Praying with the soldiers near the front. Photo by Antonio Graceffo

From late July until last week, I was on my latest mission in Burma (stories available on the Gateway Pundit). During that time, I witnessed people in Demoso City, Karenni State, trying to live as normally as possible under the constant sounds of artillery, mortars, drones, and the occasional airstrike. Literally all day, every day, there were explosions. And this is how they have lived for four and a half years, since the 2021 military coup that ousted the democratically elected government.

Bunker in the rice paddies. Photo by Antonio Graceffo.

Now, however, the explosions are getting closer, falling within a kilometer of the population center, with occasional rounds striking villages. While I was there, we responded when the government bombed a school. Fortunately, it was after 4:30 p.m. and the children were not there.

That same day, a mortar round hit a village, wounding one man. Why? Why that village? Why that man? Why that random Wednesday afternoon? No one knows. The only certainty is that things are getting worse as government forces push to seize the rest of the city, the surrounding villages, and the farmland.

The resistance has only limited drone-scrambling technology, no aircraft, and no anti-aircraft weapons. So, both soldiers and the civilians they protect are free targets whenever the government decides to kill them, and those attacks are coming more frequently now.

Leaving Demoso, I accompanied resistance forces to the battle of Pasaung City. I spent time with the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) at their casualty collection point, where they fought desperately to save wounded soldiers. I also joined Catholic priests on their rounds, providing food and support to the internally displaced people (IDPs), and spiritual care to those whose lives have been shattered by war.

Most of the battle, I could do nothing but watch helplessly as Russian artillery and Chinese jets dropped ordnance and strafed the ground with autocannons, killing indiscriminately, while the resistance had no way to fight back.

Photo by Antonio Graceffo

The day after the battle, religious duties turned even more somber. I followed a priest as he presided over wakes and funerals for young men, mostly in their late teens and early twenties, who had been killed in the fighting. And because the entire country is a target for government airstrikes, even funerals placed mourners and grieving families at risk of being bombed.

After twenty years and numerous missions in this war, my understanding of conflict continues to evolve, as does my understanding of grief, death, and how we process them. Every soldier wrestles with the question of how one can kill and still be forgiven.

One Catholic soldier, call him Salvatore, has more or less stopped eating and drinks heavily, burdened by the weight of the people he has killed. He looks extremely emaciated and told me that he wakes in the middle of the night, reliving those battles.

Salvatore was about 17 when the coup happened, so this war has consumed nearly a quarter of his life. And unlike American soldiers who can be rotated out, there is no place for him to go. He remains with his unit at the front, locked in a state of perpetual war.

Even if he were to give in to his trauma and leave the army, he would only end up in an internally displaced persons camp, targeted by government airstrikes and unable to do anything to help himself or those around him.

The waste of human potential in the camps is horrific, hundreds of thousands of people with no job, no purpose, except to survive and to pray for the war to end.

Food distribution in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp. Photo by Antonio Graceffo.

Soldier suicides are becoming more frequent, and a Catholic soldier took his own life while I was in country. I met with the priest and nuns the next morning, and they were visibly more affected by this death than by the many others killed in combat or government airstrikes.

Their deep compassion showed through, with the nuns blaming the war and the hopelessness of constant suffering and death, rather than condemning the young man. After years of watching comrades die, knowing their families are displaced, and feeling powerless to protect those they love, many soldiers reach a breaking point. One of the nuns said something to the effect of, “He is with God now and will no longer suffer,” a striking contrast to the idea of judgment.

Many Catholics believe that suicide is a mortal sin and that anyone who commits it automatically goes to hell, but this is not accurate. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992, sections 2280–2283) states: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance.”

I prayed that Salvatore would not die the same way. But it was good to be reminded that there is still hope.

Every family asks how a loving God could take their son. And with 80 percent of Karenni State’s population displaced, most of the country could easily be asking how this can happen and why it is happening to them.

At nearly 60 years of age, I still have no answers, except that we must remain true to our faith and trust that God has a plan, even if it is unknown to us.

After I returned from mission, I had an after-action debriefing with one of the chaplains from the Free Burma Rangers (FBR). The meeting was productive and therapeutic, tearful and prayerful. He is a Lutheran and a long-term veteran of the Burma war, so he understood what I was going through and particularly the concerns I had for Catholic soldiers in Burma.

People in Burma are very religious. They maintain their faith despite the war, and many keep a shrine in their home. Photo by Antonio Graceffo

Among the issues we discussed were soldier suicide and the immense regret many carry for what they believe is unreconciled sin, breaking the Fifth Commandment by killing the enemy. For Catholics and Lutherans, “Thou shalt not kill” is the Fifth Commandment; for most Protestants it is the Sixth. But the Catholic Church and all of the American Protestants I have spoken to, including FBR chaplains, agree that the commandment means “Thou shalt not murder,” not “Thou shalt not kill.”

According to the Catechism, the Fifth Commandment forbids the direct and intentional killing of the innocent (CCC 2261). Yet the Church recognizes that those who bear arms in defense of life and justice may not be morally guilty of murder. The Church also teaches that soldiers in a just war are not condemned for killing the enemy to save the innocent. CCC 2263–2265 states that legitimate defense can be not only a right but even a grave duty when responsible for protecting others.

My plate carrier, bulletproof vest. Catholic soldiers in the Burma war wear the rosary on their vests. Photo by Antonio Graceffo.

Soldiers who fight in a just war with the right intention are not guilty of sin for killing enemy combatants, since their goal is defense, not murder (CCC 2310).

Writing the series of stories I wrote for Gateway Pundit was at times painful, as it required me to relive the deaths. When I mentioned this to David Eubank, head of Free Burma Rangers (FBR) he said “We can live with sadness. We cannot live with regret.”

Mass wake for soldiers killed in the battle of Pasaung. Photo by Antonio Graceffo

And that statement touched on one of my take-aways from this mission, I realized that each man is fighting his own, private and spiritual war.

One night, a military commander got very drunk, and I saw tears running down his face as he told me about the number of young men he had lost. A priest I was riding in a car with teared up  when we had to attend five funerals in just two days. Salvatore opened up about the trauma that was eating him alive.

Photo by Antonio Graceffo

On battle days, I watched combat medics running back and forth to the front, carrying the wounded and the dead, and it struck me that unlike soldiers who may see only a few deaths in a battle, the handful of medics see them all. The commander feels every loss, and the priest has to bury every one. Over the past four and a half years, soldiers have lost countless friends. Rangers were killed on my last mission to Karenni, and again during this mission.

The chaplains, very few in number, endured the deaths and the terror of combat firsthand, yet they also had to remain strong and counsel the soldiers, helping them with grief and with the weight of the things they had done.

Every one of them was suffering their own trauma, but as Eubank said, they kept going. They didn’t quit. The fear of regret outweighed the pain and sadness of continuing.

What united all of these men was that they knew their mission, and they held fast to their faith that the mission was just: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

And for the people of Burma, who live under constant attack yet still endure, Paul’s words ring true: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).

The author, Antonio Graceffo, reporting from Thailand after his mission to Burma.