"Marines turn to God ahead of anticipated Fallujah battle"

Marines turn to God ahead of anticipated Fallujah battle
Sat Nov 06 2004 09:37:17 ET

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov 6 (AFP) - With US forces massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines swayed to Christian rock music and asked Jesus Christ to protect them in what could be the biggest battle since American troops invaded Iraq last year.

Men with buzzcuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles laying beside them, and chanted heavy metal-flavoured lyrics in praise of Christ late Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.

They counted among thousands of troops surrounding the city of Fallujah, seeking solace as they awaited Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's decision on whether or not to invade Fallujah.

"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.

The US military, with many soldiers coming from the conservative American south and midwest, has deep Christian roots.

In times that fighting looms, many soldiers draw on their evangelical or born-again heritage to help them face the battle.

"It's always comforting. Church attendance is always up before the big push," said First Sergeant Miles Thatford.

"Sometimes, all you've got is God."

Between the service's electric guitar religious tunes, marines stepped up on the chapel's small stage and recited a verse of scripture, meant to fortify them for war.

One spoke of their Old Testament hero, a shepherd who would become Israel's king, battling the Philistines some 3,000 years ago.

"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.

The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.

"Victory belongs to the Lord," another young marine read.

Their chaplain, named Horne, told the worshippers they were stationed outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis "freedom from oppression, rape, torture and murder ... We ask you God to bless us in that effort."

The marines then lined up and their chaplain blessed them with holy oil to protect them.

"God's people would be annointed with oil," the chaplain said, as he lightly dabbed oil on the marines' foreheads.

The crowd then followed him outside their small auditorium for a baptism of about a half-dozen marines who had just found Christ.

The young men lined up and at least three of them stripped down to their shorts.

The three laid down in a rubber dinghy filled with water and the chaplain's assistant, Navy corpsman Richard Vaughn, plunged their heads beneath the surface.

Smiling, Vaughn baptised them "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Dripping wet, Corporal Keith Arguelles beamed after his baptism.

"I just wanted to make sure I did this before I headed into the fight," he said on the military base not far from the city of Fallujah.

END

.

/sarcasm

Now we understand what we are up against.

In really hard times I fall back on religious teachings of childhood.

They are in combat, they can pray to whomever or whatever they choose for their own safety.

But they are not fighting FOR God.

This sounds more like a crusade to me. Our God against your God. Which one is stronger. Would Jesus really want us to use his name for this purpose? We are fighting fundamentalists yet we are using the fundamentalist on our side as well. The Islamic fundamentalists use their religion to give validity to their actions and I believe some Americans are now doing the same. Maybe there are no atheist in the foxholes but many of my uncles who fight in battles such as WWII, Korean War, Vietnam questioned the existence of a God who would put them in this type of situation. Jesus doesn't approve and I don't think Allah or what ever god you worship would.

Do unto others as you would want done unto you. Worship no gods besides me. Those are the only two commandments spoken by Jesus. War and destruction do not fit either of those categories. But worship and following a leader who made decisions based on faulty intelligence and lies does!!

in short... before you go to kill, see your buddies killed or die yourself... you fall back on things... Some get very religious, some fall back on rage, some on other things...

I don't know how to explain it to you, okay... Personally, I don't think you can understand.

From my experience, nobody in Iraq is on a religious crusade to kill Muslims and convert the survivors to Christianity.

There seems to be no worse hatred and demonization than that between those who believe one version of a particular god and those who believe another. It's been observed that in the eyes of "faithful" who might have any doubts as to the rightgeousness of their belief, Blasphemy is a sin on par with torture and murder.
Those with truly strong faith - faith to their core - fears no hearesy and will usually tolerate dissenting views of faith or non-faith.

If they are Christian, Jew, or Muslim, they are all worshipping the same diety, the God of Abraham, no matter which prophet leads them closer to it, or which form of heaven/afterlife that diety presides over.



Haele

Morality is taking the responsibility for the actions done by you and your faith that affects others and the society around you, not just having strong opinions about what is right or wrong about society.

You know what they say about there are not any atheists in foxholes.

Killing is much worse if you don't believe in a fantasy afterlife.

Having said that, history is filled with many noble non-believers who volunteered for just causes.

There's a creeping prejudice that dismisses all who don't believe as not fit to live; it manifests itself in many ways, but it is now the norm.

an atheist is an atheist no matter the situation

it's an argument against foxholes."

I forget who said that.

"There is a common statement "There are no atheists in foxholes." This is not only untrue, it is discriminatory towards atheist service members. Chaplains of all services have perpetuated this prejudice by making statements to the effect that there can be no atheist in wartime. View a list of chaplains. Chaplains who state that there are no atheists in foxholes are committing an injustice no less than if they had said no Muslim is an American. MAAF is asking that senior chaplains publish an official condemnation of this practice. See atheists of all branches and types of service at our Atheists in Foxholes page"

http://www.maaf.info/index.html

I never assumed that statement meant there could not be any atheists in the battle. but instead refered to the phenomena of soldiers suddenly finding religion. But as you say, perhaps we should find a alternet way of saying it.

in Iraq. Plenty of atheists died in WWII defending their country and I suspect there were plenty in VN and Korea also. There were plenty of others that did not pray to the Christian god too. In fact,there are stories because their buddies in the foxholes and other places were shutting their eyes and praying in the heat of battle, they put the rest of them in harm's way.

Why should I be blaming the kids. If it gives them some measure of comfort to pray before entering hell. Then let them pray! And if you don't want to then that is your right as well. But to ask these kids to face death and tell them they are not allowed to pray?

What chilled me in the story wasn't the converting, since, like you said, I can't blame someone for wanting to find some comfort before becoming canon fodder. I was horrified by the First Sergeant, who said, "It's always comforting. Church attendance is always up before the big push." Comforting?! Knowing that these kids are so terrified that they're looking for anything to give them solace is comforting?!

no one here in response to your atheists in a foxhole insult said anything like that.

Of course they are "allowed" anywhere,anytime on any street, in malls, in schools,in subways and in restaurants and anywhere else to pray to their heart's content.


they are NOT expected by anyone, atheist,agnostic, Buddhist, Taoist
or Native American or fellow Christian,to be praying with their eyes closed putting the lives of their comrades at risk, not to mention the mission. I am certain that any one of them whould smack them upside the head to open their eyes to snap them out of it.

I was a Christian in the process of leaving the church and eventually becoming a pagan. My battalion chaplain was a good friend and while he cautioned me about my choice when we discussed it, he didn't harp on it. He was there for the troops (though he wasn't the heavy metal type) and made sure that the Catholic, Jewish, and Mormon soldiers were put in touch with chaplains of their own faith, though he was ready to help them on an immediate basis if they asked.

We didn't inquire as to the faith of others unless it came up accidentaly in discussion.

who would care what religion or non religion the guy next to him with his rifle expecting to cover his ass, is. What would be the most important is that the guy can shoot the damn thing acurately and not what religion he was.


the no atheists in foxholes is a direct insult and made by bigoted people who have a need to villify atheists. It is almost akin to the Swift boat veterans villifying Kerry, for many athiests that I know personally fought in WWII and were in foxholes. And they did NOT pray to something they did not believe existed.

I don't think this generalization pertains to those who are, in fact, committed atheists. I do know that soldiers who normally do not attend church on a regular basis tend to get closer to the chaplain in a combat zone. Call it a Jungian return to their early religious education or whatever, it is a fact.

it is a favorite, oft repeated, urban legend amongst the literalist fundamentlaists. I have heard it so many times from different ones that it is not funny. So is the claim that they are not "allowed" to pray. Believe me--I have long time experience with them.

Although I suspect he knows exactly what's going on. Mr. Snake Oil.

he avoided wartime duty on the front and hid and deserted during wartime. But he did dress all up in a neat flight suit just for the fun of "pretend" to be a wartime hero.

He did/does a lot of praying too--and now prays to kill babies and children.

"Gott Mit Uns" (and never "them") :eyes: Fucking morons!

Who was in D-Day and got his freakin' kneecap blown off.

Jerry Falwell
Pat Robertson
Ralph Reed
Tom Delay
Bill Frist
George W. Bush
Billy Graham
etc.

that's a little more about a point i am trying to make, if you don't mind.

crusade. dumb asses.

and after they are dead their families will be proud to have given a life for smirk.

How can you be so certain that when faced with certain death. you would never ask for help based solely on what can't be proven.

For you personnaly this may be true but to pit ones atheism against the will to survive? Thet takes an awful lot of conviction.

I am sick and tired of propping up people who are deliberately slaughtering innocent people. I admire and will support any military man who refuses to fight.

Let me add, I fully support a military that protects our borders and defends us against bonafide enemies. But this military in Iraq ain't it.

none shall be spared his wrath.

He said that the Republicans (the good guys in the Spanish Civil War, for whom Orwell fought) got nervous when they heard church bells ring, because the Nationalists (Franco's fascists) always heard mass before going into battle. The Republicans and their common soldiers were staunchly secularist and probably the first army in history comprised mostly of atheists. The Fascists, on the other hand, made a strong alliance with the Catholic Church.

If you want some interesting reading, I'd reccomend that book. It's not a polemic like Animal Farm, but it's some great non-fiction.

If their God exists, I'm sure he is thrilled people are killing in his name. My God is very unhappy about what is being done in His name.

marching as to war...


....What the saints established that I hold for true.
What the saints believèd, that I believe too.
Long as earth endureth, men the faith will hold,
Kingdoms, nations, empires, in destruction rolled (sabind baring-gould, 1865)

The Bush juggernaut rolls on.

Whatever

murder their citizenry for no reason.

Nothing wrong with looking toward god when going into battle but this type of demonstration is symbolic of a greater cause behind this war. A Crusade. If our so-called preemptive stikes become a true Crusade the rest of the world will have no choice but to turn against us.

Where are the true Christians? Those that actually have heard the teachings of Jesus. If there are any out there I hope they are beginning to speak up. There must be some left. Please let this be a minority. For the sake of troops on the ground and this whole nation back at home. Otherwise the US may be on the wrong side of that mythical battle this administration seems so hell-bent on bringing forward.

and thousands WILL be murdered in this misadventure.

And some of you wonder why I have opted out of this absurd nightmare. Let these fuckers run America into the ground. Meanwhile, I have my own soundtrack to watch the chaos unfold, and it doesn't exactly praise jeezus.

Those marines are what America is all about, killing and god.

The US military should really consider hiring back Comical Ali to do their PR. They could use a credibility boost.

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

-- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

The whole world is being dragged into this war, just to satisfy the blood lust of a sociopath. The whole world thinks the United States is a barbaric, bullying, criminal country, and that it's citizens have gone off the deep end. Sadly, they are right.

"If you go into Iraq, you will go without God."
Well this little story sure proves those words to be true.
The picture of a bunch of young people DECEIVED
by the wolves into thinking GOD is with them on this
is horrifying.
God has a special place in hell for the people
responsible for misleading and deceiving these young
people.
bhn

notice with one word. VOTE and given that this is St. Louis you can be damn sure they did not mean vote for Kerry. The Pope can't have it both ways.

Bastards. I'm sorry and please forgive me. Save yourselves first, you a holes. Kill, Kill, Kill. and we will be redeemed. MF it all. You sorry bastards.

Prayers and tears in Falluja

The Iraqi city of Falluja is braced for an assault by US forces massed on its outskirts.

~snip~

If a big bomb lands somewhere nearby, you often hear crying and wailing afterwards.

It is a very strange feeling because in between the screaming, there is the sound of more missiles flying.

That is when I think - I could be next.

Another sound you hear during the bombing is that of prayers. People pray loudly because they are so scared.

Sometimes, you hear people say quite unusual things - they improvise, making up their own prayers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3986085.stm

at the hands of my very own dad. It pales in comparison to this.

Amen, say amen!