God's Hiddenness in Combat?

The end of the first chapter of the book and chapter with the same title reads like this: "To reflect on the place of Christian faith in combat is to be drawn into the complexity--the hellish, bewildering, puzzling, and tangled perplexity--battle itself. It is to look at a world that is unfathomable and is still, in some ways, ordinary. War is a living nightmare where God is not--and is." ~Preston Jones and Jody Beckman. On the final page of the book, the conclusion, on p. 54 reads, "Yet it is striking that war memoirs from victor and vanquished have so much in common. Combat veterans who know that they played a role in bringing down Hitler's evil regime still say that war is hell. The German film Downfall focuses on the collapse of Berlin in the Spring of 1945; the American film Saving Private Ryan depicts American Army Rangers in France, killing Germans and helping to make Germany's collapse possible. But the films feel the same. Being on the winning side does not stop combat from being a nightmare. [Theologian, Reinhold] Niebuhr's point is taken. Every person, in one way or another, is a crucifier of Christ. Warriors, perhaps like the centurion at Golgotha, know this better than anyone." So, where does this leave you and I? Two important terms define us, whether we want to admit it or not: Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus. This is Latin for "God hidden," and "God revealed." Time and space, as well as the meaning we derive from our experience makes it incredibly difficult to individually weave our way out of the hell of war, and it's lasting effects. It's just overwhelming: we can't see the forest through the trees. However, "God revealed," through the special revelation of Scripture, New Testament message of Christ on the Cross especially, makes total sense of the absurdity of war, and the possibility of hope; hope because three days later, Christ rose from the grave. His ability, above and beyond our own, gives us possibility, true hope and definition beyond the hiddenness of God. What we can not see in combat, or thereafter, we can see through faith because of the one who was there before us on the Cross. Was God hidden on the Cross? Jesus cried out, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" But, indeed, He was there.