It was an aspect of duty. You will not add one second to your life doing anything differently. God is sovereign. Those of us who understood that then could more effectively perform our duties. It was an essential philosophy of Stonewall Jackson.
Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. Captain, that is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.
Speaking to Captain John D. Imboden (24 July 1861), as quoted in Stonewall Jackson as Military Commander (2000) by John Selby, 25.
Prayer:
Dear God, I know you already know the day I will die. May I live boldly and courageously, never shirking back when duty calls.
“Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. The LORD will do what is good in his sight.” (2 Samuel 10:12)
November 14
HELPING THE IRAQIS FACE LIFE
Brig. General (ret) Paul Casinelli, MD
We all face death. It comes without warning for most. Life can be over in a second. What some would call a misstep or an accident can also be described as a circumstance that is under God’s complete control. We are truly frail creatures. We are built in a complex way, and we try to understand the process of life and death. The only way that I understand it is to see that we are walking miracles. From the time of conception until we die it’s a miracle of grace and mercy. The body is so complex a creation that only one thing going wrong inside will affect the whole system and put a person out of commission.
When something sudden happens, most of the world would say you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would say that you are at the exact place at the right time and right place. That’s my understanding of God’s sovereignty. We’re so dependent upon the Lord’s good pleasure. Like the grass, we are here one day and gone the next. Ecclesiastes 1:2, “Everything is vanity.” The next second we could be gone, but you cannot dwell on that. If you do then you couldn’t live.
The Iraqi people understood this. They were in many ways like any other people. They were family oriented and generally lived amongst family. We met with the sheik of the local village. He was a true leader. The people welcomed us into their homes and shared what they had with us generously. They were very clean and polite. They were quite hospitable, and their kindness always appeared to be genuine. They were interested in what we could do to help them not to line their pockets but to help their community and their children.
We worked to help them in many ways. We had been bringing medical and nonperishable supplies and providing labor to restore a local clinic. One of the things that struck me when we went into schools was that the girls were afraid of us at first. The boys were not afraid of anything. The girls didn’t really know what to make of us. The teachers had to let them know that we were not there to cause them any harm. We were there to help them and give them school supplies. It was one of the more human things we did. To reach out and help the Iraqi people in very real and practical ways was important. It allowed us to experience the sincere appreciation of the people.
Prayer:
Dear Lord, may you help our country’s soldiers to act righteously in Iraq and Afghanistan. Please use their righteous acts to lead many Muslims to see your good hand in their lives. May they give you praise.
“Consider the voice of the singers at the watering places. They recite the righteous acts of the LORD, the righteous acts of his warriors.” (Judges 5:11)
November 15
DEVELOPING MY FAITH
Brig. General (ret) Paul Casinelli, MD
It has been said that war is a mix between short moments of excitement and long periods of boredom. You had to have discipline and a plan for the “down time.” There are always books to read or exercise. When you go to war you should have a plan for what to do with that extra time. Reading through the Bible or studying the Bible is a wonderful way to do this. The Officer Christian Fellowship program (http://www.ocfusa.org/) or other Bible study tools are wonderful for this purpose as well.
I would sit down at the computer and type out the passage of scripture I was studying, and I would comment on it and send it by email to my sons. I felt connected to them when I sent my thoughts on Scripture. I felt like I was still leading my family from afar.
One of the verses that always hit me while I was there was Isaiah 40:31: “But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” This verse was appropriate for me in so many ways. I was a colonel then, and an eagle symbolizes this rank. ‘Waiting on the Lord’ seemed appropriate given the time I spent alone. Not ‘growing weary’ was a constant effort. Psalm 23 also played a role in my deployment, with the idea that I could not rest but rather that the lord would cause me to ‘rest in green pastures.’
All of these experiences led to a growth spiritually that I had not experienced before. What surprised me was not only the amount of growth and confidence that developed in my faith, but also the depth that has remained over the last five years since my return home. The growth of my faith was one of the realities of my deployment. It was as constant as the never-ending routine and tutti-frutti ice cream at every dining facility.
Prayer:
Dear God, I’m thinking of a soldier serving you in Iraq or Afghanistan or now back from his tour(s) of duty. Cause that soldier to grow in faith, share it with others, and come to a full understanding of every good thing we have in Jesus Christ.
“I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” (Philemon 1:4–6)
November 16
EXPLOSIONS
Sergeant Major “Ted,” special operations medic (name changed for security reasons). As a senior assault medic, he deployed more than a half dozen times to the war
The blast was incredible. I heard nothing. I felt everything. I was looking at the observation point (OP) outside of Kandahar, about to drink my first cup of coffee just after daybreak in December of 2001 then there was a flash, and suddenly we were physically not there anymore. The shockwave was like being hit by a wave in the ocean. It took our breath away. We were only sixty meters from the impact point. No one could hear anything after the explosion.
My sergeant major was standing to my left outside the building in front of a door. When the blast occurred it blew him through the door and on the pile with the rest of us. To put it in context, that amount of explosives was approximately one quarter to one third of what was used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
There were people standing close enough to the explosion to get flash burns on their eyes and second-degree burns on their chest from the actual heat and flash of the explosion but were otherwise relatively un-injured. Yet people far away were literally cut in half. There were people well within the lethal circle that were not killed. When the OP was hit directly, one soldier was simply gone and another was blown forty feet and only had a few scratches. The disparity of who gets the worst injury and where they were in relation to the explosion repeated itself over and over again.
It defies what we would assume to be logical. We think all those that are inside the lethal circle should be dead or seriously injured but that’s not the case at all. It’s very diverse what happens to people.
What we don’t understand about explosions is related to what we don’t understand about life. There is a time and a place where each person is going to die. At that point they’ll be accountable for what they’ve done in this life.
Prayer:
Lord, lead us to the conclusion that we have just one life to live and that life will soon pass. May we live with the understanding that only what is
done for you during our lives will be of lasting importance. Amen.
“Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27)
November 17
CASUALTY COLLECTION POINT
Sergeant Major “Ted” is a special operations medic
Initially, we were unaware that it was a bomb. All we knew was that we had been hit. We were ready to defend our position when the call came down that Americans were down the hill and we needed to take the hill. Running outside, I encountered the masses of casualties: close to one hundred people were wounded or killed in that immediate area.
The shrapnel pattern from the 2000 pound JDAM bomb went down in front of and behind the observation post. There were a lot of Afghan forces in front of the observation point watching the bombing and they were hit too. Our small special operations force was now the only force defending the position. There was no other force in the area that could lend assistance; and for all we knew the Taliban had scored a direct hit and were beginning an attack.
The casualties were easy to identify but sometimes difficult to find. Some got blown under vehicles, others were buried, some laid in heaps. There was a village nearby and they began to come out after the explosion. They were curious but some were looting the wounded and dead. This furthered the chaos and absolute anarchy of the situation. We established a Casualty Collection Point (CCP) in between the two buildings. There were munitions preset in the OP to defend the position and they began to detonate and send ordinance directly at us. When this began to happen we had to move the CCP to a point better shielded from this incoming fire.
There was only one other medical provider capable of working initially and we split up the work at hand. Everybody was doing what they could and there was a constant stream of casualties coming into the CCP. Despite the chaos and confusion everyone was focused on the tasks required to secure the position and save lives.
We think it’s difficult to keep focused when bad things happen, but sometimes the stress sharpens our responses and we push past physical discomfort and overwhelming tasks to do what needs to be done.
Prayer:
When chaos and confusion abounds, give me the ability, O Lord, to focus on the tasks at hand.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD watches over you the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all harm he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” (Psalm 121)
November 18
NEEDING HELP
Sergeant Major “Ted” is a special operations medic
As I am there on my knees, treating an injured soldier, someone poked me in my back.
“Leave me alone!” I shouted, not looking up.
Another poke, this one more forceful and into the back of my head. Turning around, I see an Afghan fighter with a large belt-fed RPK machine gun pointed at the back of my head with his finger on the trigger. He pointed at the empty bottles of antibiotics on the ground and then pointed the weapon back at me, putting his eyes behind the site of the weapon as if he was going to shoot it. Over the last hour he had seen us administer antibiotics to American soldiers, according to our protocol; he was clearly upset and wanted more antibiotics for the Afghan casualties.
I quickly scanned for someone who could help me but I was alone. With my weapon slung on my back I was not in a position to discuss anything and I needed to act.
Grabbing some old needles, syringes and a small bag of IV fluid, I drew as much left over antibiotics as I could, injected it into the IV fluid, and gave all the Afghan casualties a shot in the arm of this antibiotic solution.
I can’t even see anyone else from my unit, I thought as I was administering the antibiotics under gunpoint. But every once in a while I could hear a fifty caliber machine gun going off and I realized that our soldiers were still out there doing what they had to do to protect the position from being overrun by the Taliban. “I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from?” I recited Psalm 121 in my mind. “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip, he who watches over you will not slumber… . The LORD watches over you, the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.”
Finally, the Afghan fighter and his friends who had threatened my life just moments ago seemed satisfied.
Prayer:
Father, I know you promise I will never be alone. You will always watch over me and care for me. You will keep me from harm and watch over my life. Thank you Father.
“The LORD will keep you from all harm, he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” (Psalm 121:7–8)
November 19
OVERWHELMED
Sergeant Major “Ted” is a special operations medic
I was tired. My hands had begun to swell. They had been injured in the blast and working with my hands had not helped. I was thirsty. Someone had stolen my water and I was becoming dehydrated.
It was at that point when one of my guys came down and asked me if I was okay.
“No I’m not,” I told him. “My hands are jacked up, I’m dehydrated and I have no security.” He stood there, protecting me, so I could wash my hands and drink something for the first time that day.
Sitting in the shade of my friend, I was able to recuperate enough strength to continue. I wasn’t even halfway done at that point. He gave me water, he gave me comfort, he gave me shade, and that may not seem like much but at the time it was a lot. I was working on people over and over and over again and used my hands constantly. And now I was having problems using my hands at all. He gave me water to wash all the blood off of them. I worked through having other people’s blood coagulate and stick to your hands. To be able to wash all the dried blood off my hands, if only for a few minutes, made a big difference. For five minutes I did nothing but rest and drink. He gave me Gatorade and a power bar. He moved a vehicle into position to overwatch my area.
Just knowing that someone is watching you allows you to get down on your knees and turn your back and do what you have to do. To deal with the chaos and do what is needed for so many wounded takes all your attention. It took hours to figure out what everyone needed. At about five and half hours into the ordeal we were told that helicopters would be coming in, but it would only be for Americans. That presented problems. We had to have security and we had to move the American wounded to a different location. Thankfully they sent more helicopters and we were able to evacuate the Afghan wounded too.
Prayer:
Almighty God, remind us that you watch over us and that you hear our petitions. When we know the righteous are never alone, we are strengthened in our faith and emboldened to stand firm against the fiery darts of the evil one. Thank you, Lord, for this reassurance. Amen
“For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” (1 Peter 3:12)
November 20
ALWAYS MOVE FORWARD
Sergeant Major “Ted” is a special operations medic
It was the largest aeromedical evacuation of casualties during the war. As I looked at some of the injury reports it’s pretty amazing who lived and who died. Everyone has a time they will leave this earth. You have a choice to make the most of this life while you are here.
Initially in combat, everybody’s afraid. You probably only see about 25 percent of what is happening because the entire experience is sensory overload. Many times people don’t even hear bullets because they are so overwhelmed by the self-preservation instinct.
You shouldn’t be he
re, run away, your brain tells you. But you have to move forward. The more experience you have with combat and the more you’re exposed to the disparity between who lives and who dies, the easier it becomes to simply move forward.
You begin to understand that you cannot control whether you live or die. You’ll act tactically sound and make good decisions and not take undue risk, but you have to let go of the fear of death. You have to be concerned and focused on the mission and on others around you.
A great soldier once told me that the Army was about soldiers taking care of soldiers and this is very true in my experience. If you’re a leader on your team or the lowest ranking guy, your purpose is to take care of others and focus on the success of the mission. Being a part of that is something very special.
Surround yourself with the best people, the best tactics, the best equipment and techniques and no matter what, commit to making the mission successful. When you do this and let go of worrying, then there is nothing left but to move forward. As Robert Frost said, “the only way round is through.” Christ said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to [your] life?” and the reality is you just can’t. Focus your attention on helping others and on accomplishing the mission and let go of trying to control the outcome through worrying. Tap into your faith for the peace that comes only from God he has a plan for you.
Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan Page 44
