Defend Us in Battle by George Monsoor

Author:George Monsoor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Horizon
Published: 2022-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Camp Corregidor, Ar Ramadi, Iraq, 2006

The army captain sat peacefully in silence in one of the only places set apart from the chaos and violence that was now Ramadi, Iraq. He was a little old for the rank of captain, but that was not uncommon for a person with his specific duties within the military. He had spent years in formation and training, and was now here in the thick of the Battle of Ramadi. The quiet was broken by a firm knock at the door. The man arose from his seat and moved to answer it. He opened the door to find a tall, brown-eyed, dark-haired young man patiently waiting. “Are you a Catholic priest?”

“I am,” replied Father Halladay.

“Nice to meet you. I am a Catholic and my name is Michael Monsoor. I’d like to go to confession.”

Father Halladay grabbed his stole and motioned Michael to follow him.

Father Paul Halladay was forty years old at the time of his deployment to Ramadi and was an army chaplain in the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (1st of the 506th). His main mission was to assist the soldiers of Camp Corregidor to worship according to their own religion and preference but was ordained a Catholic priest and was happy to oblige Michael’s request for confession.

They sat down in the makeshift chapel. Michael had just arrived in Ramadi, and Father Halladay understood well the situation the men were facing on a daily basis. He thought it showed significant religious formation and conviction for Michael to seek him out after only recently arriving in Ramadi.

When Father Halladay arrived on Camp Corregidor just a few months prior in November 2005, the building he was working in had been an agricultural school building. The room now being used as the chapel was previously a classroom with a tin roof. Because of the frequency that the building was hit with indirect fire, they needed to reenforce the ceiling and walls with sandbags inside and out. Father Halladay had inherited the room from a Protestant chaplain and found the holy tabernacle, which Catholic priests use to hold the true body and blood of Christ, on the floor in the corner. There was a SpongeBob SquarePants sheet hanging on one of the walls, and the room had little seating available for Mass. He knew he must get right to work.

He enlisted some talented Seabees, the tradesmen of the US Navy. These are the men and women that, when needed, will go into harm’s way to build, wire, plumb, frame, and maintain the structures and equipment used by other service members and, if the situation dictates, all while wearing body armor and carrying a rifle. Their contributions to the success of military operations cannot be overstated. In the end they provided the chapel with around a dozen pews so people would have a place to sit, as well as reenforced the pillars that held up the ceiling so it would not cave in the next time an enemy mortar fell too close for comfort.

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