He told me very calmly: "I am going to kill myself. I deserve to die and go to hell."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I not only killed enemy soldiers in combat, but I murdered lots of innocent civilians as well." Knowing I had been a chaplain, he went on: "You have spent your entire life working for God, and I have done all this evil, so where does that leave me?"

"You get the party and I don’t," I replied.

"What are you taking about?" he asked.

So I did a quick paraphrase of the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke's Gospel. I pointed out that I was like the older son, while he, with all his guilt--which amounted to real sorrow and repentance--was like the younger son, the one who gets the party.

I threw in the story of the lost sheep, with me being among the ninety-nine left alone by the shepherd who goes out and finds him. "It leaves me feeling jealous of you," I said. "Because you’re getting all this attention from God."

He had never looked at it that way before, so he decided to stay alive long enough to ponder these things.

At our next session, I told him about Saul of Tarsus, a man with blood on his hands, on another murder mission, who was converted and became the great apostle. Subsequent meetings introduced him to assorted biblical characters, and also to John Newton, the slave ship captain who, after his conversion became a priest and the author of the great hymn Amazing Grace. We got around to Ignatius Loyola, a soldier, recovering from wounds, who decided to become a soldier for God and then founded the Jesuits.

After several sessions, I introduced the conclusion to all this. "Compared to a lot of people God has used to accomplish great good in this world, you really are kind of a Sunday school kid. So quit wallowing in guilt and do some good for other people."

He decided to do just that.

In the two or three years remaining in his life, he became a friend, counselor, benefactor and mentor to a great many people. When he finally died of the liver disease that his many years of drinking had caused, we celebrated his life at a funeral attended by hundreds of people he had helped and who were inspired because they knew the history of his life. As the preacher on that occasion, I was able to add his name to the list of those in whom God's grace had accomplished much.

Because he was doubtless enjoying the feast prepared for him in heaven, we had one in his honor right after the funeral. It was quite a party.

Spiritual Wounds of War: Some Reflections from Out of the Night

From the New Intro to Out of the Night on civil religion and war

Once again the country is divided over a war which seems to have no end in sight. Once again, troops are called upon to fight a war against an insurgency that seems to grow stronger. Once again the American military is called upon to chase an enemy into the midst of a civilian population. Once again the American military is seen by an indigenous population as oppressors. As was the case in Vietnam, the origins and conduct of the war seem grounded in erroneous intelligence, misjudgments, mistakes and outright deception on the part of political leaders.

Soldiers and their families are beginning to raise their voices in protest about shabby medical treatment they have received back home. Multiple deployments of military personnel back into the war zone have caused serious morale problems among the troops. Reserve and National Guard units have been called up and deployed in ways not seen since World War II.

Once again the American civil religion--which is often confused with authentic Christianity--has been used as a religious and moral underpinning for war. The discussion of civil religion in Out of the Night is as relevant today as when it was written. The religious rhetoric used to support the war in Iraq is even more blatant and virulent than that used during Vietnam. The dangerous doctrine of American exceptionalism which formed the basis for this pre-emptive war has its roots in civil religion. There has never been a greater need for a public conversation about religion and war than there is now. Out of the Night provides a framework for this discussion.

Discussions with counselors who work with newly returned veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and some personal contact with these veterans make it abundantly clear that the questions and problems confronting these young men and women are the same as those that plagued older generations of warriors.

The sole exception and crucial difference between these new veterans and those who returned from Vietnam is that the country has learned from the bitter experience of a generation ago that we must provide support for our troops. We must not scapegoat them for whatever errors the civilian authorities might make in the decision to go to war and the blunders they make in fighting the war.

As are other Vietnam vets, I am profoundly grateful for the support our troops have received during this war. I like to think that this book has played a small part in making Americans aware that veterans need our support, whatever we may think of the war itself.

As a Vietnam veteran and retired VA employee, I am appalled and angered beyond measure but what I see of the treatment of younger veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The San Diego VA is one of the finest in the country. San Diego is where the Marines return from Iraq. We have new veterans coming in for services, especially mental health service in overwhelming numbers. The staff, my former colleagues, are so overworked that I do not know how they continue to function. Yet they keep trying. But, I fear the limit will soon be reached. The problem lies very simply in the unwillingness of the Bush admimnistration to fund the VA adequately. Congress will not or cannot surmount the mission of those now running the government to "starve the beast," thereby depriving the American people of the services which the government alone can give.

The betrayal at the highest levels: by bush, Cheney and the cabal of their cronies in Congress is at the root of why my fellow veterans are in such pain. It is at the root of why my VA colleagues are so distressed.

The consequences of this betrayal are laid out in considerable detail by a wonderful piece of reporting by McClathey Washington Bureau. I invite you to read the entire piece. Then please do what I intend to do along with some of my fellow veterans: contact your local congressional representative now, without fail and raise absolute hell. Demand that they "support the troops," not with cliches and bumper stickers but with funding. Hold them accountable.

Talk Given at Faith Leaders for Peace Event March 19,2006

As a Vietnam veteran, and as one who has worked for the VA helping other veterans with combat stress, I know what war does to people. The war may be wrong, but those who go into battle deserve their country's support during and after the war. The country owes them this--but our leaders withhold this support.

We know our leaders do not care for Iraqi civilians. But they never said they did. We know the lies and deceptions about this war--but maybe we believe them when they say they support the troops and veterans of war. They do not.

They wrap themselves in the flag and proclaim their support for American troops. They accuse war critics of endangering the military. But they lie--here too they lie. They do not really support the troops: not active duty personnel, not reservists not National Guard, and not veterans. Look at what they have done.

They refused to send enough soldiers to maintain order in Iraq. They give huge sums of money to private contractors and don't give their own soldiers adequate armor and supplies.

They strain the National Guard and Reserves to the breaking point. They fail these people on their return to civilian life. They give them poor medical treatment and no job assistance.

People cannot recover from the psychic scars of war if they have to go back into combat again and again. But they continue to send young men and women back for second, third and even fourth tours--back into a war with no apparent reason, purpose or end. Today we learned that they have to send many of them back on anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants.

Stress on military families is unprecedented--but our leaders do not care. Already veterans of the Iraq war are having employment problems. The rate of homelessness Iraq veterans is three times that of their age cohort.

In spite of all this, the administration's budget proposes a 13% decrease for the VA over the next five years—this at a time when new veterans are flooding the system and there are over 16,000 wounded in Iraq. They are forcing the VA to decrease its services and forcing veterans out of the system.

Military doctors are being pressured to misdiagnose combat stress disorders. This way the government does not have to pay for treatment and compensation.

They tried to question 72,000 legitimate awards of combat stress, so they could throw veterans off the compensation rolls. They failed; but they are at it again. This at a time when 33% of returning veterans already have mental disorders.

The facts contradict our leaders' platitudes of support for the troops. They are hypocrites. They do not care about military personnel and veterans. They say one thing and do another. They abuse the military and abandon the veterans.

What was said in Scripture can be said of them: They are hypocrites. They are a nest of vipers. But, wait, it is we the people who allow them to do it. We endorse their hypocrisy. It is we who are the hypocrites. It is we who are the nest of vipers. It is time to wake up. It is time to repent.

On Veterans' Day Bush said critics of his war are undermining the troops. I just talked to an army chaplain whose troops are going back to Iraq for third and even fourth tours there. Who is undermining the troops? The Senate-House Veterans Affairs Committee (led by Bush's party) will now end a decades long practice of allowing veterans service organizations to testify about veterans concerns. Who is undermining troops turned veterans? Bush says his critics are re-writing history. He says they had the same intelligence he did. Did they have access to the presidential daily briefings or the notes of the White House Iraq Group? Bush did not allow the investigating committee to consider whether the intelligence gathered was manipulated. The Senate Committee has not been allowed to complete its inquiry. Who is re-writing history? And all this on Veterans Day from a man who can only get into his flight suit and pretend he is a real veteran.

The following links tell the story. One from the American Progress Report Next we hear from the Disabled American Veterans Finally from a retired Marine four star general

So we now truly have a "war on veterans." How tragic. How infuriating. How intolerable.

Several people who are either still on active duty in the Army or recently discharged have asked me to comment on a book which is apparently being taken very seriously by some chaplains and commanders. According to what I have heard, there is some command influence to have chaplains use the book as a guide as they work through with their soldiers the combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. The book: "The Faith of the American Soldier" by Stephen Mansfield, who is also the author of "The Faith of George W. Bush."

My comments:

The book is a piece of blatant and undisguised right-wing religious propaganda. Though it uses Christian terminology throughout, it is rooted more in the various warrior codes found throughout history than on biblical faith.

The first chapter makes clear that the soldiers in Iraq are seeking the assurance that they are fighting a "righteous" war; they want to know that it is a "righteous cause," that "our enemies are the enemies of God." In the author’s view, the chaplains cannot endorse this view because our nation is officially nonreligious and we do not fight holy wars nor view our enemies in religious terms. The problem for the author is really the secular nature of the American political system. He tries to construct a warrior code that in his mind compensates for this deficiency. The real reason chaplains can’t endorse this view is not that American society is secular, it is simply that the idea is biblical, theological and historical nonsense.

The author wants to find a "faith based" warrior code rather one founded in secularism. He succeeds in this, but the faith is more Manichean than Christian. The specific religious base is classic American civil religion, which itself is rooted in English and other European versions of the post-Constantinian notion that "we" embody the good, while "they," the enemy, are the evil ones. Our enemies are thus God’s enemies and by engaging them in combat we are doing God’s work.

This is a very old idea: the various warrior codes have used it for centuries and it is deeply entrenched in the American psyche. Though it has been around a very long time and has been widely used, it has little to do with biblical Christianity. It has always been a dangerous aberration and a blot on Christian history. It is not only wrong, it is dangerous to the spiritual health of those who espouse it. Dangerous because it sets up the soldier to experience a tragic loss of faith later in life.

If one is convinced in youth that he or she was engaged in the war of good vs. evil, that it was all about defeating God’s enemies, the later realization that this fervent conviction was not really true results in terrible disillusionment. It may be effective to "pump up" soldiers with this kind of religious propaganda to keep them in combat, but those of us who have worked with veterans have seen the massive devastation of soul wrought by this insidious ideology. Later in life the veteran tries to integrate personal experience of what really happened in combat with the what he or she has learned of the basis on which the war was fought and then fit them together within a personal moral/religious perspective. In my work with veterans, I have found that something like a "warrior code" is so thin a foundation that the most likely outcome will be disillusionment, cynicism, even nihilism.

The author relates stories of prayer and Bible study from the combat zone. Stories of prayer and Bible study in the field could be told by chaplains and veterans of any war. I have my own stories from Vietnam where I served as a chaplain and I have heard others from Korea, World War II and Gulf War I. There is nothing unique or special about this. Chaplains have always been with the troops in combat, sharing danger and hardship with them, praying with them, leading them in worship, counseling and reflecting on Scripture. It is encouraging to know that this fine tradition continues in Iraq, but Mansfield’s implication that these must somehow be tied in with a warrior code religious base is simply false.

One thing the author gets right is his description of the "Millennial" generation. They are indeed delightfully postmodern and altruistic. They are actually the second postmodern generation, following in the footsteps of "Generation X" which immediately preceded them. These young soldiers and their chaplains are to commended on their faith, dedication and courage. What the author says about their religious faith could also be said by many university chaplains and parish pastors about the young people with whom they work. Young soldiers are drawn from the surrounding culture. As a former campus chaplain I can also attest to this.

War is very personal. One never forgets the experiences. War demands a reason and it also requires that those who fought eventually come to terms with what they did and what they saw. War demands that the truth be told by its architects, its soldiers and its victims. War is ultimately about death and destruction. The soldier’s objective is always to kill the enemy. Killing other humans takes an immense emotional and spiritual toll on those who do it. Combat brings about an irreversible spiritual/psychological/emotional/physiological change on the part of those who participate. There is no longer any doubt about this. Anyone who works with veterans or victims of war knows this to be a fact. Having worked with veterans of every American war since the Spanish-American war and with Australian and Russian veterans, I know this to be an ineluctable truth of war. The shift of religious and moral perspective that takes place transcends any clinical symptoms of PTSD. One can be relatively free of PTSD and still be in religious and moral pain because of the war. Again, a well documented fact.

The perfidy of this book is that it denies this fundamental truth about war. It assumes that ascribing to a "warrior code" is all the soldier needs to be delivered from the impact of war that I have described. This is totally and demonstrably false. The soldier can be carried along for awhile, while still in the military service and surrounded by others who are similarly "pumped up" with the same “gung ho” beliefs. But long and tragic experience shows that veterans who are released from military service undergo a change of perspective which most often leads them to evaluate in a new light what really happened in combat. If their chaplains, representatives of religion, have endorsed this warrior code faith, then a major part of the veterans' change of perspective is most likely to be a terrible cynicism about religion itself. The widespread loss of faith by veterans for this specific reason has been widely noted and well documented.

The type of "civil religion" this book espouses is uses Old Testament passages which refer in Scripture only to the historical "people of Israel" and applies these passages to the current nation state as if it were the historic people of God. The United States, like its British precursor, has a long history of seeing itself this way. This provides a religious veneer for our bellicosity and allows little room for questioning the rightness of our military operations. The New Testament is little used by this kind of religious writing because there is no biblical grounds for it. In fact, the early Church did not endorse combat: quite the contrary. The kind of civil religion is, from a Christian perspective, a form of idolatry because it elevates the state to the religious realm.

The only legitimate Christian justification for war has been the "just war tradition" which allows for war only as a reluctant last resort. The author of this book not only misrepresents this tradition, but he gets its fundamental points wrong. He confuses the ius ad bellum, which is the right of the nation to go to war, with the ius in bello, which is the conduct of the soldier in war. He inverts them (p 131). He doesn’t really deal with the just war tradition, but resorts to a commentary on General Boykin's infamous statements regarding the religious nature of the war in Iraq. These statements were widely reported and rejected by all but the most right wing fundamentalist religious thinkers. The author notes that General Boykin is a man of prayer and that President Bush begins his day early with Bible study. These are commendable qualities in both men, but have nothing to do with the issue at hand. In fact the implication is that Bush and Boykin must be correct in their policies and statements because they are devout Christians. Implied also is the notion that those who oppose Bush and Boykin are not devout and sincere Christians.

The author cites Catholic philosopher Michael Nova's defense of the Iraq war by using the just war doctrine, but he fails to reveal that Michael Novak failed to persuade Pope John Paul II and leading thinkers of his own Church that the Iraq operation met the norms of that doctrine.

The Pope and most Christian leaders in the world opposed the Iraq intervention precisely on the grounds of just war. There were several conservative groups who disagreed, but the Roman Catholic and mainline Christian denominations all issued statements opposing the war. The debate continues to this day. The author's presentation of just war using Novak and citing Boykin without any acknowledgment of the overwhelming opposition of major religious leaders is simply dishonest.

Returning veterans from Iraq that I have met are aware of the moral and religious ramifications of the war and some of them are highly conflicted. Active duty soldiers and veterans are fully aware of the controversy about the war. Military personnel are increasingly aware that they are the only ones making sacrifices in the seemingly endless "war on terrorism." Veterans are aware that their VA benefits are under assault by the government that sent them to war. Neither soldiers nor veterans are isolated from the misinformation, deception and corruption surrounding the war. At some point active duty soldiers will be out of combat and they will then attempt to integrate their personal experiences with the facts about the war into their own personal religious and moral frame of reference. If their spiritual guides in this journey are unable to enter with them into the complex and morally ambiguous reality of war, then the guides are worse than useless. They are an obstacle. That is what frightens me about this book. Those who take it seriously and attempt to use it with soldiers are sowing the seeds for a harvest of cynicism, despair, nihilism and loss of faith.

If Christian military chaplains wish to guide their soldiers and veterans on the journey through combat and its aftermath, they must do so at a very deep spiritual level. They must understand Scripture, the complexities of theology, the writings of the saints and mystics down through the ages. To do anything less than that is to do their soldiers a great disservice and to diminish their own ministry.

I recommend that chaplains be aware of and be able to use the theological resources supplied by denominational headquarters, that they be aware of the latest discussions of just war theory and its application to the current war. They should also read the statements of the denominational leaders on the war. They should shrink from none of this.

We are already seeing among veterans of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan who come to the Va, not only symptoms of PTSD, but moral and religious confusion of the type I have described. Many of them saw and participated in the needless death of civilians and some have intense guilt. These veterans represent only the first wave of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea that Mansfield’s book should be used as a guide for these veterans is outrageous. To use it for active duty soldiers in order to pump them up to fight the war and gloss over these serious issues would be malfeasance for an Episcopal military chaplain or anyone else with classical theological training.

Some fundamentalist chaplains will, of course, use this book with no qualms of conscience because they actually endorse the total religious perspective behind it. There is nothing to be done about that. For those soldiers who fall by the wayside as a result, it will be up to VA chaplains and other clergy to assist them later on. The real problem is command influence on chaplains from the mainline traditions who have a different theological viewpoint.

If it is found that command influence is in fact being brought to bear on chaplains to use Mansfield's book with soldiers, I recommend that chaplains report this fact to your office, or if they belong to their own denominational endorsers. I recommend that endorsers contact the Chief of Chaplains.

Somone remarked to me, "the Army is really now as bad as the Air Force" in its endorsement of fundamentalist religious positions. This person was referring to the recent Air Force Academy incident. The question then arises: "how about the Marine Corps and the Navy? If there is a drift in this direction, it must be remedied for the sake of military personnel and chaplains whose religious traditions repudiate these views. Commanders who exert this kind of pressure have stepped over the line and need to be held accountable. If commanders persist, then they should be reported. The press also needs to hear about it and let the American people know the facts.

It has been widely noted that the all volunteer military force is increasingly isolated from the rest of American society. This book raises the question whether the military will also become religiously isolated from mainstream America. Will the military become an adjunct of the religious right which is now politically ascendant? What are the implications of a religiously right wing profesional military force?

The military and their families are the only Americans paying the price for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rest of us are supposed to spend money to keep the economy running. The war has no personal impact on the average American. Multiple tours to the war zone leaves little room for tending to marriages, families, jobs. Soldiers and Marines especially are paying a very high price. As a religious undergirding for these sacrifices, they are offered a "warrior code" to sustain them.

This is just another example of what's going on in this country. Americans need to wake up and reclaim our nation and its values. American Christians need to reclaim our traditional faith.

The price for the war in Iraq continues to mount: not just the financial cost, but the human cost. We know of the dead and wounded, we learn of those with emotional and spiritual trauma. Now it has become abundantly clear that the marriages and relationships of our military serving in Iraq are increasingly becoming casualties of the war. The Los Angeles Timestells the very sad story of the high incidence of divorce and the shattering of loves among those who have served.

Very few Americans are bearing the cost of this war, many are profiting and profiteering from it, but it is the soldiers and their loved ones who bear this enormous burden. Let's wake up to what's really going on.

It now appears that the Bush administration and the right wing cabal that has taken over the Congress cares neither for the active duty military nor for veterans of previous wars. Within the past view days I have spoken with several health care providers for military and veterans. Two converging streams are truly distressing. First is the abuse of the military with the frenetic deployment tempo. Combat stress, created in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot really be relieved when the soldier returns home because he or she knows there will be redeployment very soon. Continuing stress levels are now having a widespread impact upon families as marital problems mount

This present crisis also sets the stage for a whole host of future problems. These military personnel and their families will face a lifetime of problems as a result of their service, but the Government will not assume any responsibility. The civilian leaders of our government have discovered they can get by with using our military personnel as windup toys, sending them on frequent deployments with no real down time because the public really doesn't care enough to complain.

The second issue is the continued underfunding of the VA. There is now pressure in some areas to reduce the number of times veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be seen. This is a decision made not according to medical considerations, but it is budget driven. Again, our political leaders have read the public rightly. American don't care and so they just go ahead and do it. There are hopeful signs that a revolt is brewing. I encourage veterans and all others who care to get involved in whatever way possible to unmask the charlatans who now hold high office and to change these destructive policies

This is only one of many issues which indicates a serious decline in our standards of lilfe in American. For a list of others see.

Yesterday a young sailor who lives not far from us was deployed for the second time in a few months to the Persian Gulf. This is actually his fourth deployment. He and his wife are great people. Kind of quiet and apparently rather conservative, people who would never say an unkind word about anyone. When I said I thought Bush was abusing the military, he began to say what he really thought. He is angry about going back after just a few months at home. He sees this as an endless cycle and he said that "everyone" in the fleet knows this is wrong. It makes no sense to his fellow sailors. They see no reason for the war in Iraq and they resent what it is doing to them and their families. This corresponds with what I am hearing from some sources in the active duty army and with what I have heard from veterans of the Iraq war who are now in the VA system. The military command is even beginning to speak out publicly about what the pace of deployment is doing to military.

Vanished into thin air is the old fashioned notion of taking care of the troops who perform the mission. The Pentagon could care less about the ordinary people who make up the military. As one friend of mine, a retired navy captain, said recently. They use them like "windup toy soldiers" and keep sending them back.

This flagrant abuse of the military is but one instance of the total lack of concern for ordinary people on the part of the administration and the Congress. It is now abundantly clear that the government is being run only for the corporate interests which now have their way completely. This is only one instance, but it is one that enrages me. If they had tried to do to us during the Vietnam war what they are doing to these people, there would have been open revolt.

Support our troops. End this insane deployment pace. Bring them home. And get Bush and his ilk out of office.

Soldiers are useful to fight wars, but when they come home as veterans, they often find that the country no longer cares. Veterans of the Revolution were the first to discover this when they returned home in the 1780s. Soldiers are now being abused by the government with the army's frenetic deployment pace, with multiple tours in Iraq, stop loss and the blatant mistreatment of reservists and the national guard. But there is more to come as returning veterans find when they seek help from a VA that is facing severe budget constraints. "Support the troops" includes neither real concern for the army nor an adequate budget for returning veterans.

What does it take to get the attention of the government and the American people. A tragic and monstrous story from 1932 gives a clue. Veterans of WWI were promised a bonus which they never received. The war ended in 1918 and by 1932 with the depression in force and many of them destitute, they marched on Washington by the thousands to ask for their bonus. A Los Angeles Times book review tells the story

The review is a must read for veterans, especially those recently returned. In my own work with veterans, I met many WWI vets who had been there. They were still angry at their treatment--and they were very supportive of Vietnam vets in our struggle for our rights. Let's learn from this and organize now

It's no surprise that mental disorders on the rise among returning veterans as reported yesterday in USA Today, but it should come as a terrible shock to the American people that this coincides with the continued underfunding of veterans health care and benefits. Veterans organizations have made very clear that the proposed budget will not only continue but will exascerbate the crisis in the VA system. Vietnam Veterans of America, one such organization lays it out very clearly.

The blatant hypocrisy of this administration and Congress with their cynical treatment of veterans is intolerable. We know that there is no longer a commitment of our government to ordinary working people. We know there is no concern for those who lack health care. We have long since learned they don't care about growing poverty, homelessness and hunger. In these matters they are consistent: they don't claim to care. But they do claim to "support our troops." These reports offer further evidence that they really don't care about the troops either.

The Twelve Steps of Spiritual recovery from combat related stress. This is part of a 28 page booklet written by VA Chaplain Bill Mahedy and a group of combat veterans. It is used in at least one VA facility and may be used by any veterans who wish. The full document will be available soon.

TWELVE STEPS TO SPIRITUAL RECOVERY (Twelve Activities of the Spiritual Boot Camp)

1. We admitted that we were powerless over the memories, emotions, attitudes, thoughts, bodily reactions and spiritual pain resulting from combat.

2. Having undergone a "conversion experience" into a world of violence, we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to peace of soul, peace with others and peace with God as I understand him.

3. We made a decision to turn our anger, guilt, resentments, shame and fear over to God and to commit ourselves entirely to God’s loving care.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, including all we had done in combat, leaving out nothing we had done personally but not accepting responsibility for what we did not do personally.

5. Admitted to ourselves and to one other person the exact nature of our past wrongs and our present tendencies to do evil, asking God to forgive our past sins and remove our defects of character.

6. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all either directly or indirectly, insofar as this is possible without harming others or ourselves.

7. Having admitted our tendency to "play God" in our judgments of others and of ourselves, and now submitting our judgments to those of God, we now forgive all others any offenses they may have committed against us, we forgive ourselves and accept God’s forgiveness of us.

8. Having entered into a deeper spiritual state, we surrendered ourselves completely to God, letting go of our hidden hatreds and desires for revenge and also of our guilt over the unintended consequences of acts we performed in good faith or in ignorance.

9. We began to exercise a specific and detailed "discipline of trust," whereby we gradually came to trust ourselves, trust others and to trust that God would restore to us our power to rejoice, to give thanks, to praise and to enjoy.

10. We began to enter into the silence and the still waters of our souls in peace rather than in the isolation and loneliness of fear, spending time in quiet prayer–and in sharing what we have discovered within ourselves in prayer and worship together with others.

11. We committed ourselves to completing the final mission of a combat soldier: becoming bearers of peace, prayerfulness, happiness and rejoicing , resolving to go behind the "enemy lines" of fear, mistrust, selfishness, greed, hatreds which surround us in our culture, confident that, as warriors of peace, we will overcome these barriers using the weapons of peace, mercy and kindness which we have been given.

12. Where before we were infected with the contagion of violence, we will now spread to others the contagion of peace which we have received, planning our mission carefully, including all those within the ambit of our lives.

W. P. Mahedy

Sources: AA Literature; The Rise Program and other works by Madeline Gershwin et al.; Johnny’s Song by Steve Mason; Twelve Recovery Themes and Spiritual Steps by Joel Brende, MD,; Serenity: A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery by Robert Hemfelt & Richard Fowler; the works of Beverly Donovan, PhD, Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD; Janet Bernardi Waldo, John Ferguesson, VA Chaplains Richard Clewell & Michael Carr. Material from Out of the Night and other works by the present author.

Not only are the Bush administration and the Congress shortchanging active duty military personnel in furnishing them with inadequate armor, abusing the deployment schedule, oppressing the National Guard and making of the Army Reserve a "broken force," but now we learn that banks, creditors and others are violating the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which is supposed to protect all active-duty military families from foreclosures, evictions and other financial consequences of military service.

The hypocrisy of the Bush administration and the Congress has long been evident as they wrap themselves in the flag and utter glowing statements about supporting our troops even as they shortchange the military through the budget and even as they continually underfund veterans benefits. One comes to expect from these people little more than this cut of behavior. So it really isn't too surprising that the business interests--of which the government has become a wholly owned subsidiary--now do the same. When will we wake up?