Immediate! - Part Two
An Address to the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces December 9, 2003, Washington, D.C.

Lieutenant Carey H. Cash, CHC, United States Navy Reserve

> Read Part 1
 
Last month Chaplain Cash told the story of how the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment spent forty days in the Kuwaiti Desert before being ordered into Iraq at the beginning of the war. Chaplain Cash recited how God had used that forty days to, “…prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies.” He recited that by the end of the war, he had baptized fifty-seven marines, one of whom he had baptized in Saddam’s Presidential Palace on Palm Sunday. This month he tells about the battalion’s journey to that palace.

Our battalion had been in Iraq for twenty days of almost unrelenting combat. During the entire time God had been “…preparing a table before us in the presence of our enemy.”

And then came 10 April in Baghdad. The battalion was given orders to seize the Al Azimiyah Presidential Palace in the center of the city. Our commanding officer, suspecting a determined enemy force was waiting for us, did something he’d never done. He ordered all our non-armored vehicles to remain back a few kilometers as the lead elements of our convoy proceeded down Route Two into central Baghdad. His suspicions proved well founded. At 0400 that morning, in the dark, the last of Saddam’s henchmen unleashed all their fury. One thousand Fedayeen warriors, hiding in buildings, on rooftops, on overpasses, in mosques, wearing civilian clothes, spread out over a square mile in downtown Baghdad. These men shot an estimated 1,000-1,500 RPGs and countless machine gun rounds at our convoy. When it began, marines near the front of the column said the sky looked like a laser show. Rockets and machine gun tracers were coming from every angle. One company alone (twelve vehicles carrying 160 men) sustained thirty-three direct impacts from RPGs.

For nine long hours, at every corner, we were ambushed. But here’s the miracle. By every assessment, during that nine-hour ordeal, our battalion should have sustained untold casualties and countless dead. Most of our marines were exposed the entire time while they stood in the top of their armored vehicles firing back. But by the end of the day, when the smoke had cleared, only one man had been killed-Gunnery Sergeant Jeffrey Bohr, a twenty-two-year veteran; killed as he was calling in a med-evac with one hand and firing his M-16 with the other. Seventy-five marines were injured-most would experience full recovery and strength. The fact is, many, many marines should have died that day, but it just didn’t happen.

Some (perhaps many) will say, “What a fluke. You guys really got lucky.” But if you ask the marines who were there, there is no question. They experienced a miracle from God! You see, two weeks earlier, in a service south of Baghdad, I had shared with the men a prayer my wife had learned as a third grader whenever her family went on road trips. The prayer went like this: “ Lord, please make the driver aware, awake, alert and aggressive, and surround us with four legions of angels at every corner.” I thought to myself, “What a fitting prayer for our guys.” So I shared it with them as our unit continued to move closer and closer to Baghdad. I never dreamed so many men would cling to that promise when the rounds started flying. But the morning after the fire-fight in Baghdad, as I walked through the palace and talked with the marines, all I heard was, “Chaplain...Those angels your wife talked about, those legions...they were there...surrounding us, protecting us! I should be dead, chaplain! But God was with me.”

After the fight, the Counter-Mech platoon took me to look at their vehicles. Vehicles riddled with bullet holes through the back, shrapnel holes everywhere in the floorboard. These vehicles had been filled with men. Not a single man from that section was injured. And then there was Staff Sergeant Russi. He had a bullet enter his helmet just above his right ear, travel over his head underneath the skin of the Kevlar, only to stop embedded on the opposite side, above his left ear. At one point, the entire convoy became lost and separated, potentially a deadly situation. And yet, the executive officer shared with me, that in the end, he believed our being split up and lost actually worked to confuse the enemy. Instead of one long convoy, we were all over the place...moving from every direction. He concluded the Iraqis probably thought they were facing an entire Division! When I heard him share that, I immediately thought to myself how much that sounded like the Old Testament story of Gideon-God taking 300 men and making them look like tens of thousands to the enemy. Our commanding officer, a seasoned combat veteran, said, “There is no doubt. Someone was watching over us the entire time.”

It cannot be denied. Someone was watching over us. And He was beside us and surrounding us, shielding us and defending us, fighting for us. And it wasn’t luck, or good fortune, or just some cosmic play of chance. It was the Lord God Himself. You see, according to my religious tradition (and the tradition of many in our battalion), our God knows something about battle. He fought against Satan in the wilderness and defeated his schemes! He fought against sin at the cross and defeated its power! He fought against death at the tomb, and burst its bonds. And because of this, can He not do all things for you and for me?

As military leaders and strategists reflect back upon our battles in Iraq, there is no doubt that there will be many lessons learned, many conclusions drawn. But the one conclusion that cannot go unspoken or unsung is that our God is able to deliver us! He is our Rock, our Fortress, and our Deliverer. And all of us-whether we are in the streets of Baghdad or not-need His deliverance because we all face enemies: fear, doubt, worry, discouragement, temptation, despair, the rising power of unbelief.

These are enemies, and they are often just as sinister, just as fierce, and just as unrelenting as evil men lurking in the shadows of Baghdad. But here’s the message: if God can deliver an isolated, cut-off battalion of U.S. Marines, surrounded by enemies in the Belly of the Beast, can He not deliver you and me from the enemies that assail us in our daily lives? “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

In the end, it’s more than just a beautiful scripture, more than just a psalm we memorize as children. It is a promise to be believed, and a bedrock to build our lives upon. King David believed it! A battalion of U.S. Marines experienced it! And its power is offered to all of us, who in the midst of our trial, and when surrounded by enemies, can find that relentless courage, that reckless faith, that undying hope, to look unto God, and believe. Amen.

Editor’s Note: Chaplain Cash has written a book about his battalion’s experiences in Iraq. The book, “A Table in the Presence” (W. Publishing; a division of Thomas Nelson), is available in book stores and on line at Amazon.com.