PRAYER: The U.S. Military’s Original Source of Strength
For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.
Psalm 78:5-7
In 1775, John Adams wrote Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies of North America to create good order and discipline of a newly organized military charged with defeating the most powerful military force in the world. His first principle defined “Exemplary Conduct;” his second principle directed prayer and divine services twice a day. The US military was established upon virtue, honor and patriotism, and prayer and worship twice a day—these are the military’s First Principles, because Adams understood armed men needed a unifying moral foundation especially those trained to search and destroy and charged with defending the American way of life.
News reports of late and also this week of the hollowed out souls in our battle weary military, suicide exceeds combat casualties. The Associated Press reported on June 8th that suicides in the Armed Forces have averaged one a day this year, an 18% increase from last year. In asking why such casualties, worse than “friendly fire,” are plaguing our servicemen and women, the same who have been denied the strength of Exemplary Conduct and prayer, one must wonder if, as troop leaders and Christian chaplains are restricted and even muzzled from praying with the troops on the battlefield, the chipping away of our 200-year-old moral foundation has left our soldiers ill-equipped for combat stress and the ultimate questions of good and evil, and of life and death that they routinely face on the field of battle?
How is the military establishment today dealing with this crisis of self-destruction? Fast forward from Adams to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Panetta dubs the problem one of post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues to of course be treated by the therapeutic fields of psychology and psychiatry, but a growing number of military officials are examining their excessive use of antidepressants, antipsychotic, attention deficit hyperactivity drugs, and sleeping pills and the possible connection to suicides.
It is true. Service members today face significant stresses and need “moral support” – support more than the practical, with more than 30% having gone on three or more deployments. Is medication for battle and service stresses, a solution to supersede moral support?
Noah Webster says, in general, “moral denotes something which respects the conduct of men and their relations as social beings whose actions have a bearing on each others’s rights and happiness, and are therefore right or wrong, virtuous or vicious; as moral character; moral views; moral knowledge; moral sentiments; moral maxims; moral approbation; moral doubts; moral justice; moral virtue; moral obligations, &c. Or moral denotes something which respects the intellectual powers of man, as distinct form his physical powers. Thus we speak of moral evidence, moral arguments, moral persuasion, moral certainty, moral force; which operate on the mind.”[1] Adams contemplated this type of necessary moral support, when writing those two military first principles so long ago. Is it because morals and the military’s first principles are divinely based, that they are deemed archaic and unemployable in today’s US Armed Forces?
One would think so. Most Americans might be surprised to learn service members are routinely dispensed drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, which boost serotonin levels in the brain and come with warning labels of increased risk of suicide for those up to age 24. The aforementioned drugs are often included in the modern Army psychiatrist’s deployment kit, and soldiers are often given a six-month supply of medications. According to the Army Surgeon General, 8% of active duty soldiers are on sedatives and more that 6% are on antidepressants, which is an eightfold increase since 2005.[2]
If the question seems far-fetched to those who think science and pharmaceutical therapies can replace the many features of moral support, let me offer a bit of scientific evidence from America’s World War II military experience, a war that saw long deployments and grievous loss of life on both sides in Europe and the Pacific.
“The Studies in Social Psychology in World War II Series,” produced by the Social Science Research Council, was one of the largest social science research projects in history. Volume II, The American Soldier, Combat and Its Aftermath, Princeton University Press, (1949), reported data on the importance of prayer to officers and enlisted infantrymen. Prayer was selected most frequently as the soldier’s source of combat motivation. The motivation of prayer was selected over the next highest categories of “thinking that you couldn’t let the other men down,” and “thinking that you had to finish the job in order to get home again.” From the responses, “did not help at all,” “helped some,” and “helped a lot,” 70% of enlisted men in the Pacific Theatre (n = 4,734), and 83% in the Mediterranean theatre (n = 1,766) responded “helped a lot,” as did 60% of Infantry officers (n = 319).
These data would suggest that combat men who had experienced greater stress were at least as likely to say they were helped by prayer as those who had been subjected to less stress” (p. 176)…[T]he fact that such an overwhelming majority of combat men said that prayer helped them a lot certainly means that they almost universally had recourse to prayer and probably found relief, distraction, or consolation in the process (p. 185). [Emphasis added.]
In the no-prayer environment in the US military, where 70 percent self profess Christianity, let us look to the eternal truths known to all mighty men of valor. The Psalmist David was certainly well versed in the principles of military warfare, wrote that one generation must tell the next to set their hope in God, do not forget his works. The founding principles of the military have been all but abandoned, and the thousands of World War II soldiers, who declared prayer to be a primary source of moral support, are forgotten. Five-star General George C. Marshall was one of America’s foremost soldier during World War II. He served as Army Chief of Staff from 1939 to 1945, and built and directed the largest army in history. General Marshall said,
…I look upon the spiritual life of the soldier as even more important than his physical equipment…the soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything. Unless the soldier’s soul sustains him, he cannot be relied upon and will fail himself and his commander and his country in the end. It’s morale, and I mean morale, which wins the victory in the ultimate, and that type of morale can only come out of the religious fervor in his soul. I count heavily on that type of man and that kind of Army.[3]
The problem of suicide in the military reflects a loss of moral support to a soul not girded by the prayers and moral support that carried our soldiers, who fought without medication, through bitter battles like Normandy. First Principles Press is telling this present generation about the military’s first principles, the moral support previous generations could readily access, the availability of prayer and the brand of valor seeded long ago in the US military’s first principles of virtue and prayer. Endowed By Their Creator: A Collection of Historic American Military Prayers 1774-Present is a collection of hundreds of years of evidence for the benefit of leader-led military prayer from the War for Independence to the present conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. We ask every church in America to distribute Endowed By Their Creator to servicemen and women and their families and friends. Together, we must tell this generation to “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (II Timothy 2:1-4).
America’s first and most famous general, George Washington, delivered the same message to his troops when he wrote in his Orderly Book on July 9, 1776,
The blessings and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary, but especially so in times of public distress and danger. The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man will endeavour to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.
Let History speak and Eternal Truth be heard. Could American troops be in need of the strength borne of virtue and prayer? “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” Psalm 33:11-12
