Beyond the Latino World War II Hero: The Social and Political Legacy of a Generation

7. God and War: The Impact of Combat upon Latino Soldiers' Religious Beliefs

World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle’s adage, “There are no atheists in foxholes,” acknowledges soldiers’ entreaties to God while under the duress of battle and the threat of death. While the accuracy of Pyle’s comment is debatable, veterans’ narratives, army chaplaincy reports, and wartime soldier surveys substantiate his observation. León Leura, combat engineer with the Thirty-sixth Division and veteran of the Salerno and Anzio battlefields, for instance, recalled, “Many soldiers attended church services that never attended before.”1 World War II chaplains likewise noted that soldiers and sailors on combat duty attended church services and conferred with chaplains at higher rates than their stateside counterparts.2 The immediate effect of combat upon servicemen’s religious practices is well documented and convincing , but the enduring impact on their spirituality has received negligible attention. Spirituality among Latinos Spirituality and faith traditionally have formed fundamental facets of Latino lives and identity. Catholicism, particularly popular Catholicism, has wielded a “tremendous influence in shaping Mexicans’ and Mexican Americans’ religious, cultural, and social lives,” according to Arlene Sánchez Walsh in 7 God and War The Impact of Combat upon Latino Soldiers’ Religious Beliefs r e a a n n t r o t t e r REA ANN TROTTER· 126 · “The Mexican American Religious Experience.”3 Noted theologian Orlando O. Espín wrote that popular Catholicism not only represents the most widely practiced form of Catholicism in Latino culture but also is “a key matrix of all Hispanic cultures.” It is from this cultural context that people acquired the tools and abilities to identify, interpret, and express their experiences, especially with the divine.4 Thus, the veterans’ religiosity is essential in studying their responses to war. Religious references are common throughout veterans ’ narratives, yet the subject of war and spirituality remains conspicuously sparse in Latino historiography of the World War II era. This chapter examines the long-term spiritual effects of combat among eighteen Latino veterans. The memories of these men, conveyed through eighteen oral and documentary narratives, revealed that World War II produced a significant and lasting influence upon their religious attitudes. Four themes resonated consistently throughout the narratives. First, all of the veterans expressed moral and spiritual concerns about killing. Second, all reported that praying mollified the degenerative effects of fear, grief, and horror. Third, their faith in God increased as a direct consequence of their combat experiences. Fourth, they sought a meaning and purpose for their survival. Violence and Religion The veterans’ thoughts associated with the act of killing are central to this discussion because of the combat soldiers’ paradoxical situation. American social mores and religious beliefs across denominations condemn violence and killing. Yet most denominations also promote such actions as moral and patriotic duties for servicemen. The Bible commands people, “Thou shalt not kill,” but killing under certain conditions is sanctified by church and state. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, Colorado, explains: “Deliberate killing of the innocent or defenseless, even in war, is always gravely wrong. But in the Catholic tradition, killing in combat can be legitimate as an extension of the right to self-defense and the defense of others.”5 George Wickersham II, a protestant chaplain who served with the marines in the Pacific theater, told soldiers concerned about killing, “We who were defending our rights and the rights of others were not transgressing God’s law.” World War II chaplain Elisha Atkins believed that combat soldiers were more concerned with survival than spiritual dilemmas inherent in killing: “For nearly half of them the so-called ‘religious problem’ did not exist, either in respect to outward observance, or inward speculative and GOD A ND WAR· 127 · moral dilemmas.”6 Atkins, however, did not speculate on how these “religious problems” bothered the other half. Survival was a primary concern of servicemen who lived amid the pervasiveness of death—of their fellow soldiers, of civilians, and of enemy combatants—as well as fear of their own death. However, in spite of death’s constant presence, Joe F. López, a veteran of Patton’s Third Army, Eightieth Infantry Division, stated, “You never really get used to it.”7 Neither could the men completely inure themselves from the strain of killing other human beings, even the enemy. Survival did not negate soldiers’ spiritual apprehensions about killing. “Killing is what war is all about,” Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman wrote in On Killing, “and killing in combat, by...