God in the Foxhole

From veteran military writer Charles Sasser comes a collection of inspiring personal accounts of American soldiers whose faith has guided them through the hardships of war. From the battlefields of the American Civil War through World Wars I and II, from Korea and Vietnam to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers of all faiths have struggled for understanding and called on a higher power when faced with the realities of combat. God in the Foxhole is a stunning collection of true personal accounts from generations of American soldiers whose faith, in the words of author Charles W. Sasser, "has been born, reborn, tested, sustained, verified, or transformed under fire." A renowned master of combat journalism and a former Green Beret, Sasser has gathered an immensely moving collection of war stories like no other—stories of spirituality, conversion, and miracles from the battlefield. Be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist, churched since childhood or touched by the divine for the first time, here are the riveting experiences of army privates, bomber pilots, navy lieutenants, marines, prisoners of war, medics, nurses, chaplains, and others who, under desperate circumstances and with every reason to fear for their lives, found unknown strength, courage, and heroism through their remarkable faith. These inspiring accounts transcend the explainable to become stunning portraits of survival and belief: the angelic vision that brought inner peace to an exhausted helicopter door gunner in Vietnam; the makeshift full-immersion baptisms of eleven soldiers on Palm Sunday in Iraq, 2004; two enemies—a Nazi priest and an American G.I.—who served Communion Mass in a Belgian sanctuary in 1944; the prescient letter from a Civil War army major to his beloved wife, one week before his death at Bull Run; the 21st-century toddler with a jaw-dropping spiritual connection to a war hero of Iwo Jima, and dozens more. A war chronicle like no other, God in the Foxhole affirms, for military buffs and readers from all walks of life, the power of faith in the face of adversity.