liberty depends on more than human power. Dr. Greene’s national application follows the same pattern as his personal one: preservation carries accountability.
That accountability also keeps the doctrine of Providence from becoming passive. Belief in God’s sovereignty is not presented as a reason to ignore duty or wait for events to unfold. Washington rode through the battlefield, carried orders, and rallied troops. The biblical figures Dr. Greene names continued in their assignments after danger. Providence and human responsibility are not treated as competitors in the message. The recognition that God preserves gives greater weight to the work that follows.
For individuals, the question becomes direct. A person who believes he or she has been preserved for more than comfort must consider where faith, courage, and witness are needed. Dr. Greene tells listeners that they are here for a reason and that their faith, courage, and witness matter. He does not reduce purpose to fame, public office, or a dramatic historical role. The emphasis is on faithfulness with the life and opportunity a person has received.
This also changes the way past danger is remembered. A survival story can become a monument to fear, leaving a person permanently governed by what almost happened. Dr. Greene offers another way to remember it. The event can become a source of gratitude and a call to faithful action. The question is not only, “Why did this happen?” It is also, “How should a preserved life now be lived?”
The episode closes with a specific challenge for the next 24 hours: ask God to direct each person in His purposes. That prayer is meant to lead into action. Gratitude should replace arrogance. Stewardship should replace complacency. Faith should replace fear.
Washington’s escape at Monongahela remains memorable because the danger was unmistakable. Two horses fell beneath him. Four bullets passed through his coat. The army around him was collapsing. He survived and later described that survival as protection beyond human probability or expectation.
Dr. Greene’s message asks readers not to stop at amazement. The preserved life is accountable for what comes next. The preserved nation is accountable for how it uses another opportunity. Providence is not confined to a distant battlefield or a chapter of early American history. It is, as Dr. Greene says, “not merely a doctrine of the past, it’s a present reality.”
TL;DR
Dr. Perry Greene uses the 1755 Battle of Monongahela to examine the relationship between survival, Providence, and purpose.
George Washington, then a 23-year-old aide to General Edward Braddock, rode through a chaotic battlefield carrying orders and rallying troops.
Two horses were shot out from under Washington, and four bullets pierced his coat, yet he was not wounded.
A Native American chief reportedly later said that warriors had targeted Washington repeatedly and concluded that a greater power protected him.
Washington credited his survival to “the all-powerful dispensations of Providence,” not merely to his own ability.
Dr. Greene connects the event to Psalm 31:15, Daniel 2:21, and biblical examples of people whose lives were preserved while their work remained unfinished.
The message’s central application is that preservation carries responsibility, purpose, and accountability.
Individuals are encouraged to choose gratitude over arrogance, stewardship over complacency, and faith over fear.
Nations must also resist pride; Dr. Greene argues that liberty is not self-created and must be stewarded with humility before God.
America’s survival should be viewed as an opportunity to repent, rebuild virtue, and return to God—not as proof of national superiority.
Discussion and Reflection
Discussion Questions
Why does Dr. Greene begin with the story of travelers caught in a Great Plains storm before turning to George Washington?
How does Washington’s own description of his survival differ from a story that simply presents him as lucky, skilled, or invincible?
What does the phrase “preservation carries responsibility” mean for a person who believes God has brought him or her through danger?
How do gratitude, stewardship, and faith challenge arrogance, complacency, and fear?
Why is it important to view national preservation as mercy and opportunity rather than as evidence of superiority?
Apply It This Week
Identify one moment in life that now looks different when viewed through the lens of gratitude and Providence. Write down what that moment calls for today.
During the next 24 hours, ask God to direct the purposes attached to the life, opportunities, and influence He has given.
Examine one area where complacency has replaced stewardship. Choose one concrete act of responsibility in that area.
Name one decision currently being driven by fear, and consider what a faithful response would look like.
Prayer Prompt
Ask God to reveal where His preservation and mercy call for greater gratitude, faithful stewardship, courage, repentance, and witness.