The Diocesan Dialogue
Current Issue
April 2008

Written in a war zone

by the Rev. Carl Walter Wright, Chaplain Major, USAF
Previously published in the Diocese of Northern California Missionary.

Fr. Carl (as his troops call him) baptizes a soldier in the Persian Gulf near Camp Patriot in Kuwait. The soldier's expression reflects the poignancy Fr. Carl experienced each day in the war.
Photo courtesy Fr. Carl Wright.

"Done been in de storm. So long... Done been in de storm. So long children. Been in de storm so long... Give me a little time to pray."

This Negro spiritual, recorded by the late, great Marian Anderson, is what came to my mind this morning as I was walking back to the chapel from loading yet another dead soldier on an aircraft. When troops are killed, we do a ramp ceremony or "Patriot Ceremony," as we like to call it: simple prayers to give our fallen comrade back to God. This one got to me. I'd been there when he arrived at the hospital, probably dead on arrival, from yet another IED (improvised explosive device) attack. All of one leg and most of the other were blown off. The surgeon surmised that Johnny (a pseudonym) bled to death sooner than they could get him here to the air base.

I'm not sure what got to me most. Was it all the blood on my right hand from Johnny's head, and Lady Macbeth's "damned spot" which wouldn't come out? Was it the glazed-over look in the eyes of all the boys in his platoon? Was it the towering presence of his First Sergeant, who seemed larger than a California redwood tree? Was it the raw emotional display of his young Captain? Was it the sadness and sense of defeat on the faces of the medics? Or, was it the sight of well over 100 troops at dawn marching in two columns out to render a final salute to Johnny? No, moving though they were, it wasn't any of these things that got to me. It was the news that Johnny was 20 years old, had just gotten married before going off to war, and had an 11- month old baby he will never see! That news was almost unbearable. I wept. His death may be honorable, but it makes no sense. Twenty-year old, newly wed fathers shouldn't die. Right now, although I've been here barely two months, I feel like I've been in the war too long. "Give me a little time to pray."

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