No Athiests In Foxholes?

In 2005 the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University in Lubbock interviewed veterans from the November 1965 Battles of the Ia Drang Valley, which had been immortalized in the 1992 book We Were Soldiers Once, And Young as well as an eponymous 2002 movie starring Mel Gibson. During the actual battle Bill Beck was an assistant machine gunner whose actions at a clearing called Landing Zone X-Ray earned him a Silver Star. In an hour-long videotaped interview Beck is very candid about his emotions throughout the battle.

His three-man machine-gun team ended up being a duo—because their ammo carrier stayed on the helicopter after seeing his buddies getting shot. So Beck and his gunner ended up in an exposed spot with just tall grass to protect them. Before long his gunner was severely wounded, and Beck had to take over the gun—calling for a medic between bursts. 

"Lo and behold here comes a medic, but I only saw part of his name-tag: N-O-L-L. Blonde-haired kid, slight build...I told the General about him later, but they never found out who he was. I did years of research myself, but never found him." Beck and the medic are taking fire, kneeling over the wounded gunner, bandaging him and...praying. "We prayed. We had, like, a minute to pray." The battle is raging. "Somehow this guy and I start talkin' about God and stuff. I'm cryin', the fear had just jumped on me...we're prayin' to God out loud. I remember cryin' real tears. I'm makin' false promises y'know: If you get me outta this, I'll do this and that. I'm not proud of that. But I was scared enough to seek Him out."

Presently the medic carried off the wounded gunner, leaving Beck alone to cover a wide area filled with attacking Viet Cong.

"Anyway, I got everything straight, and—what I wanted to interject here is, the fear left as fast as it came. When I got back to business [with the machine gun] the fear was all gone. It was like the nicest calm you wanna experience...serenity or something. I don't know how to put it into words." The interviewer asks "How did that happen?" Beck is baffled "I don't know..."

I'm watching the interview and yelling at the TV: "Hello! What did you just pray for?" I suppose in the heat of battle, a scared kid forgets his panicked prayer. But 45 years later, when describing that prayer, followed by total peace—and, oh yeah, knowing now that the gunner survived—wouldn't it occur to Beck that his prayer had been answered? The interviewer certainly seemed to be leading Beck toward that conclusion. But the old warrior just couldn't make the connection.

Stop me if you've heard this one: an angel walks into a foxhole...