This morning I got to attend my first chapel service here on FOB* Warrior (as an indicator of the relative oddity of the experience, I will tell you that it took me a minute or two just now to decide whether to call it a "Church" service or religious service, or what). It was weird and somewhat unsettling, and yet simultaneously oddly peaceful.First, you should know that the U.S. military is actually very pro-religion. Almost every single official military function (even those primarily designed as an excuse to partake of the grog bowl - see the description of "Violations of etiquette" under wikipedia's Dining In entry) has a chaplain say a prayer at the start. There are multiple chaplains on every post or base and you even find chaplains deployed in the field with ground pounding infantry units. Even in Basic Training we were issued a Bible and encouraged to “practice our religion.” As soldiers, we are often encouraged to seek out chaplains when faced with tough personal circumstances or mounting stress. Is all that spiritual encouragement because the top military brass are concerned for their soldiers' spiritual well-being? Maybe. But it's also because it makes soldiers into better killers.
Almost without exception, the job of every Army soldier is either to kill the enemy, to help others do a better job of killing the enemy, or to protect those who are killing the enemy. Even the Medical Corps' ultimate purpose is to maintain or return to health those who do the killing, to maximize our "force potential." That's the unfortunate nature of what an Army does. The bottom line is that even in a peace-keeping mission, which is basically what Iraq has become, we keep said peace primarily by demonstrating and strategically exercising our ability to kill.
For example, my job as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot in a lift unit is to move people and supplies around the battlefield. We are here to "maintain the force," affording safe passage to those in harms' way and those who bring harms' way to others. Ground convoys are one of the deadliest ways to travel in Iraq, but travel by air is exceptionally safe. At first glance, then, you might label my unit's mission as being a life-saver and to a certain extent you'd be right. But the big-picture, ultimate end state of my mission goes further than the maintenance of life, to the preservation of the lives of friendlies in order to maintain their potential to cause damage to the enemy.
So where does religion fit in to the Army's mission to kill (or at the very least to have the ability to kill)?
Many years ago, the Army discovered that a happy soldier is a better soldier. Just like any civilian, the more mentally and physically fit a soldier is, the better he will perform, no matter what his job. Over decades of experience, it was also determined that for many, spiritual well-being can often be an indicator of wellness. Essentially, as the soul goes, so goes the soldier. Cue the chaplains. Part preacher, part pastor, part counselor, the chaplain's job is not so much to win souls as to minister to them. Which brings me back to this morning's kind-of-weirdness.
The service itself could have been transplanted from any small-ish Midwestern Protestant church service. There are several worship styles available throughout the week ranging from "Gospel" and "Liturgical" to "Muslim," but the service I chose to attend was labeled "Contemporary Christian," so I pretty much knew what to expect in the way of doctrine: basic, non-confrontational, often-generic but still specifically-Biblical teaching, and I wasn't disappointed there. The building was fairly generic as well, with concrete floors (not nearly as unusual here in-country as it would be at home), normal church-like chairs, and a regular old pulpit. The pastor was a reasonably well-spoken guy, generally likable, and entirely unobjectionable. Even the music felt familiar. The worship team is made up of well-meaning volunteers, and according to one of the singers I talked to afterwards is sort of team-led, with no real leader. My new worship-team acquaintance was also probably accurate when he qualified it as "combat worship," which might be a good description of the whole experience. Maybe the weirdness can be explained best by calling it "Combat Church." This is where the experience departs from the norm.
First of all, and probably most glaring is the presence of numerous firearms, as at least half of the "congregation" is strapped. I will just say, had Armageddon come and had Satan's minions been susceptible to small arms fire, there were at least enough nine-millimeter pistols and fully-automatic machine guns to defend that little House of God for a fair piece (or peace?). Second is the near-complete lack of fellowship. While looking around, I did see a few polite hugs during the obligatory welcome-time between those who were obviously familiar with each other, and I did share some brief pleasantries with another guy that I sort of knew from my unit, but other than that it felt less like a church family and more like a collection of individuals all attending the same mandatory spiritual training session. Along with those major weirdness factors, there were a few minor oddities that contributed to the whole experience too, like the fact that like nearly all buildings on FOB Warrior all the windows were blacked out to make the building less of a target for mortars at night, or the fact that everybody was wearing one of two types of clothing - either the standard issue physical training uniform of black shorts and grey T-shirt (with shoulder holsters for handguns, of course) or head-to-toe camouflage battle uniform. All that being said, though, it was still a positive experience overall.
There's something to be said for simply finding a place of peace. The turning of one's heart towards God is always easier when the atmosphere is quiet and calm. And true worship does not require exceptional preaching or exceptional musicianship, only exceptional openness. And even something that provided weirdness was a source of comfort in that the fact that I shared a uniform with all of these people meant shared experience, shared trials, and at least some shared goals. These were people in whom I could put immediate trust, and with whom I shared an immediate bond. In that respect, it had something that no church ever could. And further, the weight of even the smallest pleasantries was increased as well – when the chaplain said he was glad we all could be there this morning, the three soldiers from the FOB who were seriously injured this week came immediately to mind, and I really believed that the chaplain was glad I was there. So, how does my religious experience mesh with the reality that the service was provided to me as a way of enhancing my ability to perform my aforementioned mission?
Maybe this is a case of the means justifying the ends. Does it matter why I was afforded the opportunity to worship? Does it matter that the same chaplain who preached to me from Luke on the importance of giving God glory by seeing miracles in everyday life is likely to be the same chaplain who presides over the Muslim service? I don't think so. I think just as God can speak to each of us through nature, or non-spiritual circumstances, or extract illustrations from even inanimate objects, I can be spoken to in a blacked-out windowed, sandbag-fortified, armed-to-the-teeth chapel. Ultimately if God's desire is for me to commune with Him, then the most important factor in how easily I can hear Him speak is whether I'm willing to listen, and as long as the air-raid sirens are silent, the chapel on FOB Warrior, Kirkuk is as good a place as any. And if going to church ultimately makes me a better warfighter, then I guess that's a win-win, isn't it?
*FOB (pronounced “fawb,” like a watch fob) = Forward Operating Base
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