Thoughts for the week

A stop in the German field camp

For many years German soldiers are in Afghanistan. The danger unites them. Especially in dire situations. The military pastor Michael Rohde has experienced this and describes it for the Evangelical Church.

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Thoughts for the week

Daily life in Afghanistan

Afghanistan. A field camp of the armed forces, an Outpost Observation Point North, near Kunduz. 600 German soldiers living for six months on a terrain, the three rolls of barbed wire fenced in. Everywhere there are guards. It is hot or cold, is actually always extremely. We sleep in tents, there are few proper toilets, the food is simple. Shots in the environment are part of everyday life. I am as a military pastor in Afghanistan, spring 2011. The conditions are unfamiliar to me, but it’s good for me. There is much to do. Soldiers talk with me about what moves them: the separation from home, their Fears, their Anger. I celebrate devotions and Church services and try to make the soldiers a piece of change into your everyday life: many come to the cinema afternoons, we cook together or make music together.

The Plot

It is the 18. February 2011. Today for me is a Highlight on the program. A soldier wants to be baptized. We have previously much about the Christian Faith spoken of what it means to be baptized. Everything is prepared. I grab the Taufurkunde, the Taufschale, the Liederhefte and the guitar together, and am on the way to the “Taufplatz”, there are shots. Not really unusual, but it is now but very, very close. Many shots in our Camp. As I get closer, I see that an Afghan soldier with his machine gun in a group of German soldiers fired the shots. They were just, a tank to repair it. Soldiers screaming, blood is on the ground, the injured soldiers are comrades immediately supplies, a doctor and paramedic of the German army are very quickly on site. Thank God you are also in the field camp stationed.

Soon thereafter to land the helicopter of the American Army. The Wounded are immediately in the Militärkrankenhäuser in the area flown. Die there, unfortunately, three soldiers. Six part schwerstverwundete soldiers can fortunately be rescued and survive.

The days after, while in camp are full of sorrow. I run even more Seelsorgegespräche than usual. The desperation and uncertainty are large. “Why did this happen? How will it go on?“ ask the soldiers.

Despair and grief

On the day after the attack, we celebrate a Trauerandacht. It is cold, sleet whips us in the face, we are cold, it is dark. And yet: almost all are there. The soldiers want to say goodbye. We sing, pray, hear the word of God. I preach about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “From good powers wonderfully sheltered”, even in this terrible Situation. We hear the Hallelujah of Leonard Cohen, many have tears in their eyes. The wet and the cold to creep us even under the clothes.

I have Kondolenzbücher designed, but I reckon that only a few enter, and the other as quickly as possible go to their tents. Wrong. All to stay. All wear, many with personal, last Salute to the Fallen. The Kondolenzbücher the rain softened, so that we later dry. I will send this Kondolenzbücher then to the relatives of the Fallen in Germany.

As we get back to the main camp of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan, Masar-e-Sharif, fly, are the soldiers, deeply sad. I have never in so many desperate faces of young people seen.

“From good powers wonderfully sheltered”

And yet, Despite all the pain, in spite of what we deeply met, we are a community. This horrible event has made us tightly connected.

Mine has this community helped, one of the most challenging situations of my life to go to. Me has certainty helped that I in my grief and my pain from my family and from my friends in Germany am. And I’ve learned how me the certainty that God is also, and perhaps even just in such situations, for me, saved me. I have experienced, as I did in my personal fear and despair, in my grief and in my tears, “from good powers wonderfully sheltered” I am. Thanks be to God.

Since 1. September, 2011, Militärdekan Dr. Michael Rohde, the Evangelical Militärpfarramt Hamburg I. Rohde is 42 years old, married and has two children. Previously, he was Militärgeistlicher in Holzminden and Höxter, and prior to that Minister in Bad Gandersheim in the Harz mountains. Rohde was from 2010 auf2011 and 2013 to 2014 as a military pastor in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, and in 2014 in the Ebola operation in Liberia.Rohde focuses are to work with traumatized soldiers and their families, pastoral care for the soldiers