Journal of the late John Alan Coey. He was Killed In Action, in Rhodesia, 19 July, 1975. John Alan Coey was a courageous American Christian volunteer who believed freedom from communism was worth fighting for. Coey received United States Marine Corps officer training during his studies and was on track to receive a commission when he requested discharge and left for Rhodesia, asserting that the US government had been infiltrated by a "revolutionary conspiracy of internationalists, collectivists and communists" and that fighting for Rhodesia would allow him to better defend Christian Civilization. Though foreign soldiers in the Rhodesian Army were only required to immediately commit to three years' service, Coey volunteered on arrival for at least five. He joined the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS) and completed his training in November 1972, receiving recognition as one of the army's best recruits of the year.

While training to be an officer, he contributed articles to various Rhodesian and South African publications, sending work to the latter under the Afrikaans pseudonym "Johann Coetzee." In October 1973, Coey submitted a controversial article detailing his views on America's foreign policy to the army magazine, Assegai; the firmly anti-establishment piece, "The Myth of American Anti-communism", was deemed "subversive" by the army, which blocked its publication. Coey was removed from the officer training programme soon after, officially because of his "temperament". Though disappointed by his expulsion and suspicious about the true reasoning behind it, Coey did not complain, writing that as an ordinary trooper he would be free to broadcast his views to the public unhindered.

He redeployed to the Rhodesian Army Medical Corps, from which he was posted to the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) Fireforce Commando battalion in July 1974. He served as an instructor and commando medic in the RLI. Though not an officer, Coey exerted some influence on tactical doctrine, making numerous suggestions to his superiors and pioneering the combat medic role in the Rhodesian Army, which caused him to be nicknamed "the Fighting Doc".

He was killed in action in Mashonaland in the country's north on 19 July 1975, while running into the open to treat two fallen comrades. On 28 July 1975, Coey received a full military funeral and was buried in the central Rhodesian town of Que Que, where he had been based. With his parents standing by, Coey's brother, Edward, gave a eulogy that strongly stressed his family's Christian and ideological beliefs—he said that his brother had achieved "the greatest of Christian virtues: sacrifice".

When the family returned to Ohio, Phyllis Coey compiled her son's journal and a selection of his letters home into a book entitled A Martyr Speaks, which she first attempted to have published in 1975. Because of the controversial views it contained (including Coey's dedication of his journal "to the 100,000 American dead of Korea and Vietnam who were betrayed by their own government"), the book was turned down by publishers for over a decade. A Martyr Speaks was finally published in 1988, 13 years after his death, by the New Puritan Library, in North Carolina.