Faith Under Fire

By Terri Shlichenmeyer




Your schedule is so jam-packed, you can’t possibly add another thing to it.

The word “no” is not in your vocabulary these days. Between family obligations, work overload, appointments, household chores, and 1,001 other things that pull you 1,001 other ways, you do what you need to do and you stretch yourself thinner than the page on this newspaper. That’s just the way it is.

But pretty soon, you begin to crash. You learn, one way or another, that you can’t do it all and that taking care of yourself sometimes needs to move up on the calendar. In the new book Faith Under Fire by Roger Benimoff (with Eve Conant), an Army chaplain learned that lesson the hard way, and it almost destroyed him.

At the tender age of 8, Roger Benimoff “walked the aisle to accept Christ” in his family’s Baptist church. By high school, he knew he wanted a better relationship with God, but he felt aimless. On the advice of his stepfather, Benimoff joined the Army.

Life in the barracks was filled with drinking and partying, but it also taught Benimoff perseverance and self-assuredness. Later, after entering college and the National Guard and starting a family, he began to feel drawn to military chaplaincy.

He re-entered the Army on a full-time basis and was almost immediately sent to Iraq. Weeks after his first deployment ended, his regiment was sent back. Captain Benimoff was the only chaplain for his squadron of a thousand soldiers.

Despite feeling stretched thin, Benimoff did his best. Chaplains are not allowed to carry weapons, so Benimoff was defenseless when visiting the troops. He had no way of protecting himself “outside the wire”. He was vulnerable but stoic as he ministered to his troops, held hands with the fearful and dying, and bolstered the grieving who lost friends and limbs. He was on constant alert for signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among the troops, and he was vigilant for signs of depression, relationship problems, and battle fatigue.

While he tried to help his troops keep their trust in God, he never thought he’d lose his own faith.
I have to admit, I didn’t much like this book right away. The first third of Faith Under Fire is really a lot like so many other books about the war in Iraq, and I almost felt as if I’d read it before.

But, wow, was I surprised when I reached the point where author Roger Benimoff writes about being sent home for good. From there on, his story quickly goes from divine faith to dispirited foreboding and the feeling that God had pushed him aside. The chaplain who knew how to help his troops was powerless to help himself, and Benimoff’s journey through PTSD makes this one lump-in-the-throat, powerfully unique war story that shouldn’t be missed.

Veterans will devour this book, as will anyone with a loved one at war and anybody considering military chaplaincy, so pick up a copy of Faith Under Fire. It may spark a whole lot of awareness.

Faith Under Fire
by Roger Benimoff
c.2009, Crown
$23.95 / $27.95 Canada
268 pages

Terri Shlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.

Feisty First Ladies and Other Unforgettable White House Women

By Terri Shlichenmeyer

Remember last years’ political uproar? No, I’m not talking about election stumping or finger-pointing. Not mavericks or Six-Packs or porcine lipstick (although who can forget those?). No, think farther back. This uproar came with a conundrum of sorts: if a woman became President of the United States, what would we call her husband? “First Man” is too clinical. “First Gentleman” sounds so stodgy. Maybe “First Guy”? Or maybe not. At any rate, the argument is safe for now. But would you believe that our First Ladies weren’t so-called until our nation was several years old? In fact, would you believe that the first “First Lady” really wasn’t? Read more in Feisty First Ladies and Other Unforgettable White House Women by Autumn Stephens. Back when our country was just-born and the Senate wanted to call George Washington “His Highness”, Martha Washington struggled to find a suitable name for herself in her new position. “Marquise” was a brief possibility but, in the end, “Lady Washington” sufficed. Incidentally, although portraits usually depict Martha as a dignified elderly woman, she was known for sassiness in her youth. Speaking of less-than-demure behavior, Quaker-raised Dolley Madison was said to “cut quite a figure on the dance floor.” She loved snuff, plunging necklines, and fabulous chapeaus, and her patriotism is legendary: during the War of 1812, as the British were descending on the White House, she snatched a portrait of George Washington off the wall and hurried to safety. What most history books don’t tell you is that she also saved another portrait: that of herself. Not content with rescuing paintings, Elizabeth Monroe once saved a human from the guillotine. Yes, the White House has seen plenty of unique individuals: several First Ladies shunned publicity and became virtual hermits while their husbands were in office. There was once, arguably, a mentally ill First Lady, and a few who were quite possibly better-educated than their husbands. Some acted as advisors and offered unflagging support for their mates, while others (unhappily) shared the President not only with constituents but also with other women. And then there was the twentieth-century First Lady who was rumored to have offed her husband to save him from embarrassment… I was afraid, when I got this book, that it was going to be more blah-blah-blah about Washington Wives. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Feisty First Ladies is a lively book filled with thumbnail bios of not just First Ladies, but of daughters, nieces, and other women who left their marks on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Author Autumn Stephens surprised me, page after page, with delicious political gossip and little-known trivia-like factoids. I was pleased to see mini-chapters on the first woman who ran for President (long before women could vote); the irrepressible Martha Mitchell; the First Lady who refused to share a checkbook with her husband; and the woman whose name came from an Italian opera term. Even if you’re tired of Washington business-as-usual, grab this book anyway. Feisty First Ladies makes politics seem like a Party. Feisty First Ladies and Other Unforgettable White House Women by Autumn Stephens c.2009, Viva Editions $16.95, 215 pages

Terri Shlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.

Saint On Death Row

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Imagine meeting someone with the power to tell you everything that will happen to you in the future. He can see the good and bad, the ups and downs for the rest of your life. He has the power to tell all—including the exact time of your death.

Would you want to know?

In the new book A Saint on Death Row, author Thomas Cahill writes about a man condemned to die, how he got to where he was, and the lives he touched.

Popular authors travel a lot. In late 2003, Thomas Cahill (author of “How the Irish Saved Civilization”) was looking forward to the end of his book tour and a chance to relax. But unable to say “no” to a new acquaintance, he reluctantly agreed to take a day out of his schedule for a side-trip. The acquaintance, a semi-retired judge from Chicago, had been introduced to a prison inmate in Texas by a man who belonged to a religious community in Rome. The judge, Sheila Murphy, wanted Cahill to meet the inmate, Dominique Green.

At the beginning of his friendship with Green, Cahill wrote “Dominique is where he is for two reasons only: because he is poor and because he is black.” Green was raised in a household thick with drugs and alcohol, by an abusive mother and an apathetic father. He dropped out of school and started a “business” selling drugs so he could take care of two younger brothers.

In October 1992, after being chased in a stolen car and on foot, Green was arrested. A handgun was in the car (along with two other boys), and tests established that it had been used in the murder of a truck driver in Houston. Cahill says, “the record becomes exceedingly muddled and incomplete” at this point. But of the four boys involved, only Dominique Green was tried and convicted, though many doubt that he committed the crime. Unable to afford private counsel, he alone was sentenced to death.

For not quite a year, Cahill spoke with, prayed with, and got to know Green while the young man was in prison. He watched as supporters—including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that retired Chicago judge, and murdered man’s family—fought for Green’s life.

And Cahill waited…

If it wasn’t for author Thomas Cahill’s thoughtful musings and careful research, it might be easy to dismiss this book as very biased. There is no doubt that Cahill has extremely strong opinions on the subject of capital punishment. Obviously, as many people agree as disagree with him. But no matter on which side of the fence you sit, it’s hard not to be stunned by the chill of four words that Cahill uses sparingly: he says of Green and the system, they are “going to kill him.”

A Saint on Death Row may not change your mind about capital punishment, but it will start discussion, both politically and around the dinner table. Read it, though, because no matter your stance, it’s a pretty powerful book.

A Saint on Death Row
by Thomas Cahill
c.2009, Nan A. Talese / Doubleday
$18.95
144 pages

Terri Shlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.