Courage and Christianity

This month's Atlantic Monthly has a fascinating glimpse of the Marines in Iraq by Robert Kaplan.

He notes that the Marines he is imbedded with are:

a) More courageous than most men in general, and more courageous than he in particular, and:

b) Much more Christian than average

Unfortunately, the entire article is not available online. It's far more positive in its portrayal of American soldiers than accounts I've seen elsewhere.

There is this tidbit about the article and then a quote from the article itself (my favorite part of the entire article) on the Atlantic site:

Before the call to arms came, he had felt a strong sense of kinship with these fighting men; like him "they had soft spots, they got sick, they complained." But differences announced themselves as soon as the battle preparations began. Kaplan was struck first by their strict adherence to hierarchy--what he refers to as "the incontestability of command." Whenever the most senior officer present in a given planning session made a decision, there was no further argument or discussion; deliberations simply moved efficiently on to the next matter at hand. Kaplan also became keenly aware of the pervasiveness of Christian religious sentiment among the troops. "The spirit of the U.S. military is fiercely evangelical," he writes, "even as it is fiercely ecumenical." Indeed, a few hours before the scheduled attack, a military chaplain issued a blessing in which he reminded them that it was Palm Sunday and referred to the task at hand as "a spiritual battle" and to the Marines themselves as "tools of mercy." The most stark reminder of the difference between himself and the men among whom he was embedded, however, didn't come until they were in the thick of battle. On the second night of the operation, Kaplan was with a group that had penetrated far into the city when it began to take enemy fire. Kaplan struggled to suppress his own natural instinct to flee. To his amazement, his companions ran straight toward the gunfire.

Smith [the company commander] did not have to order his Marines straight into the direction of the fire; it was a collective impulse-a phenomenon I would see again and again over the coming days. The idea that Marines are trained to break down doors, to seize beachheads and other territory, was an abstraction until I was there to experience it. Running into fire rather than seeking cover from it goes counter to every human survival instinct-trust me ... In one flash, as we charged across [the street] amid whistling incoming shots, I realized that they were not like me; they were Marines.

Praise God for the witness and courage of these Christian men in the only branch of the military where women are still thoroughly segregated from combat roles.