Fort Leavenworth Prayer Luncheon speaker shares message of hope, forgiveness

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kansas - Members of the community gathered for fellowship and a meal provided by the Religious Support Office as they listened to remarks about forgiveness from an acquitted man who served 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit during the National Prayer Luncheon May 7, 2026, at the Frontier Conference Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Event narrator Chaplain (Maj.) Chris Weinrich, Garrison operations chaplain, explained that the annual National Day of Prayer, designated by Congress, is "intended to be a forum where leaders gather to build relationships and recognize the roles of religious faith, religious diversity and religious freedom in our country," as he gave a history of the observance.

"From the earliest battles of the war of Independence to our current operations, prayer has played a vital role in the life of our American service members and families," Weinrich said. "The United States, the American military have demonstrated a unique commitment that values religious freedom and spiritual choice as proclaimed in our founding documents. The Army Chaplain Corps, who pray before us today, represent various faith groups and traditions drawn from within the pluralistic religious fabric of America, and they demonstrate the values of religious freedom and choice."

Chaplain (Maj.) Carlos Molina, force integrator, Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate chaplain, delivered prayers for the nation; Chaplain (Maj.) Joshua Portwood, Family Life chaplain, said prayers for the military and families; and Master Sgt. George Butler, master religious affairs NCO at Mission Command Training Program, read scripture passages.

During the invocation, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Jared Vineyard, deputy command chaplain for the Combined Arms Command and staff ethicist for the Center for Army Leadership, thanked God for blessings, including guest speaker Darryl Burton's "story of faith and perseverance."

"May we listen to what he has to share with fresh ears, and may we always be people concerned with justice and truth," Vineyard prayed.

Story of hope and forgiveness

As he introduced Burton, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Eric Bryan, Garrison chaplain, said prayer is not just speaking but is, for him, 90 percent listening.

"I pray that as you listen to this man today that God will speak to you personally," Bryan said.

Burton co-founded Miracle of Innocence, an organization that provides legal help for innocent people who have been incarcerated and then provisions when they are released, when he discovered upon his release from prison that there were no resources for the innocent, only the guilty, upon their reintroduction to society. Burton was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1984 and spent nearly 25 years in prison before he was exonerated in 2008.

Burton said stories are shared through the generations for encouragement, motivation and inspiration, and the message he wanted to share with the audience was one of hope and forgiveness.

He said that the story told about him in 1984, though, was the wrong story.

"It was a narrative that was given to a jury of my peers, 12 people. And they got it wrong because someone persuaded them about a story that was false. And sometimes these false stories can be weaved into the community and mislead people."

Despite witness accounts of a short, light-skinned man committing the crime, the fact that that other person of interest had shot the victim on three previous occasions, Burton was convicted of the crime, having had only one hour with his defender and arguing that pertinent information had been kept from the jury. Other "witnesses," whom he said were motivated to lie with plea deals, testified under oath that Burton was guilty.

"I didn't believe in God at the time - (I was) never angry at God, I never blamed God for my situation, on any level," he said. "I wasn't going to blame God for something I didn't believe or blame something that happened to me to something I don't believe in, that didn't make sense to me."

Burton said he had to deal with situation on the human level since he didn't yet have a relationship with God.

"Human beings can hurt people, they can kill people, they can rob people, they can do horrible things. But human beings can, on the flip side, do great things - they can heal people, they can help people, they can serve people, they can go into the community and bless people. Human beings have this duality of complex personalities. We can do these (good) things, and we do. But human beings can also send people to prison for things they didn't do."

Burton said his heart was in a vice-grip of anger and bitterness. When he was sentenced to essentially 75 years in prison, he was a new dad with a 7-month-old daughter.

"I saw my daughter three times, and the next time I saw my little girl, she was 25 years old… After she lost me, she lost her mom, ended up in foster care, and said, 'Dad, I want to leave it like that… I didn't have you and my mom in my life then, and I don't want you in my life now,' and that hurts."

Burton described his wrongful conviction as creating "multiple prisons" by the way it has affected his family and his daughter.

"That's the one regret of all the things that happened to me, that's more what I regret more than anything."

Burton described some of the violence and horrors he witnessed and experienced when he was in the Missouri State Penitentiary, including the screams of other inmates being assaulted, and the plight of another wrongfully imprisoned young man who was attacked every day, who ended up being released shortly after him when he was also found to be innocent.

"I didn't know his story, I didn't know his case; he didn't know mine, but we were both innocent men. But that's what happens in that place, because, when you hurt a woman or a child, they don't care if you're innocent or not - they're going to attack you."

Burton said he started a letter-writing campaign when the courts were no use.

"I began to write letters, hundreds and hundreds of letters to the United States, to Canada, to Europe. I wrote letters to everybody I could think of - parliaments, presidents, governors, senators. I wrote Oprah Winfrey … I even wrote a letter to this guy named Jesus Christ. Didn't believe in it, didn't think it was real, and it wasn't a prayer or a plea, it was a challenge for me."

Through a series of what he called signs, someone encouraging him to read the Bible and consider the good things God has done and not just the bad, and learning about Jesus' teachings to love one's enemy and pray for them, Burton still pushed back, but his faith also began to evolve.

"One verse in the Bible changed my heart, one verse - Luke 23:34, when Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' That was the verse that pierced my heart. That wasn't human to me. I said, that's divine. How could this guy do that? They are killing him, and he's innocent. And I was innocent, and I didn't understand that."

Burton said he continued to be filled with rage and hate until he admitted forgiveness was too difficult.

"So, I look back at that verse, and I notice that Jesus, in his humanness, in his humanity, he couldn't forgive them either, and that's why he said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' Forgiveness can only come from God through us if we let God use us to forgive those who we hate and who hate and harm us."

Burton said that realization gave him peace, whether he was free or not.

Ultimately, Burton's dark skin, which he said he had always been self-conscious about as the darkest of his eight siblings, would help exonerate him when the witness, who had tried to tell officials in 1984 that they had the wrong man, was finally heard.

Since its founding, Burton said Miracle of Innocence has helped several innocent people be released from prison.

"I said, 'God, you've blessed me to save my life through that place before I even believed in you.' And so now, we can just try to do something, give something back. And that's part of my legacy, part of my story."

To learn more about Miracle of Innocence, visit www.miracleofinnocence.org.