Unlock Your Prison of Misery with Steve Watt

Welcome to the Victorious Living Podcast. You are about to hear real stories of real people who have discovered the real hope of Jesus Christ. I am Christi Overton Johnson, the founder and publisher of Victorious Living Magazine. Since 2011 I have had the privilege of sharing the most amazing life stories. I never cease to be amazed at the life transforming power of Jesus Christ. Today in our podcast you are going to go deeper into these amazing God stories and hear from those who have overcome incredible odds and discover how they found a life of freedom. You can discover it too. I trust that you will enjoy today's conversation between our host and our special guest. Thank you for listening and be sure to share the hope you hear and the mission of Victorious Living. Hi, I am Randy Claypool with Victorious Living. I am privileged to have Steve Watt with us today. Steve has an article in our magazine that goes out to the incarcerated and even to some folks outside the wall all over the United States and some additional places. Steve, it is great to have you here today. So you were, were you called a police officer or what was your actual title? Because I know in different states they call them different things. Yeah, I was a Wyoming highway patrolman back then. Now they are called Wyoming state troopers. I prefer state trooper, but we were called patrolmen back then. I have never been to Wyoming. I understand it is a beautiful place and then you live in Colorado, so I mean you are like, you are like in mountain country. Yeah, yeah. Wyoming is wide open spaces, rugged, not a lot of people. Colorado is a real culture shock. I live in a suburb of Denver. Too many people for this ranch boy. So, I mean, stepping aside from the highway patrol aspect, if I ask you, do you see a lot of wildlife, I am really meaning like animals and such, do you, do you see that on a regular basis living out there? In Wyoming, yeah. You see deer, elk, antelope, wild mustangs, you know, in certain areas you will see moose, there is some buffalo that are running, free roamers. Here in Colorado, you know, I see a fox running up and down my street once in a while. I grew up in Pennsylvania, so, and even other places, we were always careful to be watching for deer. But last year, I went up to New Hampshire with Christy Overton Johnson and Sheridan Correa, and gosh, I am saying her name wrong, Sheridan, so she will forgive me. But when we were leaving the last prison, man, it was way up there in the north. The chaplain said, now listen, watch out for a moose. Now, see, I know what it is like to hit a deer. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be slamming into a moose. That would not be

pretty. No, it is horrible. A moose is so long-legged that they do not hit the, you know, their body does not hit the front of the car and bounce off to the side. The legs come out from under them and the body comes through the windshield. Wow, yeah, that is not good. Horses are the same way. I was visiting with you a little earlier, just talking about today, and we agreed to take a break and fix our hair and stuff. I see you did a really good job with yours. Yeah, oh yeah, I have so much of it to style. Hey, brother, listen, it is great to have you today. So, you were a highway patrolman, right? Right. And I am saying that right. And how many years did you do that? Well, I joined in 1979 and was shot in 1982, made it nine months, ten months after that. I retired in 1983. So, I was not in the patrol very long. So, being in law enforcement like that, had there been, I mean, like, did you deal with gunfire or danger? What kind of dangers were normal for every day for your life? It really was not very dangerous. Wyoming people, they are pretty laid back. You know, everybody has got a gun in their car. You do not even think about the gun, because It's just there. So it was, you know, once in a while you'd get a stolen car or someone that was wanted for a violent crime. Interstate 80 running through Wyoming is a major, major highway. And so there's junk out there, there's drugs out there, there's, you know, you can pick up a bad person once in a while but majority of the time you are helping people, investigating accidents and enforcing the traffic laws. I mean, so for the most part, you found a kind of a comfort zone. I would imagine there's a point where you're always staying sharp but you didn't feel like your life was in danger every moment you went out there.

No, in fact, there'd only been one trooper that had ever been shot in the line of duty. And that was like in 45 years. I was the second trooper or patrolman that was shot in a 50 year span time of history of the Wyoming Highway Patrol. So I wasn't number one, but I was number two. So on this particular day of your story, if I remember correctly, you were not on duty. I was scheduled to be on duty in the afternoon from three to 11, but I switched shifts with another trooper and came on duty at seven to three. So you hear a call over the radio looking for a particular color car, a bank had been robbed and you decide, I'm gonna go see if I can find that car. Right, I was scheduled to go to a funeral that day. A city officer's son had died. And so I was gonna go to that funeral. And when I went looking for the bank robber, I had a half an hour, maybe 45 minutes to kill before I had to head for the funeral. So I went looking for him. I come across a little brown car, compact. The driver fit the description, but the description was so general that I even fit the description. I was looking for a red sports car and here was a little brown compact. And I decided to ask him if he had seen the bank robber. And when I pulled him over, I found the bank robber.

Wow. So you turned your lights on, little siren, just to get the car to pull over and the car pulled over. Yeah, fast. He slammed on his brakes. So I was slamming on my brakes trying to get my car into park. And he was coming out of his door at the same time. And so I threw my door open because you never wanted someone to be out of their car and you still in yours. Well, I didn't even make it. He fired two shots into the windshield and one round came through the windshield and hit me in the left eye. And then the second round, ricocheted off the windshield right around the mirror. So lean a little forward and tilt your head for me. So you have no left eye. Yeah. It's gone. It's gone. Yeah, totally gone. I used to wear a prosthetic eye, but it was so aggravating, smoke, dust, perfume. It was dry all the time, only have one tear duct. And when I reached a stage in my life where I didn't have to look real pretty, I just quit wearing them. I won't wear one now.

Well, I'm not gonna touch on whether you're good looking or not. We're not gonna go there. I'll just, I'll let your wife. I know it. I'll let your wife take care of that. Oh gosh. I am, I read your story and I'm just, I was just blown away by it. So I wanna ask you some questions. I definitely don't wanna get political, okay? Okay, I won't promise. But you wanted to be a highway patrolman. That was something you wanted like from a young age? Oh yeah, from ever since I was six, seven, eight years old, we drove past an accident. There was a highway patrol car there, huge bubble lights they had back then. And that guy was, he was 10 foot tall and had on the coolest uniform and he had a gun. It must've been that big. It was huge. And I'm going, man, that is so cool. That's what I want. And I always kept that in my mind. So did you like have neighborhood kids or friends? You guys, growing up, we used to play cops and robbers, you know, and that, but I lived in a small neighborhood kind of. in the country and we'd have fun chasing each other and hiding.

And, and, uh, so I guess that kind of thing was a part of your life. I mean, you were really looking forward to this. Yeah. Well, we didn't have the neighbor. We lived, uh, 40 miles out in the country. I grew up on a cattle ranch. Uh, but you know, recess at school and that, yeah, I, I, I'd always volunteered to be the cop. So you pull this guy over, you think you're, you're just planning to like say, Hey, did you happen to see this other, other colored car? Yeah. And like all of a sudden just boom, boom, boom. Literally. I mean, he's out, he's shooting at you. Did you feel anything when that happened? Um, yeah, it felt like a hot rod was stuck in my eye. Stuck in my eye. Um, it went to the back of my eye socket, broke out the back of my eye socket. No bone fragments penetrated my brain. Uh, the bullet stopped a 16th of an inch from my stance. Uh, no, uh, the thickness of a piece of paper from my eye or my brain. And I fell over in the front seat and, and screamed over my radio. I'd been shot. I'd been shot. In the meantime, he come back and my door was open and he leaned in and then he shot me four times in the left lower back. What kind of damage did that do? Well, uh, one bullet, uh, hit me in the spine and stopped a 16th of an inch from my spinal cord. Um, one bullet went clean through me and, uh, put a, um, hit me in the liver,

missed the major blood vessel in my liver by a quarter of an inch. And, and it ended up stopping right underneath my right rib, the bottom one, and then the other two bullets bounced around and, and ripped everything up inside the bowel, the, you know, the intestines, the stomach. So, okay. You're getting shot at here. I'm laying in my car on the front seat. Did you get any shots off? Uh, yeah, I did. Uh, he leaned in my car and grabbed my radar unit off the dashboard and threw it out in the middle of the highway, thinking he was disabling my radio. And then he, he started running back to his car and I got out of my car and I went to the front fender and I'm screaming at him to stop, um, you know, to surrender, he gets in his car and, and I'm thinking to myself, you can only shoot in self-defense and he has his back to me, uh, running to get into his car so I couldn't shoot him, uh, at that point in time, and then he gets in his car and I'm thinking to myself, you can only shoot in self-defense and he's not trying to leave the area yet, so you can't shoot him. And when his car moved, I went, aha. And, uh, I started shooting and my first bullet hit that little metal bar in the right in the center of the back of his head and ricocheted down and hit him in the left shoulder, knocked him forward to the right out of the way of the next five bullets, which would hit him in the chest cavity. So you shot how many times? Six times. My first bullet saved his life. Uh, so yeah, I was going to say, so if it didn't hit that bar, I would have blown his head off. Wow. What's his name by the way?

Yeah, but what's his name? What's that? What's his name? His name is Mark Corbett. Mark Corbett. We're going to meet him later today and, uh, get his perspective to, um, this, this is just to me, just such an amazing story. Um, so he left, he, he, he shot, he left and then help came. Yeah. Um, I got back into my car and, and screamed again that I'd been shot and I needed help. And then I started for the front of my car or the trunk of my car to get compresses out of my first aid kit. And I laid down right next to my car. I'm laying on my left side. I'm facing the car and I'm looking at the exhaust pipe and my car's running and I'm sucking in exhaust and I remember saying a prayer. I wasn't a Christian at this time. Um, I was agnostic, I guess you'd say, and I believe there was a God maybe. Um, but I, I had no relationship with God or Christ. I said a prayer. I said, God, um, if I'm going to die, take care of my wife. Um, please help me. And he sent a, sent a truck driver and he come running up and said, what can I do? And I said, well, turn off my car before it kills me. So he turned off my car, tried to get my. First aid kit, another, another patrolman arrived at that point in time and started doing, um, first aid. Oh, you must've had some serious adrenaline pumping. I mean, you go down the list of things that you mentioned that were damaged.

I can't even imagine that you were moving at that point. And to also recognize that you did the shooting after you were shot. So that's just pretty amazing. That's, uh, maybe you should go on one of them survival shows. No, thank you. No, thank you. I'll go, I'd go on there to pray for all the contestants, but so kind of fast forwarding a little bit, something really big happened. And, uh, you clearly felt was some anger, some depression, I'm sure. The whole thing of going over, you know, having to live life, dealing with this physical, physical situation. I mean, even though you survived, this one on and on and on really disrupted your life. And, and, and did you feel anger towards him? Oh, I was so angry, so hateful, so bitter. Um, there was nothing good in my life. Uh, no joy, nothing. Um, and, uh, go down, go down. I'm sorry. That's Sam. We want to, we don't get to see him yet, but this is your, this is your special dog, Sam. So yeah, he, he's, uh, sensing something's going on and he's right there ready to take care of you, isn't he? He, yeah. And, um, I didn't, I didn't want him to come up and take care of that, but he may, he may get to the point where he goes, I'm not going to listen to you. Do you need me? And what if I was like to whistle and call his name? Would he like jump up or anything?

Give you a big old lick? No, no. Um, he'll, he'll, he'll stay there. He does act on his own when he, when he senses my brain seriously out of whack. Or if, if I want him to do something with my brain, I can, I can say pause and he'll come up on me. That's that's really, really special. So, you know, Steve, let's get back to the deep anger. And so this went on, how long did this go on before you saw it? I was, I was so, so bitter. Uh, even though they let me try to go back out on the streets, once I got an artificial, I, I just couldn't get over it. I, um, and, and my wife who was an, uh, atheist, she started, had a chaplain start riding with her and he witnessed to her and one night while her, we were in bed, she got saved. I didn't even know it. There was no bolt of lightning, nothing, you know, there should be. God needs to put a little dramatic fireworks in this anyways. Um, I quit the highway patrol or retired and found a job in another part of the state and I, I drove down to rock Springs to get her and, uh, take her to our new home. And we were driving around rock Springs and she said, you know, uh, I was baptized this morning. She never told me that. She says, I've, I've been saved. And I said, well, that's neat. Maybe I need to be baptized. And she said, hold on a second. There's a little more to it than being dumped in the water. So we went to the chaplain's house and he witnessed to me, he told me about, uh, I

was a sinner and I needed saved. And, uh, it all made sense. It all fell into place. And, and I got on my knees and I accepted Christ right there in his kitchen. Now it's supposed to be all roses, rose petals and happy trails, bunny rabbits. And, you know, it wasn't, I still hated that man so bad. Um, I had no, no joy, no nothing. And, and, uh, I called the chaplain. I said, what's wrong with me? My wife has joy. She's does reads the Bible, goes to Bible studies. And I, I, I don't want to. And he goes, have you forgiven the man that shot you? And I said, of course I have. And he said, no, you haven't. You're a liar. And, um, I hung up on him. And a little while later, I called him, uh, uh, a few days later, I called him and said, what do I need to do? And he says, why don't you write the guy that shot you a letter? And she's like, let me stop you right there. I want to ask you, I want to ask you a question when you said to him, yes, I have forgiven him, were you really just, yeah, I forgave him. I mean, did you really, at that point, you. really hadn't forgiven. Oh, I hadn't. It was more of an internal thing between you and God, whether or not you had forgiven him. I paid lip service to it. You know, when you become a Christian,

you automatically, there's forgiveness granted and all of that stuff. No, that's not part of the roses and bunny rabbits along the path, you know? Yeah, so I just paid lip service. I was lying, you know? I hadn't, I hadn't, come on, Paulson. I hadn't really forgiven. There's Sam. Hi, Sam. He's just getting some mixed signals, and this is what he does. There he goes. He's trying to calm you down. He'll bite. I'm getting too excited. That's the problem. My other service dogs only took care when my brain went below normal. This one is so tuned in. He takes care of below normal and above. He doesn't want me excited. Yeah. And so he's going, get her down here. And now he's gonna, it's not, licking's not really working, so he's biting my fingers every now and then. He's like, look, Dad, get it straightened out. Calm down. Yeah, he's such an amazing dog.

This dog is, he's good. He's very, very work-oriented. He loves his job. When I have surgeries, while we're waiting to go to the operating room, he lays between my legs, you know, and waits until they put me out, and then when they bring me into recovery, he gets up, lays between my legs, and licks and bites to keep my brain from going back to 1982 and the shooting. So let me see if he's got my brain enough and I can, Sammy, go down, go down. That's a good boy. I wanna, before we wrap things up here, okay, so we've talked about the anger. I think anybody listening to this, anybody reading your story, anybody just putting themselves in your shoes for a moment can understand that. And I think in this world today, there is a lot of anger. Yeah, and no forgiveness. But you, man, I mean, from people who've been abused, and I know they have psychological, you know, there's just so much they have to get over, people who've been physically abused. So there's some comparisons there, but then it's you were shot and you've been injured, and you've been dealing with this since you said 1982.

Two, yeah. So, okay, you decide, you know, between you and the Lord, the chaplain, you've gotta really forgive this person. Right. Help all of us wrap our brain around that. How do you forgive somebody? It's one, people can't forgive somebody that just said something wrong to them. There are people who lose marriages, friendships, neighborhood relationships, that get angry over the silliest thing. You know, and the words, we say words are like water that spilled out. You can't reclaim them. But what you're talking about, Steve, is vastly different than that. You have a lifelong injury, and you're dealing with that, and you now realize that you're gonna forgive this person. I have to. It's a cancer. My hatred was a cancer. And it's a matter of surrendering, totally, completely to what God wants. Without forgiveness, we don't have the Christian religion. Jesus died on the cross to forgive. And if I'm gonna say I'm a Christian, how can I do anything less than that? So I wrote him a letter,

and I told him about my life, and invited him to join me in Christ's love in the Christian family. And God just lifted this huge burden off of me. I actually experienced joy for the first time, really true joy in my life, the first time. And then, a few months later, God said, I want you to write another letter. And I said, whoa, hold on a second, dude. Ain't gonna happen, because you can't ask me to do that. And God just crushed me. My joy went away. I was so miserable. And I finally got to on my knees. and said, I will do it. And I wrote him another letter and said, I love you Mark. Had he given you any response to that first letter? Oh yeah, yeah, we'd written letters back and forth, yeah. And it wasn't friendship immediately, it was just getting to know each other. And the next letter I wrote, well, the big one, where God was crushing me, and I finally wrote it and said, I love you Mark, and God gave me back my joy, isn't that amazing? How was he receiving this? I mean, the first letter, when you said you forgave him, how did he receive that? He was happy to know that I did, and that I was no longer hateful, because I made sure he knew how much I hated him

through newspaper articles and stuff. And of course I invited him to become a Christian, and every letter I wrote him, I witnessed to him, and invited him to join me in the Christian family, and he wouldn't do it. And then finally God said one time, I want you to go to this Christian revival at the prison and meet the guy. And I said, no, and God crushed me again, only took me about 10 minutes to go, I'm going. And I went and we saw each other across the gym floor, and we walked out in the middle, and everybody's watching, because everybody knew that the shooter and the victim were there, and they weren't worried about what was gonna happen, the guards were. And I threw my arms around him and hugged him, and I said, God, I'm glad I didn't kill you. And he said, I'm glad I didn't kill you, and I thought to myself, I bet you are, sucker, you'd be on death row. And then I'm thinking, I have my arms around him, and I could kill him, I know how to kill him, I could break his neck, right? And I turned loose and went, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't believe that anymore, I don't think that anymore. And so we talked all day long, and I shared the gospel with him and Christ and life, his life, my life, we had a great time,

but he never accepted Christ that night when they had the altar call. Wouldn't that have been a great ending? Oh, yeah, wow. He didn't, it took like 22, 23 years of praying for him and witnessing to him before he accepted Christ, and me witnessing to him and praying all the time, every time I talked to him. So when you were trying to witness to him and get him there for all of those years, was he just pacifying you, blowing you off, or just, yeah, okay, maybe someday? I mean, what was he saying? He would say, I'm not gonna pretend to be something that I don't believe. I have too much respect for you and what you believe. And I could accept that, but I wasn't gonna give up. I never gave up. And that's one of the things I encourage people, don't ever give up with your family and friends or anybody. Keep witnessing, keep sharing the gospel. Here's a question. This is kind of where I was gonna go before, but so in law enforcement, your goal, your, you know, whatever we call it, how do you say that? Operating whatever. The whole plan there is help people, serve the community. Enforcement. Criminals in jail, right?

Yeah. How then do you feel about people who have committed a crime, have been judged, are paying their time? How do you feel about them getting out? I don't have a problem with it. If they've reformed, you know, if they've done the programs, they lead a clean life in prison, you know, they follow the rules. I don't have a problem with them getting out. I had somebody ask me the other day, you know, about ministering to the incarcerated. And so it's important. We really do care about these people, don't we? We should. And if you become a Christian, how do you not care for them, right? Yeah, it can still be really hard for someone who's mind isn't in the right area, right ministry, right, you know. But Steve, your story, your story, because you were law enforcement, I mean, it would still be an incredible story if you were just, you know, somebody driving down the street and this happened to, but the fact that you were commissioned and you were doing your job to to capture, you know, to put a stop to, or to capture someone who had broke the law, this person shoots you and then you end up forgiving them

and now you're happy that after all these years, was it some 40 years? 42 years. He is out of prison and he became a Christian and he's living for the Lord. How do you feel about that part of it? Oh man, to me, it's so neat that I was able to be a part of that aspect of his life, him coming to know Jesus. Man, nothing can be that awesome. You know how the apostle Paul, I think he says it this way. Some plant the seed, some water the seed, some reap the harvest. Yeah. Seems to me in this situation, Steve, you had a lot to do with every one of those steps. Oh, I got to take part in all three of them and that is so cool, so awesome. Nothing is better than to witness to somebody and they accept Jesus and they're going to heaven now. They're gonna eternal. Wow. I don't know how all of this is gonna get edited down, but I'm gonna be interviewing Mark and then we're gonna get the two of you together, okay? And I wanna ask you some questions. I want our viewers and listeners to see the two of you together. So that's going to happen.

But for now, I'm gonna bring this part of our interview to a conclusion and I'm gonna, I'll put you on the spot, but you got a great mind, I can see that. Thank you. What is a motto of your life? How old are you? Do you mind me asking? I'm 70 years old, just turned 70, first part of January. Not only what do you live by, what motto maybe do you, what motivates you, what keeps you going every day? And how can you, what would you like to say to those watching this and listening to this to just think about? Oh man, never give up. Never give up sharing the gospel, witnessing for Christ and look for opportunities. I wrote a lot of Christian's tickets and nobody ever told me about Jesus. And I know they were Christians, it says so on their bumper stickers and they've never told me. And if I would have died, I would have went to hell, let there be no doubt. And so I leave the house and I always pray, God, if you want me to share the gospel with somebody, put them in my path and give me the words. And invariably, I'll be filling up with gas and telling the guy next to the other side about Jesus. You know, so yeah, take every opportunity that God gives you,

look for him and then share the gospel. You know, and you've said that this goes on and on and on. I'd like to ask all of your viewers to pray for me. I have to have another hernia surgery related to the shooting in 1982. And I just asked it, they would pray for me. I've had 15 or 20 hernia surgeries in the last four or five years. So it's ongoing. I have a Christian surgeon, but I'd like to ask all of your viewers to stop and say a prayer for me right now. Yeah, we're gonna do that. And I promise you, I will, Steve, but I gotta tell you, man, you are the epitome of never quit, never give up, persevere. It's amazing and God bless you. God bless you so much. And I pray that he gives you recovery. I pray he gives you health and thank God for Sam. Thank God for your wife to take care of you and praise Jesus, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, praise Jesus. You know, God, why should we give up? God never gives up on us. Hey, look, he took Mark and he got Mark because he wouldn't give up. And he got me and he got you. Oh man, isn't this awesome?

Never quit, never give up. And God, God never gives up on you. Yeah. Hey, Steve, give me a thumbs up. Thanks, man. Thanks for spending time with me. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Write to us at Victorious Living Correspondence, P.O. Box 2751 Greenville, North Carolina 27836 or email us at hope at vlmag.org. To view Victorious Living Magazine in its entirety, please have your chaplain contact us at 352-478-2098 or email us through our website at vlmag.org. We are happy to provide our Victorious Living Magazine free of charge in bulk with or without staples.