About

United States Navy CAPT Steve Mills retired in 2023 with just over 32 years of active duty service. 

At the age of 5, he was stricken with Leggs-Perthes disease in both hips.  He was in a wheelchair until the age of 10 allowing time for the hip ball joints to grow back.  In Junior High School and High School he was quite active and played a variety of sports and not to be held back, later in life he completed 6 marathons, 25 half marathons and numerous adventure races to include a 199 mile relay race from Mt Hood in Oregon to Seaside, Oregon along with Mountain Survival Training in the Sierra Nevada mountain range while assigned to a United States Marine Corps unit. 

He enlisted in the United States Air Force in Sep 1984 and was assigned as a FireFighter.  He was honorably discharged in 1995 and pursued a Masters of Divinity at Midwestern Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, MO.  He graduated seminary in 1998 and began pastoring Waverly Baptist Church in Waverly, MO.  He was contacted by the United States Navy and was commissioned as a Navy Chaplain in June 2001  His deployments ranged from South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain and the Arabian Gulf. 

Steve brings a unique perspective into the difficulties of combat stress and PTSD as he experiences anxiety and panic attacks from his time downrange. In June 2009, he completed his doctoral work into Psalm 23 and gained insight in that even though one walks through the valley of deepest darkness, a sense of togetherness brings hope to those struggling.  He desires that no one walks through the darkness alone.