Chaplain Turner's War

Chapter 8 of 8: Chaplain Turner's War

A dangerous mission, a devastating night -- and God's foot soldier marches on


By MONI BASU
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 06/29/08

Baghdad — The story so far: Chaplain Darren Turner's battalion has lost another soldier. Now he must see three platoons off on a mission in unfamiliar territory. Before the day is over, more bad news tests the chaplain's emotional endurance.



Chaplain Darren Turner hurtles toward the motor pool at Forward Operating Base Falcon. He is anxious to see his men off to battle.

Turner is ordinarily not one for prayers before a mission — he abhors the idea of a soldier nurturing a 911 relationship with God: Pray before you roll out the gates. Pray when a buddy gets hurt.

Then stuff your Bible back into the trunk.

But Turner also understands the comfort that prayer can bring. And this mission to Baghdad's Sadr City is big.

It is March 28, and three 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment platoons in Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Abrams tanks have been called up to support U.S. forces already in the thick of battle.

An impoverished enclave of 2.5 million Shiites, Sadr City is unfamiliar and raw territory for Turner's soldiers. The battalion has not yet experienced urban guerrilla warfare — it is more accustomed to the farmlands and villages of Arab Jabour.

"Hey, what's up, fellas?"

Turner greets the visibly nervous soldiers.

"Ready to ride?"

They reply in a chorus of "hooahs."

"I just wanted to come and encourage you guys before you head out."

Two men who Turner baptized on Good Friday are here. The chaplain notices several others who regularly seek him out.

With those who share his Christian faith, Turner takes extra risks to know them well, to love them as brothers. It's an emotional roll of the dice, because at war, any day could be a soldier's last.

Like today.

Turner reads aloud Psalm 140.

"Keep me safe from violent people ... who plot my downfall. The proud have set a trap for me; they have laid their snares, and along the path they have set traps to catch me."

King David's words resonate, as though they were written specifically about this war, where roads are booby-trapped with improvised explosive devices.

The soldiers bow their heads before the chaplain.

Several fall to their knees.

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CHAPLAIN TURNER'S WAR
Chapter 1: Comfort in toughest of places
Chapter 2: The invisible war
Chapter 3: Summer of death
Chapter 4: Formidable enemy
Chapter 5: Nightmare revisited
Chapter 6: Easter baptisms
Chapter 7: Tragedies test the armor of God
Chapter 8: A dangerous mission, a devastating night

Georgia chaplain provides comfort in the toughest of places

Georgia chaplain provides comfort in the toughest of places: War in Iraq


By MONI BASU
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 06/22/08

WASHINGTON — Chaplain Darren Turner stands at the entrance to Ward 45-C at Walter Reed Army Medical Center with a special coin in his pocket and trepidation in his heart. He is here to see a warrior who only two months earlier was hunting insurgents in Iraq — and is now a man without three limbs.

Spc. David Battle arrived here on Christmas Day, his legs and right arm blown off in a roadside bombing. On this dreary February afternoon, doctors still are not certain he will survive.

wounded.

Home on leave from Iraq, the Georgia chaplain did not have to visit Battle. He wanted to. He wanted to make this difficult journey before he must make another.

In four days, the war-weary chaplain, 35, will return to southeast Baghdad to shepherd his flock of almost a thousand soldiers in a Fort Stewart-based infantry battalion. He has already mourned with them the deaths of 14 men. He has comforted many of the 100 who have been injured. Some, like Battle, face uncertain futures with traumatic injuries.

Yet Turner feels unprepared when he visits the wounded — a near-death experience can mess with a soldier's head. Not even the chaplain's spiritual armor can fully protect him.

He takes a breath and opens the door to the "warrior care" ward.

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