Will God be on their side? It is said there is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole. So how do you prepare young squaddies spiritually for possible conflict in Iraq? David Devenney, a marine commando who became a minister after the horror of the Falk

aboard the USS New Orleans during the attack on Pearl Harbor

With one phrase, repeated time and time again on that fateful Sunday morning in December, 1941, American Naval Chaplain Lt Howell Forgy pretty much summed up the modern-day warrior's curious relationship with God.

Now, as the clouds of conflict threaten to descend once again, and with the strongest voice in opposition in Britain being that of the Church, it's perhaps worth asking the question: exactly whose side will God be on if and when all Hell breaks loose in Iraq? Tricky one, that. T'was ever thus. The glib answer, of course, is ''Whoever wins''.

They say that there's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole. For many of the, mostly teenage, British soldiers preparing today for the possibility of war in Iraq, God and a gun will go hand in hand. Once they hit the battlefield they will offer up a silent prayer for survival. Fighting men might be as tough as they come, but a lot of them need spiritual support and comfort as much, and probably more, than anyone else.

Yet, curiously, experienced servicemen who have witnessed the horrors of a ground war often say that, rather than a cry for God, it was the screaming pleas for help to a far-off mother that they remember most from the wounded and the dying.

One man who is well-qualified

to speak about the relationship between the soldier and his God is 46-year-old Glaswegian David Devenney. As a member of 42 Commando Royal Marines he fought in the Falklands 20 years ago. At one point in the conflict, from his observation post on Wall Mountain, he spotted six enemy soldiers laying mines in a bid to thwart an attack from his own unit. He helped plot the co-ordinates for a subsequent mortar attack which killed the Argentinians.

Today he accepts responsibility for those deaths. He was a soldier and, like it or not, killing ran with the territory. He looks back on his Falklands experience, not with guilt, but with a sense of pride.

This fact came home to him late last year when the ex-Commando joined a group of 250 vets who returned to the Falklands to honour their fallen friends and to lay their personal ghosts to rest.

At one point he was sitting in the back of the Land Rover as it wound its way between Goose Green and Port Stanley when, suddenly and without warning, he was ambushed by his emotions.The driver pointed out Mount Harriet, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. ''I turned my head, looked out, and there it was,'' he recalls. ''It looks like the Black Cuillins; very savage, very majestic, with jagged peaks. I could just feel my bottom lip begin to tremble. I asked him to stop the vehicle and I just broke down. I had this overwhelming feeling of just being back and I could suddenly remember the feelings just before the final assault on the mountain.''

Devenney is more than just an ex-soldier. In 1991 he left the Armed Forces and went to St Andrew's University to train for the ministry. For the past six years his pastoral charge has been the Church of Scotland kirk in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, a peaceful parish far removed from the Falklands battlefield.

Yet now, and (by coincidence rather than design) with war once again looming, this family man has rejoined the forces, this time as a naval chaplain with his old Commando unit. If and when the Iraq conflict happens then, should 42 Commando be involved, he will be there alongside the troops, armed with a Bible instead of a rifle this time. The young men he ministers to will be a reflection of the soldier he once was.

''A chaplain ought to be where his folks are. You deploy with the group. During the Falklands, our chaplains were with us and that hasn't changed,'' he says.

His own spiritual journey started at the age of 17 when he first took Christianity seriously. Born and brought up in Maryhill, he was a police officer in the city for four years before joining the Royal Marines at the relatively advanced age of 24. ''I was ambitious and I pushed my career. I was in the Marines for 12 years, promoted to corporal and then to sergeant,'' he explains.

Then in 1990 David Devenney, who is married with two grown-up children, came to a crossroads. He could either continue in the Marines, with the prospect of a commission, or he could answer what, over the past four years, had become an increasingly more powerful desire to become a minister. God won.

Now, as a military chaplain, what, in God's name, would he tell a soldier who is about to go into battle for the first time?

''Have faith in your abilities and your training and have faith in the abilities of those around you. Support each other and help each other and, God willing, you will get through,'' he explains.

Recalling his Falkland days, when he was aboard the Canberra on his way to war, he says: ''There were young men there, only 17 or 18, and they were wondering out loud what was going to happen to them if it came to a shooting match. When the time came they did us proud. Training and learning to depend on each other - that is what counts.''

Can he now, as a man of God, justify the taking of life in war? ''The bottom line is that warfare is always the failure of politics; it should always be the last resort. It is always bloody and horrific, but it is sometimes necessary and, when it is, young men are placed in a situation where it really is either them or him,'' he argues.

''Soldiers are fairly spiritual people, with a healthy sense of their own mortality. They probably pray. There is, I suppose, a recognition that they are on a spiritual journey,'' says Devenney. ''You really live with the knowledge that you are possibly only seconds away from getting a bullet in the head. You live life close to the edge, from second to second. There is a tremendous tenderness between soldiers. They look after each other because you know that your life might be in your mate's hands, quite literally.''

Traumatic though they were, it wasn't those events in the Falklands which compelled David Devenney to serve God. At least, not directly. Because the truth is that he regarded the conflict to be a just war. Still does. More than that, though, he never turned his back on the Armed Forces; never rejected what they did and what they stand for. His decision to return to the Marines as a chaplain is testimony to that.

The Church of Scotland, the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic Church have taken a powerful anti-war stand over Iraq. The Kirk's position is clear and unambiguous. It is against what it sees as a rush towards conflict, particularly since it appears not to be a last resort. It would be gravely concerned if war started without a new and specific mandate from the

United Nations. The weapons inspectors have to be allowed to complete their work. Then, and only then, would it be up to the UN (and not any country) to decide if there had been a material breach.

This doesn't mean, however, that the Church would not be there to offer support to the soldier in the event of war. As the Rev Alan McDonald, convener of the Kirk's church and nation committee, explains: ''It is possible to oppose a war and be very critical of government policy but be entirely supportive for a young 18-year-old Scottish soldier who will be expected to go into battle on our behalf. I don't see any contradiction there at all.''

He adds: ''As a parish minister in Fife, I am well aware of the agonies and the difficulties that young soldiers will face if they are asked to go into battle. While, as convener of the church and nation committee, I understand the policy questions that have to be faced up to, I

also understand the very human decisions that might fall to a 17 or 18-year-old soldier.''

So far as whose side God will be on if war becomes a reality, the Rev McDonald says: ''Whenever war breaks out, God weeps and God is always on the side of the weak, the vulnerable, the helpless in any conflict, whatever country they come from. So, in that sense, he is on everybody's side.''

There is, of course, a much bigger question about war involved here; one which has perplexed philosophers and theologians over the centuries. It's this: if, indeed, there is a God then why on Earth does he allow war to happen? For a lot of us the very question itself is sufficient proof that God does not exist. Or, if He does, then we want little to do with Him. Any divine power which permits war (not to mention famine, pestilence, disaster, violence, and general heartlessness) simply isn't worthy of our consideration.

Believers see it somewhat differently. Some are convinced that it's all part of the endless struggle between God and the Devil, between good and evil. Others point out that it's all down to Adam and Eve and original sin.

In times past, in the days when the Bible's words were literal and sacrosanct, the conscience of those Christians who lived by its teachings were seldom bothered by the prospect of war. They knew their Bible and they knew that nowhere within it was the promise of an end to war.

God laid it out plain and simple. ''And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass; but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.''

Nowadays, however, many Christians tend not to take the Bible's word so much as, well, gospel. The fact that the Lord appeared to accept war as one of humanity's unfortunate realities seems to have been conveniently forgotten. The Rev Alan McDonald agrees that the question is both deep and complex. It's not that God allows war to happen; it happens and He is involved absolutely in the suffering which ensues.

''I think it is clear that war is not

a part of God's plan for the world. But humanity has intervened in

that plan in a very violent and destructive way. As a part of a fallen creation, it (war) is a reality. But it's no part of God's plan, of that I am certain,'' he adds.