Searching For Comfort
At times of great personal stress, comfort and reassurance help to mitigate overwhelming fears of the unknown, of danger, of impending death. There's an old truism that everyone is agnostic until the Angel of Death's grim visage draws nigh. And so it is with Canadian soldiers posted to Afghanistan in the midst of an internal conflict of resurgent Islamism determined to regain the upper hand.With neighbouring Iran actively encouraging, training and arming the Taliban, and neighbouring Pakistan having turned a blind eye to al-Qaeda's training camps on its border, the country and its invited protectors from the UN and NATO battle an entrenched enemy, sometimes protected by Afghan hill tribes, against whom the threat of violence and death serves to make them complicit.
Death overtakes routine patrols on the stealthily silent feet of well-hidden Taliban snipers, or alternately through the noisy auspices of ubiquitously-placed IEDs. Soldiers of foreign armies who have been authorized to interact with tribal leaders, to instruct and assist local police forces, to engage in regular patrols, never quite know when the next death will occur.
They live daily with the disquieting realization that their turn can come just around the corner, the next day, a harmless-enough function turned into a death trap. The military chaplain attached to the currently-engaged Royal 22nd Regiment from Valcartier, Quebec reports a high demand for copies of the army-issue camouflage Bibles specifically designed for Canadian forces. And for crosses.
In Quebec, church attendance is at a perilously low ebb for continued maintenance of expensive and little-used buildings. A society once in complete social-religious thrall to the Roman Catholic Church, to one that has managed in short order to separate itself from the Church and instead embrace secularism. Yet belief in the Almighty, however stifled, is ingrained in the consciousness of most people, however they profess.
It is endemic to most societies. And it's a simple fact of life that when all else fails, when people face the most personally catastrophic, or horribly dangerous experiences of their lives they almost instinctively turn inward toward a once-vibrant belief to render them optimism, hope of survival.
At the very least, the comfort of resorting to the familiar, the spiritual belief in an omnipresent, omniscient presence.
"The violence soldiers face in Afghanistan is making them reflect more on their mortality than in earlier missions" according to Major Francois Caron, whose tours in Bosnia and Haiti give him ample opportunity for comparison. "There is a huge difference here from earlier missions when we were patrolling as peacekeepers. I have seen people wearing crosses tell us they pray every night for the safety of the crew."
The unprecedented numbers of Canadian soldiers whose lives have been sacrificed in this theatre of guerrilla warfare, the near-deaths and the traumatic injuries have made a shocking impact on the consciousness of these men whose previous missions as onlookers and peacekeepers hadn't much impact on their personal safety.
Quite unlike the two World Wars when Canadians marched into conflict with disastrous results on their collective mortality.
We've lived since then in an atmosphere of unsettled peace, with the knowledge of wars in far-flung places little impacting on Canadians. Canadians since then, along with their armed forces have only latterly been subjected to the full implications of involvement in a full-fledged atmosphere of take-no-prisoners war.
Where the enemy is elusive, sightings are tenuous, engagements are few but hard fought, and the opportunities to let down one's guard are scarce and could possibly lead to personal disaster. At such times, the comfort of a small tome holding the wisdom of man's belief in God, and the talismanic potential of a protective cross leverage a man from despair into hope.
So be it.
Labels: Realities, Religion, Traditions, Troublespots
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, December 25, 2007
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