I first noticed it while depositing my weapon at the rear of the chapel at Abu Ghraib Prison. A six-by-ten-foot painting. Jesus stands center canvas, dressed in the characteristic ankle-length white robes of a Hebrew sage, his body and garments fading to a ghostly, near-transparent lower body. His palms are upraised, connected to thick outstretched arms angling toward a powerful chest and neck. Surrounding Jesus is a motley of soldiers in combat poses, weapons raised, escorted by a host of blue-skinned sinewy angels with gold, glowing swords. One soldier holds an M16 precisely at the height of the Savior’s extended left hand, making it appear that Jesus himself is wielding the rifle pistol-style.

As the Mass began, I turned to the rear wall. Yet again my weapon was alone. Every other soldier carried his to the altar to receive the Eucharist. I looked back to the painting. Then I stood, walked to the front, and bowed to the consecrated Body and Blood, silently wishing someone would reprimand me for refusing to be armed during Communion.

I arrived at Abu Ghraib Prison in June 2004, nine weeks after completing my training as a US Army interrogator and Arabic linguist. Six weeks after the 60 Minutes story of detainee abuse and the retaliatory beheading of Nicholas Berg. Two weeks after my acceptance to seminary.

From the time of my enlistment at age seventeen to my short-lived tenure as a cadet at the US Military Academy at West Point, to my equally short-lived ROTC career, to my reentry into active duty following 9/11, I had always been an idealist battling unpleasant realities. I was a child of home-schooling and Bible quizzing. I’d never been able to yell the chants of the bayonet assault course (What’s the spirit of the bayonet? Kill! Kill! Kill without mercy, Drill Sergeant!), nor look at the statue of General Patton on Academy grounds and see anything other than heartless vanity. But I was military stock. My grandfather fought in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. My dad had been an army captain. In high school I’d been president of the Young Republicans. I was not supposed to be the kid who gets upset by violence, ambition, and proto-imperialism. I was the patriotic, Evangelical Christian, high-school valedictorian. I was supposed to ascend the ranks of the military, then the ranks of Washington.

But I was derailed. Then, 9/11 changed everything.

I was an undergraduate in the Individual Ready Reserve when the towers fell. I probably could have ridden out the remainder of my time just like George W. Bush in the Air National Guard, but I’d made a commitment. I’d see it to its end. Three and a half thousand people had just died.

But in the months prior to my reentry into the ranks of the enlisted, I studied philosophy at Oxford University with a bunch of guys about to pursue advanced studies in theology under the tutelage of pacifist theologian Stanley Hauerwas of Duke Divinity School. Just when I’d come to a place of resolve about fulfilling my commitments, I had to go and meet a bunch of fellow Evangelicals (all graduates of Wheaton College outside of Chicago) who were beginning to wonder whether the teachings of Jesus could square with military service.

I had graduated with honors from both the US Army Interrogator School and the Defense Language Institute, but after watching Shock and Awe on the morning news with my Arabic instructor (who still had family in Baghdad), I, too, began to wonder. I came up with a compromise—the chaplaincy. If I could serve the remainder of my time as a spiritual guide to soldiers and, most importantly, could become a noncombatant (just like Saint Peter whom Jesus told to lay down his sword), then maybe I could find some answers to my questions.

But Iraq would have to come first.

When word got around of my acceptance to seminary, my platoon mates started calling me “Priest.” Given the cloud of moral dysfunction hovering over my unit and our mission at Abu Ghraib, an identity of moral clarity was welcome—even if it was a false identity. But I was no priest. I was a US Army interrogator at the center of the biggest military scandal since My Lai, at the single most attacked stationary position in all of Iraq. If ever I had wanted an opportunity to see if I could live by principles precisely when they were not convenient, I had come to the right place.

The echoes of machine guns ricocheted through my shower trailer—first one, then two, then an entire wall of automatic fire. I had just splashed water on my face to rinse shaving cream from my chin and nose when bursts of defensive fire from the three closest marine-posted guard towers began to crescendo—from the percussive, metallic timbre of air-cooled, belt-fed, .50 caliber machine guns to the cramped staccato thud of Mark 19 automatic grenade launchers. Five hundred and fifty 12.7 mm rounds per minute. Three hundred and seventy-five 40 mm grenades per minute. Two gunners per tower. Three towers. Six marines with bolt releases set to the automatic down position. Interlocking fire, grenades, and rifle rounds woven together in orchestral synchronicity.

The scent of oil and carbon filled my nostrils as I ran to my personal quarters for body armor and Kevlar. Everyone from privates first class to lieutenant colonels scurried around the compound corridors with mismatching socks, PT shirts partially tucked in, and Kevlar protective gear in various stages of vestment.

Then I saw First Lieutenant Schribner make his way to the command post, a personally modified CAR‑15 A2 assault rifle slung reverse across his back. Chaos everywhere while this former Israeli Defense Force, turned US Army Infantry, turned US Army Intelligence officer stormed his way to the command post like the shirtless Robert Duvall taking indirect fire in Apocalypse Now. Master Sergeant Collum followed after Lieutenant Schribner as the first of three successive explosions jolted the compound walls.

“White Status! White Status! Casteel! Get your fucking gear on! Make sure Sergeant Tyler’s taken accountability! Get everyone in the hallway! Gear up! Gear up!”

Crawford and Patrick were already in their White Status positions outside our cell. I ran past them into our cell for my gear. As I reached my bed, through the patchwork breeze-holes of our rear wall I could see sparks and debris from another explosion spiraling fifteen to twenty feet above the outermost perimeter. I stood perfectly still, watching the sparks descend back below the prison wall as thick, black puffs began to dissipate in the wind.

I joined Crawford and Patrick in the hallway with the rest of the cell wing, bullets streaking down the courtyard just outside our exit corridor. Fahid pounced back from the exit, his olive Iranian skin suddenly Irish pale.

“Holy fuck! Did you guys hear that?”

“What happened?”

“Bullets came over the wall! Must be motherfuckers on rooftops!”

“Sergeant Tyler, what’s the count?” Master Sergeant Collum bellowed, as he burst into our wing, his eyes and body still directed toward the command post in the outer hallway.

“All up!” Tyler responded.

With that, Collum left the room. The thuds and cracks of grenades and .50 cals began to subside, sporadically flaring up over the gradual die down. Then complete silence.

And then more silence as we stared at one another, waiting for the refrain, the anticipated next barrage.

A nervous rage began to rise.

“The fuck just happened?”

“Is that it?”

“What the fuck just happened?”

“Couldn’t have been mortars. Did you hear any mortars?”

“A few, but way off target. Don’t think they landed in the prison.”

“The fuck were those five explosions, if not fucking mortars?”

“The marines opened up a good two minutes of .50 cals and Mark 19s!”

“Two minutes of 19s? They’ll be lucky to find teeth!”

Then the silence broke, but not quite the tympanied finale we all had expected. Just a few wooden pelts of AK‑47s followed by the steady metallic cracks of M16s and M60s. Smiles spread across faces as we realized just how big an ass kicking the Marines had delivered. Archive video of Apache attack helicopter assaults flashed through my mind: Infrared clusters of a single arm and leg pulling a limp lower body across the ground; patches of infrared forming a blotchy trail leading to the truck just sliced open by Apache .50 cals; then another swift barrage of Apache fire sparking an infrared video patchwork, then nothing; the retreating cluster slows, dims.

“Sergeant Tyler, are we still at White?” somebody asked, all twenty or so of us standing in the cell wing, hands and fingers cupped around firing grips and selector levers.

No response.