In waging war, cherish the spirit of the
peacemaker, that, by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them
back to the advantages of peace; for as our Lord says: ‘Blessed are
the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of
God.’”
Ñ
Excerpt of letter from St. Augustine, included in “On Just War,” a pamphlet provided to U.S. soldiers.
LOG BASE SEITZ, IRAQ — Spirituality and
religion may have been bedrock for some U.S. soldiers before they arrived
in Iraq, but for many of the nearly 150,000 men and women at war, a
near-miss by a mortar or becoming intimate with the smell of death is the
best conversation-starter with God. As they say, there are no atheists in
foxholes.
“I haven’t ever tried to talk to
God as much as I have here,” says Spc. Greg Dill, a Texan with the
598th Maintenance Company. Dill attended church occasionally at home but
never considered himself religious — until now. Within two weeks of
his arrival in Iraq, and on the day of his 24th birthday, his base
sustained four separate mortar attacks.
“You just don’t think about your
life so much or the way you’re living it when you’re at
home,” he says. “It’s been one of the better life
experiences, being out here.” But Dill distinguishes between
God’s presence over him and his creation of the situation in Iraq.
“I don’t look at this situation as being God-made; I see it as
being manmade,” he says.
Regardless of denomination or belief, some of
the closest calls can be explained only by way of a divine presence,
soldiers say. Religion becomes the response to unanswerable questions and a
crutch to help soldiers make it through difficult days.
“Soldiers in Iraq are scared, tired, and
lonely, and they’re away from their families and the comforts of
home,” says Maj. Nicholas Aranda, a New Mexico National Guardsman.
Aranda, who came to Iraq with a deeply held belief in God, says that for
people who already have faith, it just gets stronger.
“Some put everything into God’s
hands, and even those casual believers or those who may have questioned
their faith in the past will turn to prayer out here,” he says.
Asked how a man of God reconciles himself to
living in and supporting a state of war in which innocent people are
killed, he becomes very quiet:
“That’s a very difficult question.
I’ll have to pray on that, take it to God.”
The land of the Bible
For most young soldiers, the war has become
the unexpected and defining time in their lives. It’s the first time
they’ve left home or traveled outside the United States; it’s
the first time they’ve met people of other races and cultures and
also the first time they will grapple with their own mortality.
Spc. Derrick Thigpen, a 21-year-old from
Mississippi, is the youngest in his circle of friends. His faith took root
in Iraq, and during his deployment he leaned on others in his unit —
who became his family — for knowledge, support and strength as he
“searched his soul for answers” to questions about his future,
his life, and God.
“This was such an important time in my
life, so it really pushed me closer to God,” Thigpen says.
He saw Iraq as a matter of survival and simply
doing one’s job; it was all he could do to finish his work, stay
alive, and watch out for his buddies.
“I always comfort myself knowing that
God didn’t bring me here to die,” he says. “He brought me
here to do a job.”
Sgt. Michael Robinson read the Bible cover to
cover during his deployment in Iraq. It’s a goal the Mississippi
native with the 850th Transportation Company set before he even arrived in
the theater of war. “So many of these towns and cities are in the
Bible,” says Robinson, who was able to see Jordan River, as well as
the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, among other sights. “This is the
mecca of religion.”
For Aranda, the historic significance is also
important: that this land being occupied is the land of the Bible.
“This is where everything began —
Mesopotamia,” Aranda says. “The roots of Islam speak of
Abraham. We come from the same source, and yet here we are in the 21st
century . . .” The fight today is against militants who have turned
the words of the Quran into a tool to fight Westerners, Aranda says.
“I don’t believe the Quran
promotes violence. It is an interpretation by militants . . . and if we
don’t get ahold of the militants, it will spread like a
cancer.”
For too many soldiers, there is no time, and
perhaps not the education, to examine the interpretations of the Bible or
the similarities of belief between our warring people. The main focus is on
staying alive, though this does not happen by luck, many soldiers will tell
you; it is by the grace of God.
And for that grace there is a lot of prayer,
particularly among the front-line and transportation units, which travel
the dangerous roads of Iraq and pray before each outing.
“We pray for wisdom and guidance, for
our equipment to work — for there not to be any mechanical failures
and for our weapons systems not to jam. We ask to see our aggressors and
make them blind to us,” says 1st Sgt. Scott Lauher, of the 1544th
Transportation Company from Paris, Ill.
Five of the six soldiers killed at Log Base
Seitz were from the 1544th, and soldiers on missions come under attack on a
near-daily basis with mortars; improvised explosive devices, or IEDs;
rockets; and small-arms fire.
Prayer, and the closeness with each other, has
been their greatest solace.
“We depend on our knowledge that
there’s a will, God’s will, and things that are meant to happen
will happen,” Lauher says.
“A superreflective time”
How people, regardless of their religious
background, reckon with a war thought by many to be unwarranted, illegal
and even criminal varies from person to person.
“I don’t know how anyone can
justify killing Iraqis with their religious beliefs,” says Capt.
Daniel Stokes, a physician assistant from Arizona who calls himself a
secular humanist.
“I can understand killing in
self-defense if you’re Christian, but some extremist Christians truly
believe that God wants them [Iraqis] dead. They see themselves as right in
a good-versus-evil war, and they don’t have a full understanding of
the Arab culture and mind.”
Chaplain Ryan Sarenpa, newly stationed at Log Base
Seitz, says that he — and all soldiers — must “realize
that war is an unfortunate thing, and I have to believe that what I’m
involved in is justified . . . For the sake of the security of the United
States, we must pray that this will ultimately be for the cause of peace
and justice.”
Coming from a small town in Kansas, Sarenpa is
grappling with his own fears and adjustments — and the excitement of
a multicultural congregation, the first he’s ever had. He sees his
role as helping soldiers find their purpose, learning and maturing from
their trials and “finding peace in the midst of a storm.” Being
surrounded by death and killing, though, is something he hopes never to
become accustomed to. Nor does he want soldiers desensitized to the
experience.
“Every time you shoot someone, it should
hurt. It should bother the average soldier to have to do that,” he
says.
Generally there’s been a shortage of
chaplains volunteering for posts across Iraq, despite the need. The same
goes for medics, who can become surrogate fathers, teachers, and a
soldier’s greatest comfort. They are asked to answer questions,
forgive the brutalities of war, and ease pain, both physical and emotional.
It is the medical professionals in particular who are
likely to see a soldier reach for religion because they’re the ones
who often witness a soldier’s final moments, says Lt. Jeff Szymanski,
a physician assistant and nondenominational Christian. Of those he has seen
and treated, “about 80 to 90 percent of soldiers will equate their
survival to some divine intervention. Someone upstairs was looking out for
them,” he says.
“Soldiers have always used their faith
as a grounding point. Even I had Bible verses going through my head as I
was preparing to come out here. It’s a superreflective time.
You’re scared because you don’t know what to expect, and
you’re asking for strength.”
Religion, as well as church service, is not
only a personal pacifier but also a morale-lifter — it forms
community, allows people a way to verbally express their thanks, and gives
them a place to relax on the day of rest. There are both Christian and
Catholic services and, on bases with much larger populations, meetings for
people of Jewish, Islamic, and other faiths.
Finding common ground
The small chapel at Log Base Seitz fills on
Sunday mornings with a congregation of mixed races and backgrounds. An
African-American choir sings gospel, following a guitar-strumming Christian
from Missouri who does his part to praise Jesus.
“In the States it’s easy to draw
lines between denominations, but here we come from so many different
places, and we seem to find common ground and unite under one belief in a
higher being,” Aranda says.
That common ground is no clearer than when
soldiers gather to give thanks.
“I want to give thanks that with all the
IEDs, VBIEDs and RPGs, I ain’t never seen any of it, and I praise God
for that. Now I’m going home,” says one.
Another calls out: “God is so merciful
and however much we are trying to do right here, we are always falling
short.”
The final call receives the loudest response:
“I pray for the soldiers trying to get better at Walter Reed Medical
Center, that the families at home will be comforted, and that their sons
and daughters did not die in vain.”
“Amen!” shouts the crowd.
Those who came with strong faith will likely
take it home, often strengthened. Others who began their relationship with
God in the field hope to continue the practice after leaving Iraq, long
after the memories of mortars and death have passed and after the ties of
friendship begin to weaken.
“This will always be a part of my
life,” says Thigpen of his newfound devotion to God. “When I go
home, church is the first place I’ll go.”
His friends start to joke with him, and he
admits to a few other cravings. “Well, I’ll certainly hit a bar
because it’s been awhile, but church, church will be first,” he
says.
This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2005.
