Stephen Mansfield - The Faith of the American Soldier

Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin
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JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

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First trade paperback edition 2006

Copyright 2005 by Stephen Mansfield

This book is being published jointly by Strang Communications and

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Author photo by Ben Pearson

Interior design by Terry Clifton

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An application to register this book for cataloging has been

submitted to the Library of Congress.

ISBN 1-58542-407-2

EISBN 978-1-1015-6281-9

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

The author has, in most cases, witnessed the episodes recounted. In some instances, interviews with eyewitnesses have been used. Some of the individuals in this book are composites of real persons, and some names have been changed to protect an individuals privacy or security. To avoid confusion to the reader, when the unit of a soldier is mentioned, the name used for him is his own. When the unit is not mentioned, that name has been changed at the soldiers request.

TO THE CHAPLAINS,

HEROES OF FAITH

WHO TEND THE WARRIOR SOUL

A LSO BY S TEPHEN M ANSFIELD

Never Give In:
The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill

Faithful Volunteers:
The History of Religion in Tennessee

Then Darkness Fled:
The Liberating Wisdom of Booker T. Washington

More Than Dates and Dead People:
Recovering a Christian View of History

Forgotten Founding Father:
The Heroic Legacy of George Whitefield

The Faith of George W. Bush

Derek Prince: A Biography

P ROLOGUE

T here have always been rituals for welcoming men to the fellowship of arms. We read of them in Homer and Beowulf, in Cicero and the legends of King Arthur. Tacitus wrote of the Germans welcoming a young warrior to arms with the gift of a shield and a spear. Indeed, most every tribe and culture has had some ceremony that accompanied the belting of the sword.

By the latter Middle Ages, though, the heritage of these early traditions had merged with the liturgies and offices of the Christian church to fashion a new kind of warrior called the knight. He was intended to be the perfect merging of holy passion and military might, of spiritual devotion and martial skill. His calling was the defense of Christendom, a task he could only expect to fulfill with a pure heart and a holy life. His war, then, was as much to master himself as it was with the enemies of the realm. In fact, he believed he would never succeed in serving his king until he first succeeded in serving his God.

A man was never born to knighthood. It was something he had to prove himself to be. Knights were fashioned in battle, honed by mentors, and disciplined by hardship. Knights were molded in the holy fires of spiritual seeking. And when the time was right and a man was chosen for the call, he prepared himself for the moment of his ascendance with a ritual all knights underwent: the Vigil.

The Vigil was the final ceremony of cleansing, of meditation, and of sacrifice. It was a purifying and resolving of the hungers of the heart. It was the liturgy by which a man who was simply a warrior became a knight in the service of God.

The Vigil began early on the day before a man was to be knighted. He was first bathed, usually in rose water and usually in a wooden tub. This signified his baptism, his reenactment of the burial of Jesus Christ in the tomb, and His resurrection to life again. The knight-to-be understood from this that he was no longer his own, that his life had been bought by the death of the Lord he now followed. His sins were cleansed. His heart made new. His affections fixed to a new allegiance.

As a sign of shed vanity, the mans hair was usually cut. In the Middle Ages, the sacrificing of ones hair was seen as a sign of devotion to God. This meant that a knight often wore his hair in the same crudely cut manner as a monk, reminding him that he had entered a calling more than an army, a holy order more than just a soldiers life.

The knight candidate was then given new clothes. He first received a red garment with long sleeves and a hood that was placed over a white tunic. It was the symbol that this man was ready to shed his blood in the service of God and his king. Afterward a tight-fitting black coat was placed over the white and the red to signify that the knight should never fear death, which for the man of God is but reward.

Now properly cleansed and clothed, the man was taken to a chapel and left alone with his weapons and his armor. He had already begun a fast. It was a means of purifying both soul and body, humbling himself into his humanity, and reminding him always to champion the weak and the poor. Now, as a man clean in body and spirit, the knight-to-be presented himself to God.

With his companions and sponsors waiting prayerfully outside, the man spread his weapons on the altar and stood watch. For no less than ten hours, he prayed the prayers of devotion and ran his heart over each tool of his trade: his sword, his mace, his lance, his gauntlet, perhaps even his saddle and the standard of his king. And he waited. For God to receive him. For the words that would form his call. For the grace to conquer his passions. For the boldness befitting his charge.