SAN ANTONIO – Seeing love spread in the community has always been a joy for Col. Joe Sullivan, but never did he think his service would be the reason thousands of couples are married today.
From 1990 to 2015, Sullivan, who is now 89, officiated weddings throughout the Valentine’s Day holiday on the Bexar County Courthouse steps.
“I have always dreamed of marrying thousands of couples,” Sullivan said. “I would be so energetic and my wife would think I was having a nightmare because I would be celebrating in my dreams.”
Those dreams did come true, but it all was a part of his military story.
“I grew up poor in Atlanta, Georgia,” Sullivan said. “In 1952, I went to Lackland Air Force Base and that was the beginning of this journey. When I first got to San Antonio, I was surprised because I was expecting cowboys and Indians and stuff like that. It was not like that at all. It had bathrooms at the airport! Someone asked me if I would like an enchilada, and I thought that was the name of a rattlesnake.”
Sullivan said he fell in love with the city’s culture while taking his physicals and personal tests for the Air Force.
“It was about 80 people in my group and the last day of my training, the colonel said, ‘Congratulations, gentlemen! Each one of you have passed the flying physical with orders set for you to be sent all over the United States for flight school.’ Then he asked, ‘This is just a part of protocol, but I have to ask, does anyone here not want to go to flight school?’”
Sullivan said he had no control over what happened next.
“I raised my hand,” Sullivan said. “I don’t know why I did that. Everybody wanted to go to flight school. I felt like I had a rope pulling my hand up. He asked, ‘Would you mind telling me why?’ I said, ‘God gave me two feet and I want to use them.’ He laughed and said ‘I have never heard that one before.’ I look back on that now and it was one of those directions that God had given me that I really didn’t understand.”
Sullivan was transported to other bases and then he met a nurse in San Antonio.
“She was teaching nursing and she asked if I was planning to be a minister,” Sullivan said. “I told her I think God might be calling me to it. Then she asked if I could come teach every weekend so I flew back and forth to teach a Bible class where we ended up with 40-45 people in it. That is when I realized I had the ability to teach Christianity.”
His life began to shift when he received orders to go to Korea.
“I got over to Korea but we stopped at a place and had a wonderful time there,” Sullivan said. “I went over to the islands of Japan and it was one of the place where people were so nice to us. Then I got orders to leave to Korea and it was very different.”
Sullivan said he was the only one in the Air Force at the stop they sent him too.
“I thought they made a mistake,” Sullivan said. “ I stayed there for months and that was the closest thing to hell without battle. I was working with heavy equipment. It was freezing out there and we were eating borderline survival food.”
Sullivan said then a man who worked alongside of him abruptly threatened to kill him.
“He came in one day and he said ‘I am going to kill you right now,’” Sullivan said. “He was a big man and he started walking towards me and he said it again. I didn’t even know him that well and I was ready to shoot him. Then one of his buddies came in and tackled him right before he got to me.”
Because that man was punished for his actions, Sullivan was able to take his spot as he loaded an airplane headed to another location where he was able to do what he loved and not what he was forced to do.
“It was a miracle how that all happened because if it wasn’t for him, I would probably be in that same position doing the same labor I hated,” Sullivan said.
Though he was happy with his new orders in Korea, his life changed drastically in one night.
"One night just before the war ended, a siren went off,” Sullivan said. “I wasn’t sleeping well and I was the last one to get in the building where we were sleeping. I was getting my boots on outside and there was a plane right over my head. I saw the pilot's face. That is how low he was and how close we were. He had his goggles on and he had a faint smile on his face. If I had my .45 I could have killed him.”
Sullivan said that is when a bomb was dropped on them.
“It was about two feet behind me,” Sullivan said. “It did not go off but the impact was so strong that it threw all of us in a pit and covered us with sandbags. We all thought we were dead. I was spared. I know I was spared for a reason and I said, ‘I have decided that I have to preach the Gospel.”
After that incident, Sullivan went back to school but unlike the all-boy schools he had attended before, Baylor University introduced something new to his life.
“When I was there, I saw all of these beautiful girls and I was afraid to ask them on a date,” Sullivan said. “Finally I got the courage to ask the one girl on a date. We went to a movie and it was tradition that you kiss a girl before the night was over. So I gave her a peck and I said, ‘I know I hardly know you at all but would you marry me?’”
She politely declined but they continued to date which gave Sullivan enough confidence to help his fellow classmates out as well.
“A lot of my buddies were having trouble getting girls too because they were in the same position as I was,” said Sullivan. “So I started doing blind dates for the whole campus. I kept a section of my notebook and I got people on blind dates right and left. Some of them even got serious with each other.”
Sullivan’s ministry and education began to take off from there but it was when he returned back to San Antonio that he received a vision from God.
“I got married in San Antonio in 1990,” Sullivan said. “Before, my friend was running a dating service and she called me up and said ‘I want you to start a dating service in San Antonio. So I did and that got to be wonderful. One day I was in my office and the phone wasn’t ringing and I said ‘Dear God, I am bored!’ That is one thing you never tell God,” Sullivan said laughing.
He said he heard a voice.
“It said, 'Do free wedding on the courthouse steps in San Antonio on Valentine’s Day,'” Sullivan said. “So I went to the courthouse and I told them I had a vision and they told me it was good vision and that we always had too many people who wanted to get married but couldn’t because it was too expensive.”
Sullivan said it turned out to be very successful.
“We didn’t run an ad in the paper or anything,” Sullivan said. “The first time, we had a handful of people at the 8 a.m. ceremony. Then we had one at 10 and then noon and then God told me to open it up until midnight. I literally didn’t think anyone would show up. Before I got there, I could hear it. It was like a football stadium. People talking and singing and rattling. Fun times you know!”
Sullivan eventually passed the torch to another person to carry out the tradition.
“I can’t take credit for this because it was the good Lord,” Sullivan said. “We did about 200 to 400 weddings every Valentine’s Day after that plus I was doing the ones on my own during my ministry.”
Now that Sullivan is retired and though he is dealing with medical complications from his time in the war and over time in his life, he has one strong message for everyone to follow.
“If something works out, God is blessing it and if it doesn’t then he is not,” Sullivan said. “If you or anybody wants to know what God wants you to do, he will tell you. It might not be dramatic or immediate, but he will tell you. We are here to serve our maker and in Korea I knew I was there to preach the Gospel. God listens to you and gives you guidance and directions. I love God and working with him. It is the most precious thing I have.”
If you know someone like Sullivan who is making a difference in the South Texas community or who has a unique story, send us your tips. Contact Japhanie Gray on Facebook or @JGrayKSAT on Twitter. You can also send your tips to KSAT 12 & KSAT.com on Facebook.
