Where Did God Go in Afghanistan

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Where Did God Go in Afghanistan

Capt. Michael Cummings at the Korangal Outpost in Afghanistan​

Ten thousand feet over Fort Benning, Ga., and I was praying for my life. Literally. I was about to jump out of a C-130 airplane to earn my Airborne “wings.” I desperately wanted my chute to open. Under my breath, I whispered Isaiah 40:31: “but those who hope in the LORD/will renew their strength./They will soar on wings like eagles.” At service the day before, the minister had handed out bookmarks inscribed with that passage.

In that plane, I imagined myself sprouting wings and floating safely to the ground.

I had reason to worry. The week before, my best friend broke his leg in four places. On that same jump, another soldier broke his femur — I didn’t even know that was possible. I repeated my mantra: “Please God, let my chute deploy.”

And then I leaped, an act of faith really — part habit, part hope. You jump out of the craft on instinct, bouncing around without any clear picture, then with a sudden jerk, you look up and see your chute fully deployed above you. Then you scream as loud as you can. As I pulled myself off the ground, I thanked God that I’d survived, even though the odds said I would.

“There are no atheists in foxholes,” the cliché goes. It’s hard to imagine a soldier facing death who doesn’t believe in God. Maybe soldiers need hope; maybe they need the promise of an afterlife to face death. And when this friendly little aphorism was coined, it was probably true.

Now, religion is political. Polls in the MilitaryTimes seem to back up the religiosity of the Armed Forces. So you’d be forgiven if you viewed that the battlefield was also a religious place — every base loaded with a friendly chaplain, every troop in a foxhole silently speaking to God and every platoon doubling as a prayer group.

Because you’d be wrong.

About a week after arriving at the Korangal Outpost — after being in Afghanistan a month — the First Sergeant announced that the chaplain had shown up. He would be holding a (nondenominational) Christian service later that night. I expected a big crowd. When I told my men this news, they groaned.

About 10 minutes before the ceremony, I trudged up the hill, through three feet of snow, from our hooch to the service. I wore the usual kit for winter — ACU pants, a brown T-shirt, a black fleece jacket, an IBA (Improved Ballistic Armor) and a helmet — I carried a Bible in my cargo pocket.

(When this war is over, the public will remember Improvised Explosive Devices and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. For me, I will remember my pocket Bible collection. Civilians, the USO, and well-wishers of all stripes love to give them to soldiers. They come in all shapes and sizes — but only one color: tactical. Small enough to fit in your cargo pocket, they only have the New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs, leaving out the battles and wars of the Old Testament.)

Our chapel was the Dining Facility, which for us meant an olive-drab tent and wood benches, freezing cold in the wintertime. The tent had the Army version of indoor lighting, which was floodlights aimed awkwardly at the ceiling, running off the diesel generator outside — the only sound on an otherwise silent FOB.

As I entered, I thought for a moment I was in the wrong place. It was empty, save for two other soldiers. Then I saw the chaplain.

He had been around. He had come from the Special Forces and knew the front in this war well. (Well, the closest thing to a front the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan has — remote bases occupied by 18- to 24-year-old privates, sergeants and lieutenants.) The chaplain went where he was needed, by any truck, helicopter or patrol that would take him.

The service itself was awkward. The chaplain had gotten used to conducting these small ceremonies, and he tried to move past the empty silence. We sat there, and he gave his sermon. We each fought the cold, listening, watching our breath and shivering. I can’t remember what he spoke about. No matter what it was, I enjoyed it. Though I was confident I’d survive Afghanistan, I was terrified I would fail in leadership. The fear didn’t leave for about eight months. Chaplains help assuage such fears.

After the speech, we took communion. We ate the bread and drank the juice, and the ceremony ended. As I walked back down the hill, I was still shaking my head in disbelief. Where was everyone?

Two months later my platoon left the Korangal Outpost. Our new (temporary) home was the Fortress, so named for the 40-foot walls that enclosed its troops.

At the Fortress, the new First Sergeant announced the arrival of the chaplain. The same thing happened, except this time the dining facility had dry wall, refrigerators and heating. Three soldiers, myself included, showed up for a base twice as big. (The Korangal Outpost was small, about 60 people at any given time. The Fortress had twice that, if not more.)

Again, the chaplain smoothed things over, and gave inspiring talks for the gathered faithful.

I shouldn’t have been shocked. Even at the biggest Forward Operation Base in Afghanistan, Bagram Air Field, I attended a service with only about 30 other people. Thirty people out of a base of 30,000. In fact, the only religious ceremony I attended that did have a lot people was at an Air Force Base in Qatar, well away from the sands, IEDs and insurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan. If there are no atheists in foxholes, then why aren’t there any religious soldiers on our bases?

Maybe war is too busy. After cleaning weapons, running eight-hour patrols, and avoiding getting shot, it is just easier to lie on your bed and watch a movie than go to church. Maybe it was just too cold. Maybe it got too hot. Maybe soldiers are individualistic and they don’t share their faith.

If you want my opinion, it is because religion isn’t cool.

Pornography? That is cool. Smoking? Cool. Gambling? Fun and cool. Religion, not so much.

I want to clarify. Though my men weren’t religious, I don’t want to imply they were any more or less moral than their civilian counterparts. Downrange they gambled and watched pornography; when we got back to Italy, they drank, smoked and chased tail. They acted like any soldiers anywhere in the world; they acted like college students anywhere in the world. They were young men … nothing more, nothing less.

Chaplains have told me that soldiers often approach them only when they know no one else is around. It is as if being religious brands you as hyper-religious, and no one wants to be that guy. I know I didn’t, so I went to my ceremonies on the sly, knowing none of my men would be there, careful not to wear my faith like a badge. On every patrol, or most of them, I quietly recited the Lord’s Prayer before we left. If I was bored, while driving, I silently repeated the beatitudes in my head.

Before I jumped out of an airplane for the first time, I prayed as strongly and vigorously as I ever had. Perhaps that was my foxhole, and my admission that I was not ready to face it alone. I never prayed that hard again, even in Afghanistan when I was in much greater danger.

In hindsight, my shock at the services in Afghanistan shouldn’t have been that great. At the service the weekend before I jumped for the first time, there were maybe two dozen people, out of a 300-person class. Maybe all my fellow classmates attended religious services off base, but more likely they didn’t attend at all.

Capt. Michael Cummings graduated in 2006 from UCLA. He joined the ROTC program and commissioned as an officer in the United States Army. In 2007, he deployed to Afghanistan with the 173rd ABCT as a Heavy Weapons Platoon Leader and recently returned from a deployment to Iraq. He currently works in Fort Campbell, Ky. He writes for www.onviolence.com, a blog on military and foreign affairs.

Where Did God Go in Afghanistan? - NYTimes.com

 

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Where Did God Go in Afghanistan? An Atheist Writes.
By KATHLEEN JOHNSON

Kathleen Johnson is the Vice President of American Atheists and founder of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. She is a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and retired as a First Sergeant after more than 20 years service. She is now a Department of the Army civilian. This is her response to the At War post ‘Where Did God Go in Afghanistan?’ by Capt. Michael Cummings.

On Nov. 5, 2010, I read an article titled “Where Did God Go in Afghanistan?” by Capt. Michael Cummings. Captain Cummings, who reported his thoughts concerning sparse attendance at religious services in Afghanistan, speculated as to why so few soldiers were willing to attend these services. He stated that he personally could not imagine anyone being in combat without a belief in God, but theorized that being openly religious wasn’t “cool” enough for modern troops and that’s why they failed to attend religious services that were arranged for them.

Throughout his heartfelt article, it was clear that he was distressed by the seeming lack of overt religious practice in combat theater and was bewildered by the cause.

I, however, as an atheist who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, viewed his experience as a reason to hope that the problem of religious coercion in the military has perhaps reached a peak and is starting to subside, at least in some places under some commanders. It has been a few years since I last served in a combat zone (my last redeployment was after a tour in Iraq near the end of 2007), but what Captain Cummings reported was far, far different than the situation I remembered from both Afghanistan and Iraq.

In both combat theaters, I recall endless and constant mandatory prayer circles being held by small units before military operations at which unit members who elected not to participate risked harassment, rebukes from their peers and supervisors, and even punishments. I recall dining halls decorated with bible verses, units adorned with bibles, and meetings started with Christian prayers. I recall the panic in a young soldier’s voice when he called me to tell me how his approved social meeting of military atheists was intentionally disrupted by an Army officer (a self-described “prayer warrior&#8221 and that he was receiving threats against his life.

I recall how my short quote in a small article in Newsweek magazine, wherein I pointed out the falsehood and absurdity that exists in the statement “there are no atheists in foxholes,” resulted in several military members seeking me out through the government e-mail system to threaten me with rape, abuse, and murder. While I worked in a multifaith, tolerant environment, I recall being afraid, for the first time, of being in physical danger from anyone outside my unit who knew of my atheism and past history as an atheist activist.

I have my own theories on why the religious meetings Captain Cummings wrote about were so sparsely attended.

Between my experiences, as well as the experiences of the many atheist service members who have called and written to me over the years, it is clear to me that service members are openly religious only when they are compelled to be, and that’s why evangelical commanders and chaplains create command climates that publicly expose those less devout service members in an attempt to shame them into participation. When these commanders engage in these overtly religious activities, their actions are always Christian and there are never any efforts to reach out to those of other faiths or to create an environment of tolerance.

I used to believe that perhaps these commanders did not realize the harm they were causing to those that did not share their faith, but I later came to believe they knew exactly what they were doing. To commanders like these, there is nothing more important than compelling others to share their faith, through command authority, peer pressure, or any other means that suits their purpose. The real irony is that commanders like these truly believe they have the duty and right to force their faith on others and when that “right” is impeded, they see it as an infringement to their religious freedom.

When service members choose not to attend a public prayer meeting, this does not necessarily reflect a failure of faith but may instead indicate an understanding that public piety does not always correspond with private virtue. The faithful who choose not to attend these meetings practice their faith as a private relationship between them and the deity of their choice, as they should, with no coercion or interference. And for some, perhaps the horrors of war have shown them that there is no benevolent, loving god guiding the universe and they choose not to pretend to believe otherwise. Regardless, if these service members are lucky enough to be serving in an environment where they are not being obligated or compelled to attend the religious meetings Captain Cummings described, than indeed perhaps some progress has been made.

Things change when commands change, and I have no doubt Captain Cummings will again experience an environment where service members are strongly “encouraged” to attend religious meetings through the implied threat of negative consequences should they fail to conform. I hope when that happens, Captain Cummings recognizes that religious coercion is a blight that destroys morale, creates conflict, and turns friends into foes. I truly hope we are starting to see the end of those days.

Where Did God Go in Afghanistan? An Atheist Writes. - NYTimes.com