Pvt. Walter Bromwich, Writing to His Pastor, Begins to Question the Role of God in War

The intoxicating exuberance with which so many soldiers had left the States was soon tempered by their introduction to a new, technologically “advanced” form of warfare. Machine guns, flamethrowers, tanks, airplanes, and poison gas made it possible for armies to wipe out tens of thousands of men in a single battle. The trenches in which the soldiers lived were disease-and rat-infested, mud-soaked burrows, made all the more unbearable by the stench of human waste and rotting corpses. The new century’s promise of a peaceful, civilized world where machines would serve—not annihilate—humanity seemed rapidly to be deteriorating into barbarism. Some soldiers began to reexamine their idealism, their purpose, and their faith. In a brief but thoughtful letter to his pastor in Pennsylvania, Pvt. Walter Bromwich emphasized that, although still a believer, he was questioning the notion of a benevolent God in a spectacle so incomprehensibly horrible as war.

Dear Reverent:

Here I sit in my little home on the side of the hill thinking of the little church back home, wondering how you are getting along. Don’t think I am down-hearted because I am writing you, but it’s a queer thing I can’t explain, that ever since I volunteered I’ve felt like a cog in a huge wheel. The cog may get smashed up, but the machine goes on, and I know I share in the progress of that machine whether I live or die, and that seems to make everything all right. Except, perhaps, when I lose a pal, it’s generally one of the best but yet it may be one of the worst. And I can’t feel God is in it.

How can there be fairness in one man being maimed for life, suffering agonies, another killed instantaneously, while I get out of it safe? Does God really love us individually or does He love His purpose more? Or is it better to believe he makes the innocent suffer for the guilty and that things will be squared up some day when those who have escaped suffering here will suffer, and those who have suffered here will escape suffering. Sounds rather calculating, doesn’t it, and not a bit like the love of a Father.

What I would like to believe is that God is in this war, not as a spectator, but backing up everything that is good in us. He won’t work any miracles for us because that would be helping us to do the work He’s given us to do on our own. I don’t know whether God goes forth with armies but I do know that He is in lots of our men or they would not do what they do.

Do write me and let me know how the church is getting along.

Remember me to all—especially The Altar Guild, and tell them to “carry on” the war work. My motto is “carry on.” So here’s good-luck to all.

Yours sincerely,

Pvt. Walter T. Bromwich Company A 6th U.S.—Engineers American Expeditionary Forces

Four months after writing this letter, Bromwich was shot in the back and head during combat. After extensive hospitalization, he recovered fully from his wounds.