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

“Twenty minutes, sir!” a voice announced.

I rolled out of my cot and shook the sleep from my mind and body. The unexpected wake-up call meant more U.S. soldiers had been killed. It was time for another Hero Mission time to get on the helicopter and collect the remains somewhere in northern Iraq.

As a chaplain’s assistant, it was my job to go on these Hero Missions almost as soon as the soldiers were killed, day or night. As the helicopter landed, blades still running, I’d hit the ground and collect the remains and make sure everything ran smoothly. We’d do a ceremony for them, and transport them down to a bigger air base to prepare them for the ramp ceremony so they could fly home.

What I saw, smelled, and touched on these Hero Missions was pretty bad, but I had to do it. Even though I didn’t know the soldiers personally, I felt like I did. I thought about their families back home and the buddies they left behind. I just wanted to do the best I could to honor them.

During the fifteen months in Iraq, I flew more than three hundred flight hours for close to eighty Hero Missions and there were multiple remains each time. I recognize that nothing is promised. Soldiers in combat died, but guys who would just be walking to the mess hall would be killed by a mortar, also.

It all goes back to the Lord Jesus Christ, just putting my life in his hands. That’s the only way I dealt with it. I still struggle, at times, sleeping, as I think about those soldiers we picked up. I probably will for the rest of my life. It was hard, but I also felt honored to be able to minister in this special way.

Lord, when confronted with the atrocities of war and other injustices of the world, show me what I can do about it, and what I need to leave in your hands.

“The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong… but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10–12)

You’ve got to be kidding me, I said to myself when I understood what was happening.

The chaplain and I were making our rounds within a U.S. Army hospital as part of our usual responsibilities during my twelve-month deployment in Afghanistan. We would minister to casualties and the medical staff alike. We had seen charred flesh, broken bodies, missing limbs, every kind of combat injury one can imagine.

But we had never seen this.

In one corner of the hospital, past all the U.S. soldiers suffering injuries, our medical team was diligently working to try to save the life of an Afghani Taliban guy who had inadvertently blown his arms and legs off with his own Improvised Explosive Device (IED). It wasn’t a suicide-bombing this guy had just screwed up and blown himself up.

Blood was everywhere. It seemed like quite a lost cause to me. Yet our doctors were trying to help him, even though this guy had prepared a bomb to blow us up. A known enemy that we knew would gladly kill us all if he got the chance.

What’s the point? I thought. If he dies, that’s one less person we have to worry about hunting in the future. Those things go through your head. It’s kind of hard to have compassion for a terrorist who hurts himself.

But the doctors were operating from a different principle: they were dealing with a human life, and all human life has value. If they could possibly save that life, no matter who it was, that was their duty to use their skills to help and not harm. And one has to realize in the overall big picture that these Taliban were just ignorant and had no idea exactly what they were fighting against.

The doctors worked on that armless, legless Taliban terrorist for a long time. They just couldn’t save him.

Lord, let us not forget that you created all men and women in your image and that each life has worth and dignity.

“So God created man in his own image.” (Genesis 1:27)

The Iraqi children’s eyes shone and their smiles just radiated unspeakable joy. You would think we had given them something unbelievably grand, something they could never ever imagine owning. You’d think we had just handed them they key to a better life. Maybe we did.

We gave them pencils. And they gave us an emotional payback of satisfaction that is difficult to describe.

The exchange was just one of many through a program our battalion (mainly our chaplain’s office) put together called Operation Flying Start and Operation Flying Start was just one of many similar humanitarian missions we did in Iraq. We contacted churches and organizations back home, and they gathered school supplies, soccer and sports equipment, etc., so we could distribute them here to orphanages and schools.

As our convoy vehicles prepared to take all this stuff to the Iraqi people, we did it along with the Iraqi Army because we wanted to push them out front to make relationships. At that point, the average Iraqi citizen was scared of the Iraqi Army. They thought if they talked to the Iraqi soldiers, that others would kill them. So by having the Iraqi army help us distribute these supplies, we intended to teach the kids not to be afraid of them. We wanted to help them realize there’s a different way of life and that America is not bad; we were there to help.

To see how the children reacted to the gifts of basic, simple necessities gave us a greater appreciation of what our being over there was all about. Someone can have a conversation about whether or not we should be there but there’s no denying that these are still people who have suffered a lot they are an oppressed people. It’s just horrible. There’s no way life should be like this.

Lord, show me where I can help in my own community to lift a burden from the oppressed and poor.

“He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” (Proverbs 14:31)

Mighty is our God… Mighty is our King… Camouflage-clad soldiers playing guitar, keyboard, and drums belted out songs of praise and worship from the front of the modest chapel that we built in the desert of Iraq. As the music drifted out of the building and over the sand, U.S. soldiers and contractors continued to file in, along with people of the Muslim faith who were either curious or just enjoyed the music. Either way, they heard the gospel.

Plenty of people had said it couldn’t be done. “You can’t build a church,” they had said. “You don’t have the wood and the supplies. It’s impossible.”

But God made a way; we built that church, and he met us there. We had multiple people come to Christ in Iraq. As one can imagine, there were people coming to church who never would have under any other circumstances. Many of these people were dealing with family issues separate from (but perhaps complicated by) the stress of their deployments. When they decided to seek answers from God, the church was there for them, and so were the chaplain along with many other believing soldiers.

The same thing happened in Afghanistan, too. Some Afghanis that had been checked out and cleared were allowed on the base, and at least one of them, after coming to church, became a born again Christian. It was so incredible to be a part of God’s work on the other side of the world. At these services, people would come to the Lord and want to be baptized. So we would have baptisms right there in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re not going to let a combat zone stop that.