Back to Iraq: Church services offer refuge

BAGHDAD - Twenty-one people gathered in a warehouse here Sunday and sang old, familiar hymns. “Amazing Grace” resonated with accentuated bass tones from a congregation in green.

Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of downtown, offers half a dozen church services every Sunday to a small but loyal following of soldiers from Fort Carson’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, which has three of its six battalions assigned there.

Since its founding, the U.S. Army has brought faith to its battlefields, and it’s no different in Muslim Iraq. The brigade has chaplains in each of its battalions and another who works in the headquarters. They counsel soldiers on such things as anger management, grief, marital strife and finances.

But Sunday is for preaching, and Capt. Aaron Swartz focused in on sin this week.

“We need to exalt God through our experiences and endure to the end,” he told the group that ranged from colonels to privates as he launched into a half-hour sermon on how to stay on the straight and narrow.

“Maybe there’s some sin you’re working to overcome,” he told them. “The power of Jesus Christ can help you with that.”

There was an M-2 Bradley armored personnel carrier parked outside and an attack helicopter circled overheard, but talk of war came up only during a time for prayer requests at the makeshift church with plywood walls. Two soldiers wanted to mourn fallen Americans from other units who have died in recent days.

Chaplains say the Sunday services draw light crowds, about 125 who attend their various religious offerings. Long gone are the days when attendance was compulsory.

Proselytizing is banned by Pentagon rule.

Chaplains try movie nights, Bible studies and even Hawaiian luaus to draw troops to the altar.

The most effective drawing card, though, is tragedy, said Capt. Lenny Siems, a Presbyterian chaplain who offered communion.

“Last time, when we had a fatality, it grew by leaps and bounds,” he said.

For soldiers, the services offer a refuge from military life. Rank doesn’t apply in church, Siems said.

“It gives them something normal,” Siems said as congregants raced out of the chapel to return to their work. “They can get away from the military if for only an hour.”

And chaplains let the services be an escape from Iraq by shying from talk of combat in sermons.

“The less we emphasize the military, the more they like it,” he said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: tom.roeder@gazette.com