But maybe they should, damn it. Especially when history is full of stories like ...

The downside of being a man of God in a military setting is that there really is a cap on how much ass-kicking you can do. Sure, a priest can give last rights and counsel the troubled while the battle rages in the background, but it's not the sort of thing they make video games about.

5 Andrew White Goes Face to Face With Warring Factions of Iraq

Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Growing up, Andrew White wanted to be nothing but an Anglican priest. He not only was ordained, but also left England and studied in Jewish and Muslim universities throughout the 1980s to learn about other religions. After that, he became a pacifist, promoting reconciliation between religions and vowing never to get into a war. That is, until 2005, when he became a chaplain and was sent into Iraq.

Via Assist News Service

Which, judging by this reaction, he accepted with minimal brow furrowing.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Setting up shop, White saw no better area to be than the Red Zone, aka the dangerous areas of Baghdad. The only chaplain crazy enough to live there, White quickly gained the title of "Vicar of Baghdad." At first, many of the local crazies tried to scare him off by kidnapping him, torturing him, hijacking his car, bombing his church, and holding him at gunpoint, threatening to murder him. But while this succeeded in getting other clergy to leave the area, White stayed on.

Winning a begrudging respect, White was now in a unique position. Seen as one of the only people whom representatives on both sides of the conflict could count on to not screw them over, White took a lead role in negotiating the release of hostages (one of whom was his own deputy) and helped barter a negotiated peace between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in his area of Baghdad. Where the British and American governments had failed over a matter of years, White succeeded in only a matter of weeks.

Via Yorkpress.co.uk

We're assuming he just showed up and flexed until they started crying and gave in.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Even with his extended duties and the occasional assassination attempt, White still managed to give Sunday services every week. Today, White is still in Baghdad, now flanked by security guards after some of his staff was killed. Despite missing his fingertips due to one torture session, White has only left Baghdad once since 2005 and chooses to remain there, as life in London would be, in his own words, "boring." Compared to his life, he's undoubtedly right.