Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [96]
The day before the final exercise is a Sunday. Every day is a training day, in the field or at the Rowe Training Facility, but if the class is training at the compound on a Sunday, an evening chaplain service is held for those who wish to attend. It’s a nondenominational service conducted by an Army chaplain from Fort Bragg. This Sunday, thirty-five candidates of Class 1-05 elect to attend the service. Five are from 811. The chaplain, a Presbyterian by ordination, welcomes the soldiers at the door of the classroom. The service begins with hymns as requested by the soldiers attending the service. As it’s mid-December, we move on to some Christmas carols. The chaplain is a short, kindly mannered major with a beautiful baritone voice. Following the singing, he asks if anyone would like a special remembrance in prayer for others. There are several—for family members, pregnant wives, sick relatives, lost comrades, and comrades in harm’s way. The chaplain then delivers a ten-minute sermon on helping others and being a good friend—it’s a vanilla discourse, but there is sincerity and even a touch of passion in his voice. He then offers communion to the group, a generic wafer symbolic of the sacrament of their particular faith. The service ends with a closing hymn. I seldom go to church, but I thoroughly enjoyed this service. It was a first for me, praying in the company of warriors, and I was very moved by it.
I came away with a thin, paper-laminate booklet titled Soldiers’ Book of Worship. It contains a short section of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish prayers, a generous number of hymns, statements of faith, and a section devoted to support of the dying. The statements of faith include the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish persuasions, along with the Five Pillars of Islam and a statement of Muslim beliefs. In the section for the dying, there’s a prayer for a Muslim soldier. It asks whoever reads that prayer to stand facing Mecca, if possible. How strange, I thought. Here I am, reading the prayer for a dead or dying Muslim soldier at a U.S. military Christian/Jewish service on an American Special Forces training base. My cynical self wonders if a prayer for a dying Christian soldier, let alone a dying Jewish soldier, was in any Muslim book of worship at an al-Qaeda training base or some Saudi madrassa training the next generation of suicide bombers.
The service is mostly attended by veteran soldiers, but there are a few X-Rays like Kendall and Altman. When we return to the 811 team hut, I find Dolemont in the squad bay, tipped back in a metal folding chair with his boots parked on a table, reading a Bible.
Eight-one-one has spent most of Sunday overhauling its personal gear, cleaning weapons, and preparing for the final exercise. The men will be in the field for four days and will carry everything they will need for the training. This time they will be working in one of the training areas on the western edge of Fort Bragg proper. Earlier that afternoon, Sergeant Stan Hall was tasked with the first mission. After the chaplain’s service, he gives his warning order. It’s a very slick and concise, by the Ranger Handbook briefing. Following a roll call, Hall pushes through brief statements of the situation as it relates to enemy forces and the commander’s intent, the mission they’ve been given, and his concept of mission execution. He makes his assignment of team leaders—Byron O’Kane will have the A-team and Antonio Costa will lead the C-team.