The Power of the Holy Ghost: A Five-Ton Prayer Answered in Babylon Iraq.
Never discount the Power of Prayer and the Holy Ghost! Iraq War-Prayer-Power-Holy Spirit-Soldier
And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith.—Matthew 21:22
One of the greatest mistakes we make as Disciples of King Jesus is that we can't plan Pentecost. In other words, we see the world from where we sit, and sometimes the Holy Ghost of God will show up and show off, and we have no idea when and where it will happen. We have a synthetic view of God, and that view keeps God in a box, and many times we don't have the context of what His capabilities are and what exactly he has planned for us. Do you believe in a supernatural being that can influence people and nations today? You can call me crazy; I think it is overwhelmingly yes. Indeed, God uses both His Army of Angels and His Spirit—The Holy Ghost to execute His will and glory. But these incredible powers are released when Bold Disciples of Jesus make bold prayers. I saw the powers of a supernatural God in the Summer of 2004, up close in person on a dangerous road South of Baghdad, Iraq.
Even though His grace had saved me 30 years prior, I had never had the spiritual maturity or the ability to see the Holy Ghost in action at this point. It took me until after I retired from the Army to discuss this story, but there was never a day that I didn't think about it. His revelation came to me on a combat mission in Southern Iraq. I was the Operations officer for an Army Battalion consisting of six hundred Soldiers. We had been fighting for fifteen straight months in some of the most dangerous places in the world. Our objective was just outside a village called Jurf Al Sakhar. Jurf Al Sakhar was a strategic town about 70 miles from Baghdad. At the time, it was occupied by predominately Sunni tribes. It was strategic because it was a gateway from Baghdad to the Shia heartland of Iraq, through Mahmudiyya to Iskandaria and Hilla. Historically, safety from Suni attacks against Shia Muslims was always an issue when the Shia Muslims would travel for the Day of Ashura. Years later, Islamic State or ISIS would use this territory to disrupt the Shia Muslim pilgrimage; until the Iraqi Army liberated it in 2017.
Amazingly this was near the same ground that the prophet Isaiah, through a vision, peaked into the future and saw the downfall of Babylon. His words would serve as a prophecy:
Raise a banner on a bare hilltop, shout to them, beckon to them to enter the gates of the nobles. I have commanded those I prepared for battle; I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath—those who rejoice in my triumph. Isaiah 13: 2-4
Isaiah was predicting the Assyrian defeat of Babylon. The fascinating reality is that Southern Iraq has been a war zone; since the beginning of God's creation. Satan garrisoned his demons across the plains of Mesopotamia, where the world's earliest civilization developed. Mesopotamia comes from the Greek word "between rivers," It denotes the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Satan was no stranger to that ground; ask Adam and Eve.
On that sacred ground, revealing the Holy Ghost of God would happen in my life. God answered a five-ton prayer in Babylon between the "two rivers." I had been in Iraq for about fifteen months, exhausted mentally and physically. With the stress of war, and lack of sleep, like many in our unit, we were dog-tired. I was like in this permanent daze. We recently had eight Soldiers killed and fifteen wounded in a horrific suicide bomber attack during a challenging operation that I planned and executed, and I was constantly second-guessing myself. Fifteen straight months is an enormous time to fight in continuous combat. Regardless of your unit’s quality, something terrible will happen daily in a hot war zone.
We were finally one week from going home for the second time. We were previously scheduled to return to our home base in Baumholder, Germany, in April of 2004, which would have given us twelve months in the Iraqi Theater of War. Unexpectedly, we were re-missioned from an Urban Counter-Insurgency Operation in Central Bagdad to a movement to contact operation in Southern Iraq. This operation would be against an enemy of Sunni extremists operating at will in this area because of the lack of U.S. forces in Iraq. Â
Late one evening, we received orders from our higher headquarters to raid Jurf Al Sakhar to capture or kill an Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) cell. This AQI cell was responsible for the suicide attack that killed eight of our soldiers in April 2004. I had a horrible feeling about this mission. I, with our Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Brian McKiernan (who would later rise to the rank of Major General), and our staff went into our planning cycle.
We planned every detail, didn't sleep for two days, drank tons of coffee, smoked many cigars, and dipped many cans of Copenhagen. Vises that I do not have today as a Baptist Preacher. Nonetheless, I couldn't get rid of that horrible feeling about the operation; at the time, I credited this feeling probably to my sixth sense of the battlespace and my many months in combat. I knew the terrain like the back of my hand, traveled the roads hundreds of times, and knew everything about the enemy's tactics, techniques, and procedures; I had been in combat for 15 straight months and could recognize a zone of operation by the utter smell. But this wasn't a sixth sense—this was something different.
We would launch our raids at 0100, always a great time to take advantage of our night vision capabilities and the element of surprise. We left at 1300 hours, approximately ten hours before our attack. At the time, our Forward Operating Base, or FOB, was at the Baghdad International Airport, or BIAP, and was a two-hour drive via convoy. We planned to move into hide positions ten miles from the objectives and launch our raids at 0100; we planned on attacking multiple targets that night. We had a comprehensive plan, but I still did not feel right about the operation; God was trying to show me something, but I couldn't see!
Wars and battles are lost and won on the ability to see. As Malcomb Gladwell eloquently portrayed in his book "What the Dog Saw," Giants tend to lose when they can't see. Besides the Holy Spirit, Goliath lost the fight to David because he couldn't see.
Many have noted that war is hell, but that's not half of it. War is a spooky clandestine event filled with exploits—horror—valor—confusion. You can never oversimplify war because the realities are so ambiguous, and those same realities can change your or your Soldier's life in seconds. Things can get so out of control, out of whack, so fast that it can make your head spin. Sometimes the most routine and simple tasks can become confusing because you can't see! Seeing the Battlefield in the land domain is essential. Seeing the Battlefield in the Spiritual realm is the difference between a soul residing in Heaven or Hell for all eternity.
The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.         Proverbs 15:3
We as Christians don't realize that God sees everything, and sometimes he gives us a glimpse. We conducted pre-combat checks and prepared for the mission in our marshaling area. The Brigade Chaplain walked up with a cigar (He was a Methodist). I didn't know him well; he wasn't our Chaplain. And he looked me in the eye and said, can we pray together, Scotty? We moved over by one of the five-ton trucks, which looked like a troop carrier. Our Service Battery Commander, Captain Neil Morgan, used this particular five-ton truck because it was the only up-armored five-ton in Iraq. We were using it to haul off prisoners we would capture. We had no Soldiers in the back of it, just three Soldiers and our Iraqi Interpreter "Johnny" in the front of the Cab. The Chaplain put his arm around me, and we both leaned our hands against the five-ton truck and began to pray.
At that moment, I realized I needed God more than ever. As I started to pray, I had this peace that I had never had in my life. For the first time in my life, I relied on HIM, not my training or experience, and this wasn't like my first rodeo. I had conducted operations like these hundreds of times. But I was so worn down mentally and physically, and it was no longer about me. And I prayed to HIM: "Father, if I die tonight on the objective, I am ready to receive you with open arms. But I have one petition, not one man more. Father, bring all our Soldiers back to Baghdad safely so they can go home to their families. Surround us with your most powerful angels and give us victory in our enemies' presence."Â After that brief prayer, I honestly say I was at peace with my life. Most of the time, we can never rely on the Holy Ghost. Unless it's that time when we're close to death with cancer, a car wreck, or some tragedy, we are never in a position to rely on Him!
My driver would pull up with my HUMVEE and pull in one vehicle behind the five-ton truck, where I stopped to pray with the Chaplain. Typically my "Terp" or Interpreter would ride with me, but I had to have some other staff officers with me for this mission, so I instructed my Terp to ride in the five-ton truck in front of us.Â
We moved from Baghdad to Jufr Al Sakar and traveled for about thirty minutes. We had to move through the town of Momuyhdyia, where we had previously been in some serious fights just southwest of the city in a little village called Mulla Fayyad. So when we passed through Mulla Fayad, I felt a sense of relief that we were past this village, and it would be a straight shot to our hide positions.
My Humvee was one vehicle behind the five-ton I had prayed by in the convoy order. As we were driving on the main road outside this village, I saw a white Passat pulled over on the side of the road; this was typical when our convoys were passing through towns and roads. Then, to my amazement, I watched the white Passat pull out at high speed from about two-hundred meters away and ram into the five-ton truck. Then I witnessed one of the most massive explosions I had ever seen. It only lasted probably five seconds max, but it seemed like an eternity. It was like a nuclear blast—a mushroom cloud. Keep in mind I had witnessed several IED attacks, and as an Artillery officer, massive explosions were my life, but this one took the cake. The White Passat was a suicide bomber—a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED), with about 1000 lbs. of TNT. Just as I had feared, that horrible ill feeling I had felt so many times.
After the debris settled, McKiernan and I exited our vehicles and watched the scene unfold. We both had this ultimate peace and calmness and even discussed it later. We then moved down where the smoldering five-ton truck that I had prayed beside just one hour before. We assumed the worse; we had three Soldiers in the Cab of the five-ton truck, including my Iraqi "Terp" Johnny. I noticed a single finger lying on the ground and blood and guts on the vehicle's windshield.
And then, I watched three of our Soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter walk out of the vehicle without a scratch. The blood, guts, and finger belonged to the suicide bomber. When the suicide bomber rammed into the five-ton truck, his blood and guts splattered into the front of the outside Cab; the Soldiers and our "Terp" Johnny would have concussions but had no visible injuries. We would go on and capture sixteen AQI fighters without firing a single shot, and all six hundred of our Soldiers would make it back to Baghdad that next morning and would be at home at our base in Baumholder, Germany, one week later.
God gave me a glimpse of the Ghost for the first time, and I got to Ride on His White Horse. I got to see the world from where God sits. The Power of the Holy Ghost and a five-ton prayer in Babylon—"And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith."
I have thought about that scene thousands of times since July 2004. The blast had no physical effect on me, but if I could have chosen a vehicle for the suicide bomber to hit, it would have been that five-ton truck. Based on the fact that it was the only five-ton truck with an up-armored cab in Iraq. They would eventually become the norm, but not in July of 2004. Almost one hundred vehicles traveled that route that day for our mission. If the suicide bomber had hit any other vehicle, there would be mass casualties. Do you believe in a supernatural being that can influence people and nations today? I do, and when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you get His Power in the Holy Spirit!Â