Jane Cook - Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

“…a chattering fool comes to ruin.” (Proverbs 10:10b)

To our horror, the corporal to whom we had given the AT-4 fired off an illumination round from his M203 grenade launcher, but because of the wind, the round drifted back toward us. Its tiny parachute carried it back to the ground, completely giving away our position.

“We were dead for sure now,” I thought. I just knew the enemy tanks would loom out of the dust and darkness at any moment.

“What are you doing,” I blasted. “The tanks are going to know we are here for sure now!”

“Where are they, we can’t see them?” the corporal replied, not seeming to care that a lance corporal had yelled at him.

“They’re out there. Straight ahead of us, about 1500–2000 meters. Don’t fire another one of those flares,” I begged.

I got back into the track and climbed up to the troop commander’s station, behind the driver.

“Can you see anything?” I asked.

“No, nothing yet, too much dust,” Mejia replied. “Take a break. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

“I think it’s going to be easier than it sounds, sleep that is,” I responded as I climbed into the troop compartment.

Sitting on the center bench seat and leaning against the ramp at the very back of the vehicle, I lit a cigarette and tried to relax. Dirt cigarettes we called them the ones the Iraqis tried to sell from the side of the road.

“How can I sleep at a time like this?” I thought.

I pulled a small zip-lock bag from my uniform’s left breast pocket. Here I kept a pocket-size Bible the USO (United Service Organizations) distributed at Aviano Air Force base in Italy, where we stopped en route to Kuwait. Also in the bag was a plastic wallet-size picture holder with photographs of my girlfriend in Ohio and my family back home in Manitoba, Canada.

After reading several versus from the Psalms, I returned the Bible to the bag and looked at the photo album. In my mind I said goodbye to everyone I loved. Then I returned the pictures to the bag and prayed. I thanked God for the life he had given me, my parents, and the people I loved. I asked God to take my life into his hands and do with me what he willed. When I was finished, I closed my eyes, laid down on the bench, and miraculously fell asleep.

Lord, you’re in control. Thank you for sustaining when I sleep and when I rise.

“I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.” (Psalm 3:5–6)

I fell asleep for a period time, even though it felt like only a few minutes. Before then, I had been surviving on two hours of sleep a night. But a strange thing happened when I woke. Daylight was streaming through the driver’s hatch where Mejia was still sitting. The darkness was over.

“What’s going on up there, man?” I asked.

“Nothing, you missed it,” Mejia replied. “It cleared up enough. Air was called in.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” I exclaimed.

“I don’t know how you missed it: it was kind of loud,” he chuckled.

I was surprised Mejia didn’t wake me when the Marine air strike destroyed the tanks, but grateful for the peace that came with sleep.

I was told later those Iraqi tanks were T-72s, the most modern tanks the Iraqis had. These were former Soviet vehicles weighing at least forty-one tons. Those T-72s would have made short work of us easily if they could have seen us. I was also told the tanks had closed within 1,400 meters of our line; almost well within the range of their main guns. If it hadn’t been for that last dust storm, those tanks may have very well rolled close enough to see us, and our armament coil of smaller vehicles would have made easy targets.

As I think about that night in Iraq, I can’t help but reflect in wonder and awe. I might have fallen asleep and missed the “air show,” but I didn’t miss God’s hand. He used a dust storm to turn daylight into the darkest pitch I’d ever seen. He sustained us despite the missed location of the ICM, the chatter over the radio, and the mistaken illumination round fired by the corporal.

After that night we pushed on toward Baghdad. We were ambushed multiple times. On April 4th we attacked the West side of Baghdad and controlled the city within a week. We stayed as a reinforcement unit until President Bush announced the conclusion of combat operations. We were some of the first Marines to come home and received a true hero’s welcome.

I believe God answered many prayers that night and sent a final dust storm to spare us. I’m grateful to him for providing me assurance from his Psalms and allowing me to give him thanks for my life and those I love. He was the fresh air of hope in a dust storm.

God, thank you for your armor of light and bringing us out of the darkness.

“The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:12)

God gave Noah only seven days to pack the ark. Navy Commander Rob Thomson faced a similar challenge loading the USS Boxer , a helicopter carrier, in a week’s time in anticipation of the United States invasion of Iraq.

“We got word in late December 2002 that we would be shipping out to Iraq to prepare for a possible confrontation with Saddam Hussein,” Thomson said.

Normally it takes months to prepare for this kind of deployment. Not only did they compress the loading operation into one week, but it was also the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Crewmembers had to suddenly give up their leave and vacation plans.

As Operations Officer, Thomson was responsible for anything that involved planning and executing, such as moving helicopters and crafts, troops, and supplies aboard ship.

“We loaded our 2,000 Marines and 900 Navy crew and all of their gear between Christmas and New Year’s Day, then set sail the first week of January 2003,” Thomson explained.

Pressing utmost on Thomson’s mind was his family he couldn’t take with him or care for while he was gone.

“I was leaving behind Kinuko, my Japanese wife, in what to her was a ‘foreign country’ and Alex, my three-year-old autistic son, for her to care for alone in our San Diego home. No one from her family lived within 10,000 miles, and my family was 3,000 miles away in Pittsburgh.”

Thomson and Kinuko had married nine years earlier, living mostly in Japan where Thomson served three tours of duty. Kinuko, the daughter of a rice farmer, grew up in a Japanese town that was so remote most of its residents had never seen a foreigner until Thomson came to meet her family. “Everyone stopped and stared,” he noted.

Moving to San Diego had been a huge adjustment for the Thomsons but with a significant benefit. For the first time they were able to plug into a church and not simply attend chapel services. Although the church was small, their hearts were huge ark-like.

“The church we attended only had about fifty or sixty members, but the love of Christ dwelt in each one,” Thomson said.

When these church members learned about Rob’s sudden deployment, they offered to help Kinuko and Alex, which gave Thomson tremendous peace of mind as he embarked on a deployment that would take him into a combat zone for the first time of his sixteen years in the Navy.