Pynchon as propaganda

[jbor]

    There were men called "army chaplains." They preached
    inside some of these buildings. There were actually
    soldiers, dead now, who sat or stood, and listened.
    Holding on to what they could. Then they went out, and
    some died before they got back inside a
    garrison-church again. Clergymen, working for the
    army, stood up and talked to the men who were going to
    die about God, death, nothingness, redemption,
    salvation. It really happened. It was quite common.
                                        (GR 693)

I interpret this passage as a poignant representation of the futility of war
(and, more overtly, of the futility of religious faith), and of the enormous
loss of lives during WWII specifically, rather than a criticism of either
the doomed soldiers for holding to their faith before going into battle or
even of the actions of the "army chaplains" doing the preaching.

I'm not sure what else is being claimed of the passage in the context of the
current war in Iraq (or in the context of GR or the specific section of GR
in which it is situated), but I'd be pretty certain that whatever is being
implied is meanly propagandistic.

best