Even after reading this book several times I am brought to tears knowing that God was with the Marines during the battles early in the war. I know of one Marine who was so blessed by Carey Cash that he is planning to enter the ministry with the plan to become a military chaplain when he retires. For anyone who doubts that God still performs miracles, this book is a "must read".

We need to know this stuff. My son was 1/5 on this invasion. It took me four years to be able to read what he went through. He said it was nothing compared to the next two tours but I enjoyed the book, and was glad to know the guys had such a great chaplain. I've bought more copies and am loaning them to friends and family. It's hard to read about Iraq or any war, but Americans should respect and appreciate every freedom we have. VOTE!

I was given this book to read as my son shipped out for Fallujah, Iraq. As many mothers who had seen their sons off to war, I was prayerfully asking for God's protection over my son and those around him.
This book answered some of those questions, and gave me a reassuring hope, that God is watching over those we love, and His angels are as busy as ever protecting our loved ones.
Although the story is heartwrenching, it is an unbiased account of how God's presence in such a desolate place carried these Marines to victory.
I highly recommend to anyone who has a loved one in the military to read this and pass it along to others in the family.

I had first heard about this book from a friend about three years ago. He had recommended it highly and I put it on my 'to read' list. After reading it, I wished that I had gotten to it sooner.

'A Table In The Presence' is an inspirational account about the horrors and heroism of the war. It is written from the perspective of a Navy chaplain serving with a Marine Corps battalion. Although it is an historical book, it has a spiritual focus.

Lt. Carey Cash recounts many episodes of apparently divine intervention. Several of these stories defy any other explanation.

This is a very touching and compelling book. It will be of particular interest to Christians and military veterans and their families. I highly recommend it.

This was such a refreshing look at the realities of life in the war zone know as Iraq. This is an unadultary look at the life of a Marine Chaplain and the fine men and women he serves in the hell know as Iraq. It was a great book to read as a pastor and even a better book to give to a young husband and father as he shipped out to serve our country in Iraq. Buy it Read it, before you believe the next story from the news media, about why we need to cut and run

This is a medium to smallish sized war memoir written by a Navy Chaplain who was attached to a section of Marines at the beginning of Gulf War 2. It is well written and relatively easy to read. The conclusion may leave you wanting to ask, "What happened next?" Of course, the war is still being waged at this time. I met the author and he is what you would expect of an officer, gentleman, and man of God. I enjoyed it and got another copy for my dad. Enjoy!

It has been about a year since I read this book. Chaplain Cash was able to remind me of images of my own experiences in Iraq. The key to understanding how profound this book is to remember that when he went into Iraq...he didn't know what to expect. None of us knew.

When I was recalled to active duty after being out for seven years, I was terrified and almost requested my bishop to remove my endorsement. Through prayer and listening, I reluctantly went. I am embarassed to say that I even complained during the long journey to Fallujah Iraq in September of 2004. I was attached with 1ST FSSG Marines serving as the lone Catholic Priest in the area. I found the book on a shelf in our small closet sized office for the chaplains where I had just experienced an incoming rocket that tore into a Marine 30 yards away from me. I walked with the Marine as his blood stained my hands. There wasn't the time to read the book while in Iraq, but I saw it at the exchange and read it in one sitting. It helped me in the healing process to see how other Christians of other denominations read and experience the fog of war.

Chaplain Carey Cash gives us an incredible insight into a very terrible war. God hates all war. The fact that this war doesn't fit the "just war theory" makes it all the more horrific. The body guard (RP) of Carey Cash was with me and protected me also. Let's pray for peace.

The FDR Memorial in Washington says it all:
I HAVE SEEN WAR. I HAVE SEEN WAR ON LAND AND SEA.
I HAVE SEEN BLOOD RUNNING FROM THE WOUNDED.
I HAVE SEEN THE DEAD IN THE MUD.
I HAVE SEEN CITIES DESTROYED.
I HAVE SEEN CHILDREN STARVING.
I HAVE SEEN THE AGONY OF MOTHERS AND WIVES.
I HATE WAR.

After personally receiving over 1500 casualties and 81 deaths (of which 12 died in my arms), it was refreshing and humbling to come back to earth and see how a brother chaplain ministered to a few casualties. This was the beginning of the war. This work is invaluable. I do agree with those who use caution. I also ministered to Iraqi Muslims who had no country to help them through their debilitating injuries and grief. One Iraqi Soldier cried in my arms after he realized his buddy (the father of nine) was going over to mortuary affairs instead of the hospital. His tears burned my soul. Carey would probably do the same...and may be back in Iraq.
Peace.

Actually, I bought this as a gift for someone, who needed to understand that God is always near us, even when we wonder about that fact. This book is about the Iraqi War, of course, and our men and women, who face war head on. It also tells us of the role of our Chaplains in war, as they minister right at the front-lines, to those who need assurance, in the heat of battle, of God's Presence.

This is probably the 40th combat memoir I've read and it's the most embarrassing. The writer says, along with a lot of other nonsense, that "God has the heart of an infantryman." This from a clergyman. The author makes no distinctions between Christianity and the mission of the Marine Corps; he writes of Operation Iraqi Freedom as if it were Joshua in Canaan all over again. He credits God for victory, but is left with weak cliches when it comes to American battle deaths--of the "God has a plan" variety. In the author's view, God's people are the Marines; whoever is fighting the Marines must be the enemy of God. That really is the author's astoundingly simplistic view of the world. This book is another example of the brainlessness that pervades American evangelicalism.

As one of the members of 1/5 that new Chaplain Cash I cannot express the joy I felt at finding this book. He was instrumental at helping me through a very tough time in my life. He has a great insight into all of the accounts in this book. I am honored to have served with him and will be telling friends about this book.

The media gives you and I a regular diet of how bad things are going in Iraq and seems to leave out the things that are going right. This book, enlightens the reader about the things that went well and the things God is doing supernaturally in the war. I would recommend it for skeptics, Christians, chaplians, or war buffs.

I received this book as a gift from my mother-in-law when my husband had only been gone to Iraq for about 2 months. I didn't think I'd be able or interested in reading it. But I read just a couple paragraphs while I was waiting in line one day and I was hooked. The same thing happened to my son and step-mother - hooked after just a few paragraphs. This book is an excellent read for Christians and non-Christians.

It was great to read about the spiritual care and experiences of our military forces during a time of war. It is easy to read and hard to put down.

I recommend it to anyone who has been praying for our troops because it will confirm that the battle is the Lord's and the duty for people of prayer is to pray without ceasing.

Unexplained miracles happened, and I have no doubt, continue to happen, but we will only hear about them in accounts such as A Table in the Presence.

I read this book in two days, with tears in my eyes and joy in my heart. I then went out in search of additional copies to give as Christmas gifts, but each store was sold out. I guess other people love it as much as I do! This account of the events going into Baghdad gave me a new appreciation of the struggles and sacrifices of our military forces. I wept as I read about the rescue of hundreds of children freed by our soldiers from an Iraqi prison and their reunion with their grateful parents. These children were held captive because their parents didn't support Saddam's regime. There were miracles in the midst of chaos that were never reported in the media. I didn't see this as an account of "our God vs theirs" but as individuals walking in the strength of faith. These courageous young men were not fighting Iraqi citizens, but forces led by a violent dictator who slaughtered his own people, locked children in filthy prisons, brutally invaded Kuwait and supported terrorists in their threats against western civilization. I want to thank every service member, from our country and from abroad. You are my heroes! Thank you Lt. Cash for your service and for writing this book.

Once upon a time I wanted to be a military chaplain - in fact, I still do, but age has caught up with me, and I am no longer eligible. Thus it might seem natural that I would find an interest in this book, `A Table in the Presence' by Lt. Carey Cash, a chaplain attached to the 1st Battalion, Fifth Marine Corps regiment. Lt. Cash is in fact a Navy chaplain, as the Marines don't have chaplains of their own (this is true for several `non-fighting' specialities). But his first assignment as a chaplain was, at his own request, with the Marines.

Cash describes his upbringing as the son of a Navy pilot who was shot down during Vietnam. His wife's father was a Marine commander, and as it turned out, of the same regiment as he would end up serving with, the `Fighting Fifth'. Cash describes how his sense of call and mission formed slowly, and his training as a chaplain, including the CREST programme for those going to serve the Marines. He recalls the day in September 2001 when his group, having gone through the gas mask training, heard on the bus back that something had happened. The world changed in many ways that day.

Cash describes the run-up to the war in Iraq, the situations in which he and his Marines found themselves, both in stillness and in anticipation. Then he describes in good detail many of the combat encounters his Marines experienced, and some of his own. Cash likens many of these to biblical stories - it is hard for someone well acquainted with the Bible not to be thinking in biblical terms when placed in the ancient lands of the Middle East. He makes free comparison to the figures of Joshua, David and others in the Hebrew Scriptures who endured battle and struggle in lands such as these (and rather nearby), and also associates New Testament themes of deliverance, protection, and divine will to the happenings.

One point, brought up by other commentators as well, is that Cash has a tendency toward attributing to God motivations and actions that can make one uneasy - I recall touring a German armaments museum once upon a time, and seeing the phrase `God is with us' stenciled beside the `fire' button on some of the machines. The impulse to see God in victory and survival is quite natural, particularly for battlefield veterans (there are no atheists in foxholes?), and indeed it is the job of chaplains at least in part to assure those in such situations that God's presence is there. But I found myself occasionally uncomfortable with assigning responsibility to God for every good thing that happened, without simultaneously questioning why God permitted the bad things that happened to proceed. As a reaction in the immediacy of battle it is one thing; after theological reflection, it might have different implications.

Still, this is an interesting and worthwhile story, a good example of a first-hand account from a perspective often not seen in the `war stories' genre. Among the highlights of Cash's story are the baptisms and services in make-shift worship spaces - one thinks again of biblical stories which speak of people who set up simple stones as worship spaces. God's presence can be seen everywhere one looks.

I usually do not write reviews of books that so many other people have already reviewed, but in this case I felt that I needed to.
This is a book written by a military chaplain who has a strong faith in God, and is not afraid to talk about it. We need more like him in the service.
It is also one of the first of no doubt many first person accounts of the second Gulf War and is therefore important to the history of the war.
The fact that it is written by a chaplain is also unique. I have read many books about war and only recall one other that is written by a chaplian during World War II.
The book itself is very easy to read, and is very much from a Christian and US point of view. If these points of view offend you then I would recomened that you not read this book. On the other hand, if you are interested in first person military histroy or are a Christian (I am both.), this book is one you will want to read.

This is a well-written and fast-paced book that takes you inside the battle of Bagdad when the Marines first took the supposedly vaunted city.

Written from the perspective of a chaplain with the Marines, you'll be moved spiritually and emotionally as you realize the great sacrifice of the young men and woman who have signed up to risk their lives for our country. Furthermore, you'll get surprising details about the role of a chaplain. I always thought they stood on the sidelines and read prayers, but they are in the thick of the theatre with the troops, going on risky missions so they can provide spiritual comfort, balance, and perrspective to men and woman facing the risk of death. A great book to buy for anyone you know who is interested in the war or perhaps for a soldier.

Throughout the recording of history, there have been accounts by men and women in battle who relate events in which they believe God directed paths and provided supernatural protection. From the Israelites exodus from Egypt, to the American Revolutionary War, and now in our War on Terrorism, eye witness experiences of these instances have been well documented.

LT. Cash gives a first hand account of the ground war of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He begins with the account of how God brought forth revival in the desert of Kuwait before the men entered the fighting. He then goes on to record event after event that can only be explained as God's involvement in the lives of warriors fighting for a just cause.

His eye witness accounts of bravery and supernatural protection are written in fast paced prose. Some will scoff at what he includes and at the "testimony" of those invovled in each incident. Others will understand that while we do not know why God allows safety for some and injury or death for others, God is sovereign. Our ways are not His ways, and our thought are not His thoughts.

Readers and reviewers may question why the god of Islam did not protect his followers, or why Jehovah God did not protect all of the men of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. They will assume that the god of the Muslim faith is the same as the God of the Christian faith. It may be that they will even declare that all of the events were coincidence or even contained embellishments. Before accepting any of these opinions, let the reader stop and ask for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...Jehovah God...to speak to them about the source of the Power behind what LT. Cash has recorded. It could be they will come to understand just Who it was that prepared "a table in the presence".

The true story about how God really, really wanted to have a conversation with one Marine. So much that he diverted an Iraqi bullet that otherwise would have missed.

Lt. Cash presents an absolutely spellbinding account of a Marine battalion as it progresses through Iraq and how God is present in our lives no matter the circumstances. Lt. Cash is extremely objective in sharing the personal, one-on-one relationship God wishes to have with us. This is not some sort of rah, rah story that suggests God is an American; instead the author provides insight into the fears, worries, and challenges that Marines face in combat and how a loving God inspires, comforts, and guides each man. The author also provides a balanced, first-person view of the interaction with the Iraqis that the media has ignored in deference to controversy and negativity.
Lt. Cash provides many scriptural references as to how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob yearns for a loving relationship with us, and how sometimes we need to be broken in order for our own barriers to come down. God has chased His people through good and bad, a father whose love is unconditional and waiting for us. In this way, this book has life application far beyond the "war story" it includes.
This is also not a preachy book. Lt. Cash provides an excellent account of how a Marine infantry battalion functions and how things like sandstorms and enemy contact are dealt with on the personal level by the individual Marine. And through scripture and example, he shows us how that same God will help each of us through the sandstorms or enemy contacts we each face every day.
If you are looking for an "argument" that God is biased in favor of America, this is not your book. But if you are looking for a book that reflects how God makes his peaceful presence known to those who seek him, even in the middle of a firefight, then I highly recommend "A Table in the Presence." Semper Fi.