Secretary of War Pete Hegseth led a Pentagon prayer service Wednesday with an adapted version of a fictitious Bible verse made famous by Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.”
Hegseth said the prayer was recited before the daring Sandy 1 rescue of a downed pilot in Iran, and asked the assembled crowd to join him in the invocation.
“This prayer was recited by Sandy 1, which is one of the Sandies, to all Sandies, all those A-10 crews, prior to all CSAR missions, but especially this CSAR mission, which happened in real time,” Hegseth said.
“They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” he added, acknowledging the famous scene from the Oscar-winning movie in which Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield delivers the purported bible verse before opening fire on a group of men who had betrayed his boss.
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“So the prayer is CSAR 25:17 and it reads, and pray with me please, ‘The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children,” he recited.
“And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.”
Though not identical to the recitation in Pulp Fiction, it has enough verses in common that it’s unmistakably derived from the movie, which padded the real Ezekiel 25:17 verse from the King James bible for dramatic effect.
The real scripture reads, “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”
Jackson’s version, meanwhile, was read as follows:
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.”
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
Jackson received an Oscar nomination for his role in the seminal 1994 film.
Tarantino, who is well-known for borrowing from other filmmakers, himself cribbed the verse from the 1976 martial arts movie “Bodyguard Kiba,” starring legendary Japanese actor Sonny Chiba, who eventually appeared in the director’s 2003 film “Kill Bill: Volume 1.”
