Indeed. When at a very low point in my life, I prayed for help....crickets.......

I was never a believer but I remember being really irritated that our Sunday options during basic training were church or chores I think I went once just so I could sit down for a while
I also had "no religious preference" listed on my dog tags

For those stuck in the thick of things I'm sorry. Tricky indeed. I am anxious for the day that humanity prevails amongst hatred. You men and women that are/were culled into the fray, I'm thankful for those that made it and sorrowful for those that haven't. Maybe someday as a species we'll stop the war machine nonsense. Even if politicians make the war, it's still every day men and women that perform the duties. When all other rationale fails, just remember the first casualty of war is the truth.

I don't have a foxhole story, but was stationed in West Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Kruschev was constantly threatening to attack if we did not get out of Berlin, and we were just 3,000 American troops surrounded by 200,000 to 300,000 Russian troops 110 miles deep in Russian controlled East Germany. When a new American soldier arrived in Berlin, we were always told that if the Russians did attack, it would be a maximum of 48 hours before the last American was wiped out. On top of that I was picked to be one of a small number of soldiers from our unit to stay behind and fight a suicide holding action while the rest attempted to break out. Religion did not have a damned thing to do with the circumstance.

I spent most of my time in a reconnaissance platoon that never stayed in one place long enough to dig foxholes, but I was an atheist soldier who saw the light and became an atheist veteran. I felt that if I died in a firefight, I'd spend my last moments doing something more substantial than praying.

When Christians tell me that, I respond, "There are no Christians in foxholes." Jesus told us to love our enemies, not go out and shoot them.

I reckon everyone in a foxhole is an athiest. If they truly believed in god's protection, why would they hide in a foxhole?

I was at the table with Richard Dawkins and Justin planning for the Rock Beyond Belief Festival at Fort Bragg the first time I heard the reply "You'll never see a Priest in a Foxhole".

i am not a military veteran but i have been in dire circumstances and never once thought to call on a deity. i also had a best friend (he died in '97) who was broken in upon in his office one day while his secretary was out to lunch, and held hostage, tied up and lying on the floor, for a couple hours, listening some of the time to his assailants arguing about whether or not to kill him. close enough to a foxhole? he told me he was proud of himself that praying never even occurred to him. he was worried that his secretary would return and be attacked, and he was worried about who would take care of his dogs if he was indeed killed. he was a good atheist.

g

I was still on the religious fence between atheism and religion and in the middle of my second tour of duty in Vietnam when I made the off hand remark to my platoon mate, "I'm praying for the day to go home." He said, "Pray into one hand and piss into the other. Notice which one fills up and which doesn't!" It was a bit crude but I was confronted with the fact that prayer does nothing. After that, I was an atheist-in-foxhole.

Not that unusual.