NEW YORK, USA — Army Chaplain David Cook, stationed at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York, has found himself facing tough questions from soldiers and their families since the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11 — but the Scriptures he has distributed are proving invaluable in providing the answers.

The chaplain himself was teaching in the chapel when news of the attacks came through. He and others ran to the emergency operations centre and when, on top of the news about the attack on the Pentagon, first one and then the other tower fell, he says everyone in the room was “overwhelmed with grief, confusion and just complete fear for what was going to happen next.

“Immediately some people were extremely angry,” he says. “They were filled with questions like, ‘How can they do this?’ and ‘Who in the world would kill innocent civilians in this way?’” Added to that, he says, was a feeling of “tremendous sadness.

“We knew that the lives of many, many thousands of people were changed forever in that instant.

Anxiety

“Lives ended, families were touched, people had lost lifelong friends, and there was an anxiety over ‘who that we know might have been there?’”

To those asking him, “Where was God?” his answer is equally robust.

“The more I’ve listened to the individual stories that have come out of this,” he declares, “the more I realise that God has been very much involved.”

Among the numerous “miracles” he cites is the story of the driver who backed his underground train away from the World Trade Center station moments before the tunnel collapsed.

“The fact that 25,000 people got out safely against all odds is evidence that God was there,” he declares. “Somehow, it seemed like God was involved with a lot of individuals, helping people to do all the right things to make it possible to save the maximum number of people.”

But the chaplain sees God’s presence even among those who lost their lives.

“Some of those people had a chance to think about their upcoming death,” he reflects. “They knew they were trapped; they knew they had no way out; and they knew they had a few minutes. How many of them took that opportunity to pray to God?

“I really believe that God was very busy that day.”

In addition to answering difficult questions, the chaplain is also concerned with making sure that Bibles are available in a format which makes them practical for his soldiers to carry on duty.

The solution, he says, is one that fits into the pocket of their fatigues, so that they can read it whenever they get a break. When he received a shipment of Bible Society Scriptures for his troops, he says, he was “like a kid at Christmas”.

“Sometimes they may have a long bus ride, or a ferry ride, or a lot of standing around waiting for something to happen,” he says. “This gives them something they can read and study and find something that speaks to their heart.

“Some know where the answers are and they’re glad to have a Bible to use. For others this may be the first time they’ve ever had a Bible of their own.