Faith Under Fire
An Army Chaplain's Memoir
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Running away from God doesn’t work. I had tried.”
—Roger Benimoff
As he left for his second tour of duty as an Army chaplain in Iraq, Roger Benimoff noted in his journal: I am excited and I am scared. I am on fire for God...He is my hope, strength, and focus.
But not long after returning to Iraq, the burdens of his job–the memorial services for soldiers killed in action, the therapy sessions after contact with the enemy, the perilous excursions “outside the wire” while under enemy fire–began to overwhelm him. Amid the dust, heat, and blood of Iraq, Benimoff felt the pillar of strength he’d always relied on to hold him up–his faith in God–begin to crumble.
Unable to make sense of the senseless, Benimoff turned to his journal. What did it mean to believe in a God who would allow the utter horror and injustice of war? Did He want these brave young men and women to die? In his darkest moment, Benimoff wrote: Why am I so angry? I do not want anything to do with God. I am sick of religion. It is a crutch for the weak.
Benimoff’s spiritual crisis heightened upon his return home to Fort Carson, Colorado. He withdrew emotionally from wife and sons, creating tensions that threatened to shatter the family. He was assigned to work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he counseled returning soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder–until he was diagnosed himself with PTSD.
Finding himself in the role of patient rather than caregiver, connecting as an equal with his fellow sufferers, and revisiting scriptural readings that once again rang with meaning and truth, he began his most decisive battle: for the love of his family and for the chance to once again open his heart to the healing grace of God.
Intimate and powerful, drawing on Benimoff’s and his wife’s journals, Faith Under Fire chronicles a spiritual struggle through war, loss, and the hard process of learning to believe again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An ordained Baptist chaplain, Benimoff spent two tours of duty in Iraq providing spiritual guidance to American soldiers, many of whom were teenagers just starting their one-year deployment. He helps soldiers, thousands of miles from home in a dangerous country, through crises of faith and morality, religion and responsibility; leads prayer and memorial services; consoles and councils the bereaved. His experience takes an unexpected turn, however, when he begins experiencing symptoms he had been trained to spot in recruits and veterans: difficulty adjusting to home ("Iraq had felt like a giant race I hoped to survive... safely back on U.S. soil, I couldn't stop running"), emotional withdrawal from loved ones (his wife, Rebekah, and their sons, Tyler and Blaine), increasing irritability. Most significantly, Benimoff starts questioning his belief in God. Though this religious ambivalence significantly underscores his narrative of life at war and what comes after, Benimoff balances issues of ethics and faith with a gripping military account that should prove insightful for vets, their loved ones and those for whom the war represents a personal and spiritual conflict.
