Joseph R. Odell's Blog, page 3

Do Not Be Afraid

You were built to overcome fear.

A few days ago, I jumped out of a high performance aircraft for the first time in almost five years.  The "Basic Airborne Refresher" was a Godsend.  While I miserably failed the virtual jump (hey, the VR goggles kept slipping down my face), I needed the reminders of when to pull the "Canopy Release Assembly" and the proper placement of the "Main Lift Web Tuck Tab Assembly" for a guy my size.  My practice landings were poor the first day, and good enough the morning of the jump.  It was going to happen.

I stood and sat around all day.  I don't even know what the holdup was, but I didn't get into the aircraft until 1pm, and I started the day thinking I would be back in the office by 2 (I got back at 5).  I chatted it up with old friends and new as we waited our turn.  Finally, it came time to climb into the aircraft.  The jumpmaster ruined my crafty plan - he made me take off my truck-stop sunglasses.  I had planned to jump with them on, hoping they would get ripped off by the wind upon exit, and I could buy some sweet Oakleys in their place.  Drat.

Anyway, we crammed into the aircraft and took off.  I wasn't nervous at that point.  That's just my personality - I don't worry well before an event, whether it is my wedding, a convoy in known enemy territory, or a jump.  I was in the third group of jumpers, and actually fell asleep in the plane, crammed next to my mates.  Then, it was time to do it for real. "3rd pass personnel, stand up!"  Game time.

As the jumpmaster went through his callouts, I went through my conditioned responses.

"Hook up!"  We rapidly attached our static lines to to the outboard cable live over our heads, to the left.

"Check static lines!"  We inspect our own "static line" (which is what pull the chute out of your pack when you jump out) as much as we can, then inspect the line of the jumper in front of us where he cannot see his.

"Check equipment!"  Helmet, chinstrap, chest strap, and left and right leg straps - we touched each  as we make sure they are connected properly one last time.  For those who were jumping with "combat equipment", they check off their gear and lowering lines.  However, I was jumping "Hollywood", so no extra equipment for me.

"Sound off for equipment check!"  In a move that defies the homophobic culture of the military, each jumper slaps the butt of the jumper in front of them and says, "ok!", until the first jumper in line points his hand at the jumpmaster and says "All ok, jumpmaster".

Then, we wait.

It was a ramp jump, so the back of the aircraft was opened by now - it was closed before to retrieve parachute parts that remain on the plane. As I stood with my static line in my hand, to my rear at a 45 degree angle, we swayed back and forth with the aircraft movement.  My heart was now racing, and when the jumpmaster said, "one minute!", it didn't get any better.  My mouth was dry, my eyes blinking, my breath rapid and shallow.  I was scared.  I whispered a quick prayer - Lord, please make this a good jump.  Unfortunately, my solid theology made this unhelpful.  I am well aware that God does what he wants, not what I want.

People ask me sometimes at a jump if I'm scared.  I say, "yes."  They always are surprised, and respond with, "why would you be scared of dying, chaplain?  Don't you go to heaven?"  I smile and say, "Oh, I'm not scared of dying.  That's taken care of.  I worry about spending the rest of my short life in agonizing pain!"  Because, seriously, no one is looking for that.

"30 seconds!"  We shuffle toward the center line and wait.  "Standby!"  We have seconds left before we go.  

Then, "the engine" takes over.  I stole the name from John Steakley's book, Armor, that I read 25 years ago.  My heartbeat slowed.  My breath deepened.  My eyes stopped blinking and narrowed,  and I looked past the jumpers to the open ramp, watching the trees slide by at 150 mph.  There was no fear.

"Green light, go!"  The jump master led the way, and we followed him off the ramp, one second apart, stepping off the ramp 1200 feet above the ground and snapping into a tight body position.  I count out loud, whispering, "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand" and my chute has opened.  I expect to have to twist the risers, but they are in the right position already.  The jumper behind me is pulling his risers and bicycle kicking - he had extra work to do.

The rest is pretty easy.  Constantly check your surrounding for hazards, particularly other jumpers.  Maneuver away from jumpers headed your way.  Wonder why you are falling faster than everyone else, even though you are one of the smallest jumpers. 

Make sure your anticipated landing spot doesn't have obstacles.  150 feet from the ground, assume a landing attitude, feet and knees together, knees slightly bent, eyes on the horizon.  Adjust the chute as best you can so you don't hammer into the ground at full speed (good luck with that).   Hit feet first, and roll sideways, to your calves, thigh, buttocks, and "pull up muscle".  Laugh at death being cheated again.  Thank God for the safe landing.  Spaz as a huge brown and green spider skitters across your pelvis. 

Pack your chute into your bag.  Curse as you wade through head-high grass and stumble in about 37 tire-wide ditches in the unobservable ground beneath the grass, uphill, for like a half-mile.  Ask the medic where the reserve goes with this new bag.  Arrive at the collection point all sweaty, and find they are out of water, mostly because you landed so far from the collection point that your entire chalk and the chalk after you got there first.  Wait and talk more, mostly about injuries other people have gotten on jumps.

The engine left with my laughter.  It wasn't needed anymore, although I kind of wish he'd stayed for the spider.  As I relaxed under the tree before we went to "chute shake," I thought about how my fear automatically left at the right time.  I thought about how the two most common phrases in the Bible are "Do not be afraid" and "I am the Lord".  We are so often afraid - of being humiliated, of being defeated, or being hurt, of being exposed for the frauds we are.  Our fear is both a lack of faith and a recognition that we are not who we act like we are - tough, strong, brave, faithful, independent, smart, and darn good looking.  Well, I'm probably the last.  But, for the most part, we are not those things.  And, i suppose, we fear that we are going to be held to account for those failings.  That, in itself, is reasonable.  But, it's not the last word.

For God has made us to overcome fear.  He has made us to seize dominion of the word around us and shape it for good purposes.  He has given us bodies that heal, minds that learn, muscles that grow, hearts that love, and community to support us when we fail.  More than even these things, he has given us his promise that He is with his people, no matter their success, failure, or fears.  He has made a way to reconcile all things to himself.  When we fail - and we will - we can trust that it is what is best for us as we fit into his plan.  Then we get up, dust ourselves off, thank him for our survival, beg his mercy for our unbeleif,  flick off the spider, and walk to the collection point.  After all, we have to do it again next month, right?

Beyond War

When I started this blog, I never intended to write about war.  It was only the most emotionally and spiritually intense period of my life - what was I thinking???

In Nate Self's "Two Wars", he overlays his experience in the battle of Takur Guar (Roberts' Ridge) as a spiritual battle between good and evil, God and the devil.  He sees the Taliban fighters as physical representatives of evil spiritual forces, bent on destroying the good spiritual forces of the operators trapped on that mountain.  We are the good guys, they are the bad guys, and Jesus is on our team - evidenced by Nate's cry out to Jesus in the midst of that battle and his subsequent survival.  I wish it were that simple.

Don't misunderstand me - the USA is the good guy in that conflict, and our soldiers are the good guys when they fight against the Taliban, Al-Queda, and ISIS fighters (among others).  The reason for this simple - we have nothing to gain.  We do not fight to get something from the citizens affected.  We fight to free them, to choose what they want for themselves, even if it doesn't make us happy when they choose.  Those particular enemies fight to restrict the people to a tyrannical scheme of oppression and poverty.  It's not about Islam vs Christianity, or even socialism vs capitalism.  It's about freedom - freedom to choose the path for you and your family.

Of course, that's not the geopolitical justification - but for the man in the arena, our actions are based upon where we are and who we are, not upon a government's reasons for sending us.  We fight so that we don't have to fight anymore.  At the individual level, of course, it's about fighting for the man next to us, whose life depends upon our skill and courage.  We fight for good reasons, good purposes, and with good intentions about what it will produce.

But this isn't a holy war.  The men I served with, as much as I love them, are an unholy lot.  If you've read my blog before, throughout the war posts, it did seem like the people around me were protected by supernatural forces.  But, as Self points out, the war doesn't end when the bullets stop flying.  The real war, of evil against the people made in the image of God, continues as depression, hopelessness, worthlessness, and despair attack the very men who served with me.  Too many survived a daily existence of life and death, full of courage and endurance - only to succumb to the isolation and emptiness of our wealthy, privileged society.  As a rule, it wasn't "PTSD" that got them.  It was aching absence of hope.

I live for the purpose of bringing hope to the hopeless, life to the dying, healing to the wounded, and strength to the faltering.  Some of my war writing has been shockingly popular - over 5000 people have read my initial post, "I Miss War".   As I continue to write, mostly NOT about physical war, my prayer is for those I already know, and those I don't know.  I pray they can find the hope, healing, and strength that doesn't lie at the business end of a gun; but, instead, lies at the foot of an execution site.   I pray they continue to walk with me as I talk about something that they may have heard about, but likely don't truly understand: the kingdom of God which has come in the person of the Son.

Lo, even though I walk through the Valley of Death, I will fear no evil...

"...for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.  Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies." ~ Psalm 23

My last month in the valley was completely insane.  That month, I was on the receiving end of enemy fire every single day, many times more than once.  Incredibly, not a single soldier with me was killed, with only one man wounded with some shrapnel bits.  There is a 6-day break in my journal of enemy contact, where I visited troops at "safe" forward operating bases to the east of our valley.  Otherwise, the attacks were so constant that I took to wearing my helmet and body armor around at Able Main. 

I should have been dead - repeatedly. My life was only seconds and inches from ending, again and again.  I built relationships rapidly in my new, temporary "home".  God had, indeed, "prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies."  

As we prepared to leave Able Main - the last combat outpost (COP) that was "easy" to attack because of its location in the bottom of a bowl of mountains - the enemy stepped up their pace.  The recoilless rifle that had been used against Blessing and Michigan now made an appearance at Able Main, with the typical impressive results.  Clearly, they were also using up their extra heavy munitions.  Yet the men survived, fought, endured, and prepared to leave.

The last night was a blur.  I knew at what time we were supposed to go, and where I was supposed to be when we did.  Until then, once it got dark, I was just in the way.  I had no night vision goggles, and no task I could really help with as the leadership completed the handover to the Afghan troops.  So, I climbed into the gunner's hatch of the vehicle in which I was scheduled to ride, and waited.  I figured that, if it hit the fan, I could contribute from there...until it was time to reload, of course!

But, it never hit the fan.  Sometime after midnight, we left, and rolled into the next COP, where I would spend my last week or so in the valley.  The enemy kept up their regular pace of attacks, but they were far less effective.  The terrain just didn't lend itself well to dominance by the enemy like it did at the three other COPs.

We left the Pech Valley, for the most part.  The unit that replaced us didn't live the lives that we did.  And, to be honest, there wasn't much that endured beyond our departure.  However, there was one thing that did: a memorial.  The commander tasked me with designing a memorial for all of the men who had died in the valley - in our unit, and in the units prior.  That's not really in my wheelhouse, but I put together something I thought would honor those men and their sacrifices.  It wasn't completed before I left, but a year later I saw it on the Army website - it's the picture at the top of this blog entry.

All gave some.  Some gave all.  I will never forget a single one of those - pogues and warriors, dirtbags and men of honor, leaders and followers, men of faith and men who had no faith at all.  They answered the call as best they could, and when all was said and done, no one else really cared...who didn't already care about them beforehand. 

Let's be honest - most people don't care.  They don't care what those men did, they don't think it accomplished anything of note, and they don't want to hear how living that life in the valley of death makes you feel now.  They might sit through a war story, and pass on a "thank you for your service", but then they want to get back to their comfortable, distracted lives.  That's just how it is.

Nevertheless, we will never let pass a Memorial Day, or the anniversary of the death of those who didn't make it home, without raising a glass to honor those warriors.  May we live lives that honor them even more, taking advantage of the opportunity they didn't get, to show their sacrifice was worth it.  To do anything less would be to echo the disdainful silence of the world around us, who doesn't understand, doesn't want to understand, and hopes you'll shut up about your war scars.  Instead, wear the scars proudly, love fiercely, seek truth, and make the life you live the one the fallen would have wished for you - for life is a gift from above, from the Father of Lights, who doesn't give gifts accidentally or take them back.  In fact, He even gave the gift of His Son so that we could have the life truly worth living.  

Let us start today.

 

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye

So much conflict is generated by misunderstanding, and, sadly, it often costs lives.

In David Kilcullen's book, "The Accidental Guerrilla", he describes a battle between US Special Forces with their Afghan allies versus the Taliban.  In that battle, many of the locals joined in to attack the US forces.  Afterward, a journalist followed up with the locals to ask if they hated the US.  The local men replied that they didn't hate the US at all.  They fought, basically, because a fight broke out and they weren't going to miss it.

This story encapsulated our experience in the Pech Valley.  When we didn't go into the town at the western edge of our AO for 7 months, no fighting was reported there.  When we showed up one day, a 7-hour firefight ensued.  Our commander was sure that, essentially, our presence made the locals' lives more dangerous.  In conjunction with an overall US plan for consolidation, we planned for and began leaving the valley.

We closed the bases from west to east.  Since I was at the western-most base, I had to move.  It wasn't an option to move to the mouth of the Korengal - that would be closed next, and we had built up forces there in anticipation of a brutal exit, and they needed every bunk for people who carried guns.  My executive officer told me I should move the base on the eastern end of the valley, which had far less contact than the other three.  I proposed to the commander that I go to combat outpost (COP) Able Main, at the intersection of the Pech and Shuryak Valleys (of "Lone Survivor" fame). 

The men were really excited that I was moving there, though very few attended religious services.  They set me up with a nice metal box to live in, with a few sandbags facing the most common incoming fire direction.  My old stomping grounds was closed soon after, with the local looting the base of everything of value left behind.  As we prepared to close the COP at the mouth of the Korengal Valley, our leaders planned to prevent the kind of tragedies that had occurred in our area before (such as at Wanat and COP Keating).  We inserted units on all of the high ground around the COP before it was evacuated - leading to one of the funniest memories in true gallows humor style.

We didn't tell our Afghan friends what we were doing.  Since we had gone into some valleys recently, we told them we were going into a valley close to one of the other COPs.  The insertion happened at night, and when the sun came up, our Afghan partners were surprised at what they saw.  One of the translators turned to the company commander with him, and said, "Sir!  This is NOT the Wali Tangi!  This is the Korengal Valley!!!  We will all be dead by nightfall!!"  

Thankfully, our leaders planned and executed so well that the enemy made little effort to dislodge us from our positions.  We closed down the COP, blew up the observation post further down the Korengal, bulldozed the structures, and extracted the covering units - leaving the enemy to claim the pile of rubble we created as their "victory".  

That left COP Able Main as the closest outpost to those fighters who previously would have attacked Blessing or Michigan.  It was about to get lively in my new neighborhood.

 

** Photo credit: Harry Sanna, http://www.harrysanna.com/2011/03/08/..., accessed June 5th, 2018

A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance

It always seems the men who die in combat are the ones you think least deserve it.

Shortly after we lost one man, far away from our area, we lost another in a common security mission in the middle of our valley.  As a way of keeping the enemy from attacking voting areas, supply units, or local forces, our platoons would set themselves up in known ambush areas..and wait.  On one, I was in the back seat of a truck, and we had been there a while.  I had to pee.

The typical way to take care of that problem was to pee in a Gatorade bottle.  But, since I didn't like Gatorade, I didn't have a bottle. Even if I had, I still wouldn't have done it.  There is too much chance of missing the target and getting urine on the truck, yourself, or your gear.  After all, you are sitting down with all this stuff all over your body.  I would say, "pissing in a bottle is against my religion," and I would normally just get out and pee on the side of the vehicle away from the expected enemy fire.

So, as usual, I said, "I'm getting out of the truck."  The sergeant in charge of the truck replied, "I don't think that's a good idea, sir.  You know this is f***-ing bad guy land."  I just replied, "Cover me," unlatched the "combat lock", and opened the door.  I only pushed it open about 6 inches, when...

WHOOMP!   WHOOMP!  WHOOMP!  Three RPG's hit around our four-vehicle array in rapid succession.  I pulled the door back and latched it as bullets began to hit us and the gunner returned fire.  I calmly announced, "I think I can wait until we get to the COP (combat outpost)."  The driver and gunner cackled as the sergeant barked orders to them.  Another day, another dance with death that I was able to walk away from.

An RPG doesn't just explode, though.  It is a "shaped charge", which, upon impact, produces a narrow stream of heated, liquid metal that usually penetrates what it hits.  While the shrapnel from the grenade itself is dangerous, that shaped charge is the real threat.  Ten days after our last KIA, an RPG penetrated a truck on one of those missions, and the shaped charge went into the back seat area, past one man, through the fire extinguisher, through body armor, and through the forward observer seated in the back.  He was killed instantly.  The other men in the vehicle were essentially unharmed.

He was a popular, thoughtful man, who kept his buddies' spirits up and often kept them scratching their heads.  He liked to play the guitar and wrote a hilarious Christmas song that lives on in video form.  When I visited his COP, he always would sit outside and have a smoke with me, and ruminate on things unknowable.   He was officially Catholic, unofficially Buddhist, and a completely lovable guy.  Our conversations often ended with me saying, "I honestly have no idea what you mean," and we would both laugh.  

There were a few complete dirtbags on that COP.  There were guys who couldn't be trusted to do the right thing, guys who sexually harassed other guys, guys who weren't respectful to anyone.  There was a guy who faked his award records, a guy who tried to destroy the tape of the intentional, unlawful discharge of his weapon, and a guy who "allegedly" sold his night vision goggles to an Afghan.  

Yet, it wasn't any of them who died there.  That group of warriors lost a father figure mechanic, a kind soon-to-be dad, and our musical philosopher. 

I had to literally stop for a moment and wipe away my tears as I wrote that.  

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.  

A time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,Y
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
A time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace. (from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3)

All this is true, and we rarely know when our time, or another's time, has come.  It is too easy to mourn, to weep, to regret, to wonder "why them," and not us. 

Yet, that is not now our time.  Now is the time to celebrate the men they were, and for us to be the men they would have had us become.  Now is the time to dance with our daughters, to wrestle with our sons, to love with our wives, to ride with our brothers.  Now is the time to proclaim that though death comes, unbidden, that life is always worth living. 

For God does not slumber, nor sleep, but gives gifts beyond measure, for our blessing and for his glory.  Let us never forget those who gave so that we could receive - and look to the One who gave more than we ever could, so that we could be called the sons of God.

There is No Private Ryan

You may have heard that the only son of a family can't be sent to war.  You heard wrong.

We went three months without a KIA.  On the one hand, that sounds pretty amazing.  Over 1200 fights in a year, and three months with no one killed?  However, those three months stretched from mid-November to mid-February, and the winter wasn't "fighting season", so maybe it wasn't that impressive.  Of course, my journal has over 30 gunfights that I "experienced" over that period, so maybe it didn't slow down.  Regardless, it was a welcome respite from death, grief, memorials, and pushing down the pain.

We had the most "kinetic" AO in the country.  We also all ran around in custom baseball hats, clearly against US Army rules.  How did we manage to do that?  Well, as our commander put it, "no one will ever do a surprise inspection or leadership visit out here.  They will always tell us they are coming, to make sure we are ready for them when they land...because they are scared."  He was right. (I'm still miffed at my wife for throwing that hat out.  Who cares that it was raggedy?)

Even though our area was the "worst", other units had hard times as well.  One adjacent unit foolishly allowed its soldiers to patrol in up-armored Humvees, which were easy targets for IEDs.  (Our commander said we would patrol only in Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.  So, one of our companies only patrolled on foot for the first few months.)  That unit lost five men in an instant when an IED vaporized one of those Humvees.  It was a hard year for most.

Our guys always seemed to get into trouble when they went on operations supporting other units.  In one, our detached platoon was on the *receiving end* of an Air Force bomb.  On another, one of our sergeants received a Silver Star for valor helping the attached unit out of a rough spot.  

And, eventually, our luck ran out.  A platoon left one of our combat outposts to help another unit, well out of our normal area of operations.  We got the call - one of our boys wasn't coming home.

He wasn't just an only son.  He was an only child, a son who planned to return home to help out with, and eventually take over, his family's ranch.  The men in his unit made a trip out to see his family - while nothing could truly heal the wound in his parents' hearts, the selfless acts of those simple soldiers has always been an example to me of how we are supposed to go above and beyond for those who mean the most to us, blood or not.

Can you imagine doing that for your civilian co-worker's family?  Sure, you may have a best friend, but this was more than that.  These men weren't bonded by a shared childhood, a shared interest, or a shared religion.  They were bonded by the way they lived their lives and their  dedication to each other.  While all of them may not have believed in God, they believed in something just as real.  But when the bullets stop flying, when we go our own way, that sense of reality is maddeningly hard for men to find.

Today, some will give up finding it forever.  And yet, He, the one who is reality itself, is closer than you may think.

When the Extraordinary Becomes Ordinary

You get used to the danger.

I was interviewed by a reporter from Starts and Stripes, who asked me, “how does everyone deal with a life in which they could die at any moment?”  I replied, “they cope by dismissing the danger.  You can’t live life walking around and thinking about how you might catch a machine gun bullet in the mouth.”  The men used a lot of humor to deal with the insanity of a life punctuated, nearly daily, with incoming rockets and machine gun rounds – from standing out in the open giving the finger to the known Taliban fighting positions, to taking bets on when the next attack would be.  “Gallows humor” was perfected by my unit.

I have an edited helmet-cam video from that deployment that starts off, “[Our unit] loves the danger and fast-paced lifestyle of the Pech Valley”.  That text is followed by two clips, about a minute each, of a drive down a stretch of road in the valley.  The two trips occurred about a week apart.  In both clips, multiple RPG strikes can be seen in a stretch of maybe a half-mile road.  It’s surreal to watch the explosions and hear the gunfire.  It’s also strangely comfortable.  That was our lives.

But, the humor didn’t help when men died.  A popular, older mechanic and a newly transferred mortarman were killed on the same day at different combat outposts by attacks.  The men who dealt immediately with each of them in those were permanently scarred – one for the loss of a mentor, friend, and father figure, the other for the horror of a man bleeding to death in his arms. 

The humor got us through the moment, but it can’t help enough as life returns to “normal” in the safe, secure, United States.   Here, we are blessedly safe, and use our safety to attack people with words on the internet while searching for meaning.  In that valley, our lives were always on the line, and decisions were meaningful, as brothers risked their lives for ours.  Here, our lives are isolated in a world of social media while no one seems to care if we live or die.

The mortarman whose new teammate bled out in his arms never recovered.  The infantryman who passed the helmet-cam video on to me, before we left the valley, never found meaning and purpose outside of the valley.  Both left behind friends and family who loved them dearly as their lives ended at the bottom of the pit of depression.  Neither had a faith that sees – that sees what purpose we are given beyond ourselves, that gives meaning to a life in a dark culture of empty comfort and entertainment.  I never had a chance to really help them grasp that faith – or, if I did, I failed.

We were made for so much more than this. 

 

A Christmas at War

In 1914, on the Western Front, armed enemies had a widespread "Christmas Truce", exchanging gifts and playing games together on Christmas Day.  In the Pech River Valley in 2010, we were attacked four times on Christmas.

November had been a hard month, losing more men in the first part of that month than the entire five months prior combined.  Commanders and leaders knew they could make a difference in their units' morale with the upcoming holidays.  Some hit it big at Thanksgiving, with the cooks at one combat outpost (COP) managing to deep fry some turkeys, earning a Washington Post article about them.  Other COPs' Thanksgiving meals were...Spartan.

So, as Christmas approached, we tried to get the spirit moving at each location.  As the chaplain, I was the single point of contact for "Any Soldier" mail.  People back home would cobble together packages with the help of their community organizations and churches, and send them to "Any Soldier / Marine".  I had the blessing of a couple of organizations that were dedicated to just the COPs in our valley.  So, we set out to make sure that every soldier in the unit received a Christmas present.  

We had Christmas trees and lights at every COP, usually in the dining facility.  We arranged for the troops to file through on Christmas Day to pick up a gift, wrapped mostly by my Chaplain Assistant, an older, single Dad with a great heart and work ethic.  Our connected organizations of supportive civilians really came through, and we had more than enough.

The gifts we received were pretty cheap - not in a dismissive way, but in monetary value.  They communicated that someone cared enough to make an effort, but they weren't gifts you'd be particularly excited about if you were home in the states- with one exception.

A pilot in the aviation unit that supported us in many firefights told his mother about how crazy our area was, and asked if she could help.  She was connected to Apple, and managed to get around 50 iPads sent over to us!  They were a hot commodity at the time, fairly new to the market.  The command kept a lid on it, and leaders selected the men who would receive the iPads based primarily on their personal character.

I went with our battalion commander to each COP, where we had a short presentation ceremony.  To a man, each soldier who lined up to received the gift-wrapped iPad though they were getting a book.  When they opened the wrapped gifts, huge grins broke out on their faces - and the faces of everyone watching.  Merry Christmas!!!!  There were even some tears in these tough guys' eyes.

As for the enemy, they attacked every single COP that day.  Also, I went to every single COP that day.  However, on Christmas Day, the attacks didn't happen wherever the chaplain was celebrating Christmas with the men.   Of course, I never would have promised that, nor expected it - my locations, convoys, and patrols were attacked all the time.   But, on this special day, I was thankful that God connected gifts, compassion, joy, and safety together with the man who was supposed to be representing Him to these warriors.   I certainly couldn't have done that alone.

Eternal Moments

Combat introduces elements into life that we don't find back at home, like flying bullets and explosions.  It also removes distractions that affect how we think.

Last time, I shared how very, very few people think of God in the midst of a firefight.  However, in those gaps between fights, people think.  A daily, acknowledged, consistent, life-threatening danger leads people to think about what matters, and what may matter.  Even a high-risk area like ours was really a year of boredom punctuated by regular bursts of intense activity.

When we think about what a deployed soldier or Marine is missing, we think of the important things - spouse, kids, neighborhood community. They also miss out on beer, nightclubs, and parties.  Internet availability is a challenge in places that are being blown up all the time, so most of the guys had to share a few public computers with everyone else on their outpost.  Even video games were limited to a few consoles that small units shared.  So, they had a lot of time that wasn't wasted by unimportant things or demanded by important people.  They had time to think - in fact, they had time with little else to do but think. 

Sometimes that thinking revolves around the issues I've discussed before - killing, their friends dying, or the loved ones they miss.  But, with time to think to spare, their minds also go to some things they rarely think about at home: God, sin, and eternity.  Of course, some brush it off and rush into something to distract themselves.  Others found themselves talking to me over a chessboard, or while we smoked tobacco (I picked up pipe smoking, while others went with cigarettes or cigars).  Those conversations are as unforgettable as the flying bullets.

I heard what were, to me, the strangest ideas at times.  That the "forbidden fruit" of the Garden of Eden was, actually, marijuana - or, from another soldier, that the forbidden fruit was sex.  I talked to guys who didn't think God existed, others who though He didn't know what was going to happen, and others who thought He knew, but couldn't really do anything about it.  I wasn't there to give theology lessons - if they asked me what I thought about their ideas, I'd tell them, and hoped they would ask themselves "four questions" - what do I believe, why do I believe it, where do those ideas come from, and are those answers good enough?  Other times, I was just a listening ear, someone who cared and knew those thoughts of the supernatural were not "weak".  I can't think of a single time I should have "corrected" their thinking without that invitation.

In the baptism pictured, while I celebrate the inward and spiritual change pictured by the outward and visible sign, I think most of one of the men in the picture off to the side.  He didn't call himself a Christian but came to the baptism anyway (actually, of the dozen or so men who came to the baptism, very few self-identified as Christian).  Less than three months later, that man was killed by enemy fire while I was in the states. 

Did I say the right things at the baptism, the only time I know he heard about the eternal on that rotation?  Were my words and actions enough to motivate him to ask those questions, to seek to know the God who made him for a purpose beyond a death in an unforgiving place?  If part of my purpose in that valley was to bring God to soldiers, and soldiers do God, did I do it well enough when it mattered?

I don't know, but I'm thankful for a God that not only exists, knows, and acts, but has mercy and grace as part of his character - my faults were neither unexpected nor unforgivable.  Neither are yours.

 

Foxhole Atheists

You've heard the line, "There are no atheists in foxholes."  Actually, there are a lot.

Military members are a shifted sample of America.  Sure, there is diversity of home state, religion, education, skin color, and dialect.  However, it isn't a truly representative sample.  Because we have an all-volunteer military, our men and women are shifted culturally as a group.  They are more likely to be conservative, rural, religious, and married than Americans as a whole.  Military officers are shifted even further along those lines.  Within the Army, there are also differences in the roles they hold - the infantry are most likely to be white, less educated, and from America's heartland (rural and urban).  They also love what they do.

My men loved to fight.  In a slow period, you could see the anticipation building.  If it had been three days between active combat at any of our combat outposts (COPs), people would be on edge.  They knew it was coming, but didn't know when or where.  The next patrol could be a snoozer, or a doozy.  That day on the COP could be hot, dirty, sweaty, and lame, or full of shrapnel and bullets and fire.  There was always plenty of speculation on whether it would be the recoilless rifle or the DShK that started the next battle.

Having enjoyed over 100 "opportunities" to be in the middle of "enemy contact", I can tell you that I never heard a single prayer in the middle of it.  In fact, there wasn't a lot of talking at all that wasn't direct communication about the immediate demands of battle  (unless you count curses spewed in the direction of the enemy).  When the heat is on, men don't think about eternity.  They think about RIGHT NOW.  Where to move now, where to shoot now, who to help now.  It didn't matter what their declared religious preference was - or wasn't.  They were warriors fighting to survive and fighting for the men next to them.

The idea that "there are no atheists in foxholes" comes from the thought that people faced with death invariably reach for the supernatural.  While war does bring men more into contact with opportunities to consider eternity (the subject of the next post), actual combat doesn't give them time for that.  I already mentioned a few posts back that I only prayed for myself once during a firefight.  It went like this:

So there I was, minding my own business, wearing my PT uniform (shorts and a t-shirt), and sitting on the "burn sh***er" - essentially a wooden outhouse with a cut-off metal barrel under it.  All of a sudden, in the silence... "BOOM!!!", and the cracks and whizzes and thuds of bullets fills the air.  I looked up after a splintering noise, and saw A BULLET HOLE IN THE WALL.  So, I said to God, "Lord, if you're gonna take me now, please let me clean myself up and pull up my pants first."  I took care of business with a greater-than-usual urgency, and the Lord answered my prayer by not only allowing me to fix myself, but letting me make it out of the latrine.  

I peeked out the door and dashed over to a huge boulder nearby, which was clearly between me and the incoming rounds.  I played Frogger from rock, to metal trailer, to HESCO barrier, until I made it into the mortar living quarters.  I said to the guy standing at the doorway with his helmet on, "They tried to kill me with my pants around my ankles!"  He cracked up, even as the rain of bullets continued.

When it was over, I saw the impact point of the RPG, on the opposite side of another boulder that was about 15 feet from the latrine.  If not for that rock, I probably wouldn't be here.  Looks like God knew what to do without my input. 

Faith isn't something that is "use in case of emergency", like when the bullets fly, the pink slip comes, or the doctor says, "cancer."  Faith can make those moments make sense, even as they hurt you as much as anyone else.  Anyone can fight for their lives and the people around them, with or without faith.  It's not an adrenaline substitute - it's an ingredient for life that makes everything taste completely different.  For some, moments like this helped us see that.