by Derek Farwell
Columnist

I’ve had a lot of pretty significant life altering events take place during my life. Most of them are not very typical that the average person goes through or faces in the course of their life. I think that in general just growing up and being more aware of current events and the state of the world has caused me to change, and of course I think being in the Army might be the single most defining event in my life that’s caused me to change. It’s caused me to question a lot of things that I likely wouldn’t have, had I never joined the military. A few of the things that have really undergone some pretty fundamental changes within myself are my views on religion as an institution, on good versus evil and just the human spirit in general.

I have come to realize that there is evil in this world. There are people that don’t have an ounce of goodness inside of them, and that sometimes those people prevail. I realized that just because we’re living in America we are not protected by a shroud of safety that comes along with living here, as is evidenced from some of the events that have happened here in the recent past. As a younger more naïve person it was my belief that good always prevails over evil, well at this point in my life I’m unable to convince myself that this is the case. This was kind of a hard lesson for me to learn because it goes against everything I’d been led to believe before that. As a fairly current example of this I’ll use the Boston Marathon bombing incident. This was an evil plan and executed by evil people, and in my estimation, even though they were discovered and dealt with, they accomplished what they set out to do. I know that the opposite side of the coin is that this terrible event brought out the undeniable good in many people, but none of that would have happened if not for evil originally prevailing over good.

I’ve had some wavering views on my thoughts about religion as a whole since my time in the Army as well. I was raised as a Lutheran, attending church and Sunday school on a regular basis, but I’ve always had questions about the institution of organized religion. Going back to not only the Boston bombing, but during my deployment to Iraq as well. When something bad happens people are very quick to say, “Well thank God it wasn’t worse”. That’s a good point because things can always be worse, but what about the unfortunate people who do not survive evil acts? People who face evil and die a very often brutal and terrible death? I guess people aren’t so quick to thank God for the innocent people that are taken from this world too early. I know, I know, when something tragic happens or something goes wrong, it’s all a part of God’s plan, but then I have to ask myself why would I want to participate in a plan in which such pointless, horrendous, and destructive evil is allowed to happen seemingly at will. I mentioned in an earlier article a situation that we came upon in Iraq in which a school full of children was blown up by a bad guy’s bomb. I’ll spare you the exact details of what happens to a human body at the epicenter of a fragmentation explosion as I’ve seen it many times, but suffice it to say, there is nothing much left to see of the people and things that were in the immediate vicinity because of the unbelievable destruction that it causes. I again have to ask myself, how is this for the greater good? How is the world a better place because God wanted to have these children in heaven by first exposing them to an evil that literally tore them limb from limb and scattered them over city blocks while they played at school? I don’t understand it, and at this point in my life, I simply cannot agree with it.

I don’t write this article in an attempt to say that I’m anti-religion, or that I don’t believe in God. I simply wanted to share with people one of the longer lasting and more perplexing after effects that some of my military experiences have had on me. Like I said, I’m well aware that billions of people find comfort and solace in their religious beliefs, and in fact try to make the world a better place because of it, but for me personally it’s something that I don’t know what to think. I would guess the answer from some would be, just put your faith in God and he will take care of the rest, but unfortunately I have a hard time doing that because I’ve seen how that has worked out for some others.

drfarwell@hotmail.com