As if tensions in Afghanistan were not high enough over the burning of Korans, a soldier left his base and went on a murderous rampage in a village killing 16, mostly women and children. Afghanis are shocked and furious, and who can blame them? Any sensitive Christian feels the pain of the Afghan people, and though we are not directly responsible for the attack, we feel the shock of such an incomprehensible tragedy.
Jim White
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Although the soldier’s name is being withheld, reports have surfaced saying that he had served in combat multiple times and that during his last deployment he suffered brain trauma when the vehicle in which he was riding overturned. I am certainly no authority on head trauma, but this can’t be good. One can’t help but wonder if our national military policies contributed to the tragedy.
As every pastor knows, when people are building a case to get rid of you, the last thing you want to do is give them ammunition with which to shoot you. In recent days the United States has provided plenty of ammunition to be used against us.
I have always maintained that we should stay in Afghanistan long enough to remove the threat of the Taliban. Only then can we justify the sacrifice of nearly 1,800 American lives, to say nothing of the 19,000 Afghan and coalition deaths. Only when a stable government takes root among the Afghan people will we have concluded our mission.
But I have come to believe that we are sacrificing the blood of our younger generation for no good purpose. The ineptitude and corruption of the Karzai government run counter to our hopes that Afghanistan can become a stable democracy. It would appear that they don’t want a stable democracy.
In addition, we have to consider what the stress of multiple deployments is doing to our own people. Military families undergo changes during the absences of their soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen making it difficult to resume family life when they return. Some families can’t survive the stress.
But the greatest changes occur in the military personnel themselves. Some return home with permanent wounds in body and mind. Long after the war has ceased to be front page news, these heros will carry reminders of past battles with them every day of their lives.
We can only imagine the social costs yet to be tallied as families and communities deal with the fallout of this prolonged conflict. The social impact of post-traumatic stress disorder, not to mention a plethora of other ills will continue to take their tolls.
In the future, if we engage in long-term conflicts, we must come to terms with what we are doing to our military people by sending them repeatedly into harm’s way. I know that many have volunteered for repeated service, but many others believe they have done their duty and begin to resent repeated deployments. The families wonder how many times they have to risk potential tragedy before they have done enough.
Perhaps it is time to reinstitute the draft. I know this is not a popular notion, but it is a much fairer approach and it avoids the risk of multiple deployments experienced by a few.
One thing is certain. The rogue soldier has done an immense amount of harm by taking matters into his own hands. Whether he was in full possession of his faculties is immaterial to the families of the slain. Murder is a hard word to apply in wartime, but barring insanity, how could any other word rightly be applied?
In thinking about this terrible event, I’ve wondered whether soldiers of the cross sometimes go on rogue missions? The Florida pastor who publicized his intent to burn copies of the Koran comes to mind, as does the Westboro Baptist Church and their funeral picketing. And who could forget Wiley Drake’s call for imprecatory prayer against President Obama? Surely he qualifies as a rogue soldier of the cross.
What makes this even more difficult is that often rogue soldiers quote the Bible using proof tests that seem to justify their rogueness. But in truth, going rogue simply entails putting our own wants ahead of the Kingdom mission. We are all tempted to go rogue by saying “Not thy will, but mine be done.”
When we do, we have become rogue and we dishonor the kingdom of Christ.
Jim White ([email protected]) is executive editor of the Religious Herald.