Astray: from Presidential Politics to Prison: One Gop National Delegate's Story of Faith

by Yantis Green

Overview

Yantis Green was the only National Delegate ordered by the FBI not to attend the 2012 Republican National Convention. Astray is his faith story of his rise to political prominence with an eye on higher office, his fall from grace as he struggled with personal demons and his salvation through faith. This book lays open with raw honesty the brutal, personal struggle between right and wrong; falling and failing, and finding redemption when all that remains is the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504341752
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	10/14/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	196
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Yantis Green cut his political teeth in the powerful backyard of the Bush family in West Texas. Midland is just down the road and in the same Congressional District as San Angelo where Green grew up. An award winning journalist and news anchor by the time he graduated from Angelo State University with a B.A. in Journalism in 1989, Green covered politics for over a decade. He turned from reporter to politician in the wake of the terror attacks on 9/11. He leveraged his contacts and name recognition to rise to national prominence by earning the No. one spot as a Republican National Convention delegate in two consecutive Presidential elections and won a highly contested election for County Commissioner with over 80% of the vote.

Green’s faith journey began seriously in college. He converted to Catholicism in 1989; attended a Cursillo in 2004 and had an audience with Pope John Paul II in Rome in October 2004, just five months before the pontiff passed away.

Green served nine months in Federal Prison for embezzlement and attended a Walk to Emmaus shortly after his release in 2014. He continues to be active in church as a Eucharistic Minister and continues to be active in politics.

Read an Excerpt

Astray: From Presidential Politics to Prison

One GOP National Delegate's Story of Faith

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By Yantis Green

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2015 Yantis D. Green
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-4174-5

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CHAPTER 1

Out of Options

'God! Oh God! What have I done?' I cried; silently, breathlessly as I sat cross-legged in that hot dry, isolated mesquite pasture. 'How could I have thrown it all away?' I prayed, as tears of sorrow and fear and hopelessness streamed down my face. I knew this was the end. I had driven around aimlessly all morning knowing I was out of time, out of options. I had to end it; this mess, this catastrophe; I had no choice. In one short conversation, my political career was over, my marriage was surely over; all my friends and family would abandon me; I was completely and totally alone with only a bullet between me and eternity.

My heart was pounding, my thoughts racing. I'd spent the morning drinking convenience store dark roast coffee driving aimlessly around west central Texas looking for advice and answers from silent, familiar and heartbreaking places. I drove past the home we built in Christoval; some 20 miles south of San Angelo. The single story ranch house looked the same as it did when we sold it seven years earlier. The five acre tract on the south side of the paved county road had been a pasture before we bought it. We built our dreams on that patch of ground; the boys grew up there. We wanted them to play and hunt and fish and swim and grow up with lifelong friends who shared the values we grew up with. When both of them had graduated from high school and moved out, we sold the only place we'd all called home and moved back to town. A mutual decision I eventually got used too.

As the miles ticked by that desperate morning my mind wandered to watching the boys drive that old three-wheeled golf cart for hours and hours around our place and up and down the county road. I drove down the mile or so to the end of the street and drove back by the old home place slow enough to see the livestock stalls and feed barn I had built behind the house, I noticed the trees we planted and how big and beautiful they are now.

Sadness gripped my throat as I headed back out to the highway. I knew that I was looking on the old home place for the last time. "If only," I thought through the tears, "If only we hadn't moved. If we'd just stayed there, none of this would be happening!"

I turned left onto US 277 from Bryka Lane and continued the quarter mile north back into downtown Christoval. I then turned right off the highway onto Main Street. As I crossed slowly over the century old bridge spanning the South Concho River, I looked down to the right at the causeway damming the water. The large brownish green pool of calm water was half choked with lily pads, sediment and other invasive aquatic plants. The concrete diversion dam was covered in pecan and oak saplings and was leaking from several places. It still diverted 18 cubic feet per second of water into the irrigation canal which feeds 28 or so tracts of prime riverside land along the river.

I left the river and passed City Park, turned left; went one block and turned right at the Christoval Baptist Church onto Toe Nail Trail.

Was it really just a few short years earlier I had boarded a corporate jet at Austin Bergstrum Airport and flown to Boston as part of Mitt and Ann Romney's first 'America's Calling?' Had I not been elected with almost 80% of the vote as County Commissioner just a few years earlier? Wasn't I the guy who talked to Presidents, Governors, statewide elected officials and wielded GOP state and national political party power as easily as smiling and nodding at the right time with the right people? Hadn't I been elected twice to the Republican National Convention as delegate number one from the 11th Congressional District of Texas? Hadn't I been in Midland when George W. and Laura Bush left for the White House on the blistering cold day in January 2001? Hadn't I been there again in Midland when they returned 8 years later aboard Air Force One as in flew down Main Street in Midland? Wasn't I the one who joined the Romney campaign early in '08? Wasn't I one of the key members of Texans for Mitt Romney in the '08 and '12 campaigns? How in the world did I throw it all away?

I drove past the quaint, white clapboard Baptist church on the corner. It had been there since the late 1800's and was now canopied by large, fruitful pecan trees. I didn't stop and pray; a mistake I'd made with regularity over the last several weeks and months. I'd turned away; hidden from the God who loved me. I thought my destiny lay elsewhere that day; even knowing my savior, my creator, my God would've heard me there as he had many times in the presence of wonderful, Godly friends, but I was just too confused and ashamed to stop. I was too ashamed to let him see me on that day knowing the blackness that was my purpose. So I drove on, thinking I was alone while Angels watched and worried over me; out past Pugh Park and the High School. I had served on that small town school board when the boys were in school and my name was on a brass plaque outside the cafeteria door. A legacy I stained that day. My thoughts spun around that plaque and a marble headstone I thought would bear the same name very soon. My eyes got misty as I drove out into the country on the isolated and empty hill country road.

I prayed and cried throughout the 45 minute trip to Ft. McKavett, or at least to the small tract of land on the San Saba River my family had owned years earlier. Mom & H.B. had purchased the oak and mesquite covered tract stretching from the caliche topped county road down three tiers of earth to the spring fed San Saba River. Miles from anywhere, the riverfront property had been an oasis of playing, fishing, bbqing and fun. It was a place of happiness and respite; relaxation for a decade; safe and fun. Happy. It was the family retreat until my older brother ended his life there in 1991. His suicide came after years of battling substance abuse. That was why I was there. I was looking for some sign from God; some intersession from the finality of the act I was within hours of committing; some avenue to comfort and forgiveness I couldn't see from here. Instead, I found weeds and dirt and dust and sun and heat. I drove on; disappointed and depressed and more desperate.

I turned the pickup back up onto highway 190 and headed east the 18 miles to Menard, recounting the events I had attended for the last time. My mind was a blur; I was confused and scared. Satan must of smiled watching my torment; waiting for my final mistake.

I was planning on driving through Menard, on to Brady and then to Richland Springs. The small San Saba County town where I had so many fond memories of my family's home place. It was also where the family cemetery plot is situated in the north east corner on the edge of town. My father was buried there, as was my older brother, grandparents, and one aunt. A 35-year-old red oak tree marked the edge of the family plot. I found it a place where time stood still somehow. A silent, peaceful place where pain and loss and confusion had been transformed into a constant and stable benchmark in time. I needed family; and there they were – stoic and non-judgmental – I didn't have to name my sins out loud; I didn't have to explain that I'd just thrown my life away.

I stopped at a convenience store in Menard on the northern outskirts of town. I used the restroom and got another cup of coffee; praying no one would recognize me. Hubris, arrogance and paranoia ruled my thoughts; I thought I was running out of time. Instead of heading east to Brady, I pointed my silver '04 Ford F150 north toward Eden in Concho County; one of my fleeting thoughts was that I didn't have time to drive to Richland and even if I did, the cemetery was too close to the school. The shot would be heard. I carried a Ruger LCP .380 in my left front jeans pocket. I had a concealed carry license for the OD green semiautomatic pistol with a crimson trace laser site. It was for self defense and recommended by law enforcement for all Texas elected officials who sit behind a bench, no matter the court. I didn't plan on using in to defend myself that day.

I was looking for a tree to sit under; to lean against for support. My scattered, desperate mind wanted to end my life with a bullet to the brain to stop the shame- the pain-the unworthiness that had finally come to the surface the day before. My shame became a demon driving me to run and hide from God.

For nine years, I had been manager of the Tom Green County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1 in eastern Tom Green County. The 50 year old district provided irrigation water to 10,000 acres of farm land. The board of Directors had hired me at the request of former County Commissioner and district manager Clayton Friend. Friend is an honest and Godly man and a fine public servant who Exemplifies the honor all public servants and elected officials should strive to achieve. He is one of the hundreds of people I let down. My job was to run all aspects of the district, but especially, to protect the water right no matter the cost. I took that charge literally. I was good at what I did. Unfortunately, I was also greedy and had very little oversight from a board of directors who trusted me. I betrayed them. I mistook my responsibility to include gaining political power at all costs to safeguard the district. I went overboard. That effort combined with my own personal political lust for power was my undoing.

Eight months earlier, the District's longtime outside auditor informed me and the board of directors that she was no longer going to provide auditing services for water districts. As I read her letter; my heart sank; I knew that for three years or so I'd been using the district's credit card with my name on it for personal purchases. I always meant to repay the district, but somehow it got out of hand. It was a tank of gas here, a lunch there. Then it became a hotel stay for a political fundraising trip to Boston. Then airfare to go see our son in the service on the east coast. To my former wife's credit; she asked me after every trip if I'd paid the district back for the air miles and if the board of directors knew about the purchase. I lied to her. And them. I told her that they were aware and I had paid for all of it. I lied. I lied. I lied. I lied to her; I lied to them; I lied to myself.

I knew a new auditor would find out that I hadn't been honest with the board about the credit card expenses. I knew I had no chance to repay all I'd taken and covered up.

I always meant to repay the money. I managed to repay a small part of it, but I knew I'd taken too much for too long.

At the previous day's board meeting, the new auditor spilled the beans about how the reports I had given her couldn't be accurate. The board gave her permission to confirm the false figures I provided her and them. I knew that she would make that call and my lies would be discovered. All I could think of was that I had panicked after the board meeting and ran away. I thought law enforcement authorities would be looking for me now and I would be arrested and thrown in jail and I couldn't handle that. I was scared. I was stupid. I didn't have the courage to tell anyone; especially my wife and family. I had no one to confide in; no one I could trust enough to tell the truth. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die before I had to face anyone; let alone face God. Satan calmly whispered his agreement into my panicked ears; "Yes, Yantis – you have no friends – no one will like you anymore; they really don't love you; you are abandoned, alone and the only way out is that pistol in your pocket." The King of Lies continued convincingly; "Run. Run now. Go away from family and Church and friends. Trust no one. They already know and they hate you!" He lied some more; "You don't have much time. Move fast and God won't notice you're gone." "Find a quiet place, out of the way where no one will hear the shot." "You won't feel a thing and all the pain will be over: nothing matters after the trigger pull." And then came the most egregious lie of all; "Your brother did it; he's waiting for you."

US 83 just south of Eden was under construction. The highway was reduced to one lane that morning and the contractor was escorting the lines of cars through the 2 mile construction zone alternating from southbound traffic to northbound. Those of us heading north stopped at the southern end of the construction zone and waited for our turn. We were stopped. I was so paranoid that I thought the DPS was looking for me. I thought I had no time. I was visible at this road construction mess. I had to get out of there. Satan was winning. I wrongly believed I was being hunted. Satan whispered that I had to find a hiding place soon. I had to disappear. I remember Satan's whispered words; nothing mattered after the trigger pull.

The line of cars cleared the construction zone and pulled into the city of Eden ... really? Eden. Looking back how much more clear could God's sign been? Eden ... as in the garden of ... the beginning of man ... the paradise we lost ... Eden on my trip to eternity? God is speaking louder that Satan.

I waited through the small town's lone signal light before turning west; left onto US 87 heading back to San Angelo. My mind raced more and more as I covered the 44 miles between Eden and San Angelo. I was confused; scared; the finality; the totality; the unconceivable damage I'd caused.

My Catholic Faith told me that suicide is a mortal sin. God forgives all sins if I'm truly sorry. All suicides go straight to hell –No, all things are possible with God; this went on over and over the entire agonizing drive back to San Angelo.

It was about 11 am when I crossed over the Tom Green County line heading west out of Concho County. It was a clear, hot sunny July morning. My thoughts drifted, as they always did when I crossed into Tom Green County, back to my father's poetry. Before his premature death, he was a writer and poet like his father before him and his second son, who was now headed for self destruction. Dad wrote a poem entitled "Crossing the Tom Green County Line." He'd written it after one of many trips to Houston's M.D. Anderson Medical Center for radiation and chemotherapy treatments for his non-Hodgkins's lymphoma. The treatment killed him in August of '79. The radiation burned his throat so badly he couldn't swallow. At 16-years-old, I watched him wither away and die. He was 39.

I pulled the F150 off US87 onto loop 306 just outside San Angelo heading west toward Big Spring. I followed the loop around to Arden road. Exiting right, I turned back west under the overpass heading toward FM 2288. The farm to market highway meandered around the San Angelo State Park and O.C. Fisher reservoir. I was headed to Dry Creek Park. Dry Creek is a mile south of the community of Grape Creek where I grew up. My brothers and our friends practically lived in the then seldom used park along the north Concho River a few miles upstream from O.C. Fisher dam. It was a secluded place from my childhood where I had years of good memories; safe memories. It felt like home. I was driving there heading for a familiar bend in the river where a gigantic pecan tree stood as sentry to a large pool of clear running water. It was one of our favorite childhood swimming holes. One visit to that particular swimming hole stands out. When I was about 14, I found a Sul Ross State University senior ring in among the polished river rocks at the edge of the water. I thought how important a senior ring would be to me, and I wanted to get it back to its owner. My parents, after much persuasion, put an ad in the lost and found section of the newspaper. No one ever responded, so we eventually pawned the ring for $25. I remember being a bit sad about not being able to return that ring to its rightful owner. I wonder if I did the right thing.

That swimming hole was also one of only two in the park I remember my dad swimming in with us. He was weak, but loved the outdoors and us. He was quiet; but I could tell he liked that place.

As I drove across the bridge over the North Concho, I looked down and the off to the right and was disappointed by both views. The river bed was dry; not a drop of water remained. My heard sank lower as I saw the once lonely, isolated entrance now was a manned gateway into the north Shore of the State Park. I went past the entrance and turned around in Grape Creek. I crossed back over the bridge, this time heading south. I sank deeper into depression. My plans were being thwarted at every turn. God has a way of shutting doors where we don't need to be; stopping us from going where we don't need to go; leading our actions to fit his plans. In my paranoia, I thought my window was closing and I'd be caught and arrested at any moment.

About four miles down FM 2288 I pulled left into a park and walk entrance. It looked seldom used and deserted at the time. I cut off the engine and sat there for a few seconds trying to gather my thoughts.

I couldn't.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Astray: From Presidential Politics to Prison by Yantis Green. Copyright © 2015 Yantis D. Green. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Prologue, ix,
PART I, 1,
Chapter I – Out of Options, 3,
Chapter II – Viaticum, 13,
Chapter III – After the Trigger Pull, 18,
Chapter IV – Getting into Politics, 21,
Chapter V – Telling the Truth, 26,
Chapter VI – Waiting for the end of Freedom, 30,
Chapter VII – Unanswered Questions in the Media Storm, 33,
Chapter VIII – How does a faith journey begin that's strong enough to stop a bullet?, 37,
Chapter IX – The Housley Effect, 43,
Chapter X – Mitt, McCain & the Media, 45,
Chapter XI – Hooter's Girls and the Tonight Show, 48,
PHOTO SECTION, 53,
PART II – ASTRAY: MEN IN CAPTIVITY, 59,
Going to Prison, 63,
April 5 2013 – Release Date Meeting, 79,
May 6, 2013 – Stockholm Syndrome, 88,
June 2, 2013 – Bad dog news from home, 97,
July 2, 2013 – Bishop Pfeifer's Friendship, 111,
August 4, 2013 – Oden, Thor and K2, 122,
September 1, 2013 – The Blessings of My Incarceration, 139,
October 6, 2013 – Endeavoring to Persevere, 157,
November 3, 2013 – The End is Near, 170,
December 3, 2013 – Leaving Captivity, 175,
The Final Chapter, 177,
About the Author, 183,