No Atheists in Foxholes: Misses, Near Misses, and Good Luck in Iraq

 

 

There is a saying we use with a sense of sarcasm when someone has a close call with the enemy here in Iraq. We call it a “Come-to-Jesus Meeting.” Or perhaps, if you’d like a hymn to go with that kind of moment, it would be “Nearer My God to Thee.”

 

Come-to-Jesus meetings fall into three categories: misses, near misses, and good luck.

 

Misses are a fairly normal occurrence. They happen to every service member in Iraq at one time or another. Misses generally include an indirect fire (IDF) attack. IDF takes the forms of rockets or mortars. Camp Al Taqaddum (TQ), takes occasional IDF attacks, generally in the form of rockets. There is an early-warning system in place that is triggered when radar detects incoming rounds. The warning consists of a broadcast from “The Big Voice,” speakers spread throughout camp that give a loud warning:

 

INCOMING, INCOMING, INCOMING!
WARNING! SEEK SHELTER!

 

In reality, that announcement may give you as little as ten seconds or as much as twenty seconds to grab your flak jacket and Kevlar helmet, duck into a hardened structure, or get close to a cement or HESCO (sand-filled) barrier. Just the “incoming, incoming, incoming” warning bellowing from the Big Voice can elicit a quick prayer. Often there’s just enough time to say, “Oh, Jesus!”

 

If I am in my office in the Mainside Chapel, I utter a pretty quick prayer as I grab my gear. There is no time to get to a hardened shelter. I pray because I know that this chapel has been hit three times by IDF. On September 30, 2005, for instance, IDF blew out the wall to my office and destroyed a bag of my clean laundry, computer, and books. I was not on base at the time, so there was no Come-to-Jesus Meeting for me. Still, it really irritated me until I realized that it is better to have your shorts blown up in your laundry bag than on your person. And this type of gallows humor is not unusual in Iraq, but it is not always appreciated by those back home who worry about loved ones out here.

 

A miss will shake the ground around you and get your attention, but otherwise the attack is not sufficiently close enough to cause undue concern. A miss causes more curiosity about where the rounds impacted than anything else. However, one person’s miss can be another person’s near miss.

 

A near miss is just a matter of geography. My first experience with a near miss was in late October 2005. I was building shelves for our living quarters (a 16’x32’ plywood hut shared by six people) with one of my roommates, Lt. Phil Davis, a physician’s assistant. In 2005 there was no early-warning system at TQ. Our warning consisted of hearing about the last two seconds of the rocket’s approach, the last two seconds before impact. You surely don’t forget that whistling sound—at which I simultaneously dropped the wood I was carrying and made eye contact with Phil. There was nowhere to run at that point. The round landed about forty yards away, and that certainly qualifies as a Come-to-Jesus Meeting. No time for a quick prayer. And (here’s more gallows humor) you have to check your skivvies after impact!

 

I found out quickly that I can still run pretty darn fast. You see, it is rare that there is only one incoming round, so we evacuated the area quickly. Luckily, in this case there was only one round, and no one was hurt. It was a nearer miss for the people in a building only ten yards from the site of impact. Fortunately no one was injured. The prayer after Phil and I stopped running was nearly the same as the one before a miss: “Oh, Jesus, that was close!”

 

The number of prayers that accompany near misses is directly correlated to the distance from the near miss. And a miss from small-arms fire (SAF) like that from an AK-47 is measured by feet or inches instead of yards from rocket or mortar fire. The brevity and intensity of the prayer accompanying these SAF near misses follows the same rules of proximity.

 

Good luck can, believe it or not, accompany injury from IDF or SAF. In my time serving with surgical shock and trauma (SSTP), I can give you two examples of good luck that accompanied an injury and the subsequent awarding of a Purple Heart.

 

The first case involved a religious program specialist (those Navy enlisted who are assigned to work with Navy chaplains) who was off base with his chaplain and their unit as they conducted a road repair mission. A sniper took a shot just as the young man moved. Judging by numerous sniper victims, we saw clearly that the shot was intended to hit the victim either just under the bottom of his flak jacket or between the protective plates. His movement at the exact same time the shot was fired caused the round to miss his torso and pass through his arm, just above the wrist, as it hung by his side. The wound was a “through and through,” barely missing crucial nerves and not shattering the bone. The shot did break the bone severely enough to cause him to be sent home to get it pinned in place, but he had walked into the SSTP.

 

If he had not moved, the shot could have proved fatal. On more than one occasion, I have been called to pray for those who did not survive similar shots. But this sailor had “good luck” even while earning the Purple Heart.

 

The second case of good luck involved more serious injuries, but the soldier claimed he was “very lucky.” The combat outpost near Ramadi was frequently mortared by the enemy in the fall of 2005. After a particularly long day on patrol, a young National Guardsman literally flopped onto the top rack of the bunk bed in his living quarters. Only an hour later the small base took several mortars inside the compound. One of those mortars hit the mud and brick wall (local Iraqi construction that crumbles easily) just above the end of this soldier’s bunk. His injuries were substantial. One foot was hit, blown open between the big toe and second toe, tearing the foot nearly halfway down. He was also peppered by fragmentation down the back of his legs, his buttocks, and his back. His injuries to his foot would require surgery at our SSTP and further surgery in Germany. As he lay on the stretcher in our emergency room, I spoke with him for a few minutes before his surgery.

 

“You won’t believe how lucky I am, Chaplain,” he said.

 

Outside of the fact that he was alive, I found that statement hard to believe. “How’s that?”

 

“Normally I sleep with my head against the end of the bunk by the wall, and I never sleep on my stomach. But today I was so tired that I kinda vaulted into the top rack, swung my feet to the end by the wall, and fell asleep on my stomach. If I had slept like usual, this would have struck my head, and the fragments would have gone into my neck, chest, stomach, and another exposed area farther south.”

 

We chuckled together. “Man, you are lucky.” He would have been killed instantly had he been in his usual sleeping position.

 

Then the soldier asked if he could stay with his unit. That would be impossible.

 

And usually when I tell this story, I have to end by saying, “Swear to God, it’s a true story!”

 

You gotta love the spirit of our troops exemplified by these two “good luck” soldiers. Shot and blown up and considering themselves lucky—and both wanted to stay with their units. Simply amazing spirits!

 

Their prayers after realizing their good luck in the aftermath of combat danger were those of relief and thanksgiving.

 

They had nearly had a real meeting with Jesus.

 

As military members in the combat zone, we jest and joke in a way that civilians sometimes don’t understand. Perhaps it’s a survival or keep-your sanity mechanism when we’re living day to day with danger.

 

Prayer is involved in a Come-to-Jesus Meeting whether it is a miss, near miss, or good luck. We hope to have these prayers of relief and thanksgiving instead of the ones that we have had, on too many occasions, when our brothers and sisters in arms have made the ultimate sacrifice.

 

Keep praying for all who go in harm’s way. We’re certainly praying—sometimes more fervently and quickly than others. It’s all a matter of geography and timing.

 

I send this to you all with a prayer of thanksgiving. Today is another day after last night it was a miss, a rocket that landed a couple of hundred yards away and a second rocket even farther away with no injuries. Amen to that! Amen! And we’re still praying.

 

This article was taken from No Atheists in Foxholes (Thomas Nelson) by Patrick McLaughlin. To order the book click here!