EPTIt's funny when you discuss war with other people, because if you experience it firsthand, you are very mindful of some of the really fucked up things about it and are reluctant to say anything of substance about it. I myself have posted a few blogs about it here, but they're the more 'G-rated' and audience-friendly experiences about stuff that is easier to accept and digest. I've considered posting other things I've written, but because I usually write as a means of therapy when I'm riding on the throes of emotion, some of it is beyond fucked up. People would lose their faith in human beings if they read some of it, I think.
There is also the peculiar phenomenon of people who have deployed telling 'war stories' about 'being in the sandbox,' when many times a lot of these peoples' 'combat experiences' are relegated to staying inside the FOB working support, periodically maybe having to take cover in makeshift bunkers around the FOB because of an impending mortar attack. It's kind of pathetic to see so many veterans take advantage of their experiences and willingness to glamorize essentially nothing, and have people eat this shit up and give sympathy and thank them for their service. These ex-military people paint a distorted view of what "combat" is, and because of this I feel like the general public would be more likely to consider the more 'real' experiences of war fighters and their feelings about the subject the exception, and likely to shun them for feeling the way they do about stuff. I don't doubt that some folks are scarred even though they 'never left the wire' and may have some form of PTSD that they suffer from, but I do doubt the extent of some of these peoples' claims because of the inherent disposition of human beings to glamorize exclusive experiences simply because they hold the trump card of 'having been there and done that, and you haven't.'
One of (if not the biggest) 'secrets' of "combat" is the appeal of firefights, more particular the act of killing somebody. Before I go any further, I want to elaborate a little bit on "combat" because I feel like it requires some expansion. A lot of people like to group this word in some vague generality that encompasses all facets of warfare, but I feel like there are varying degrees of it. On one end, there is killing somebody from the safety of a room halfway around the world while you remotely control a flying unmanned drone. You don't see the actual corpses or smell the bloat and gunpowder or taste the spurts of blood (and other organic matter) that accidentally fly into your mouth, nor are you ever in any danger of yourself being killed. It's totally impersonal. At the other end of the spectrum, there is killing somebody with a blunt object or knife or your hands. You feel the vibrations of your arm and instrument impacting on the other person as you strike him, feel the texture of his organs through your knife as you eviscerate him or his bones crack as you snap his neck. I feel like a person's "combat" experience is defined by the intimacy and level of danger to the parties involved. A lot of my experiences with "combat" have dealt with small arms exchanges, so it is in this context that I will refer to combat as.
Try and follow along with some of the sentiments I felt: during your adolescence when you start to pay more attention to the human condition, you feel that despite peoples' inherent right to life and liberty, some of them revoke that right by their actions and intentions and aren't being held accountable. You see the beheading videos of Americans and you drink the koolaid that Iraq and Afghanistan are indeed where 'the terrorists' are hiding and concocting plots to strike at the free world again, and you feel compelled to do something about it. You daydream while in basic training of actually being in a firefight, and how it actually goes down. On the flight into country on your first deployment, you wonder if you honest-to-god have it in you to pull the trigger to shoot another human being. On the first mission you receive contact, you get fucking pissed that these assholes have it in them to try and kill you and your mates. While performing the maneuvers and small-scale actions that you rehearsed over and over back in the states, the sole thing in your mind in that exact moment is to take out the person (or people) threatening you and delivering him to his fate, which is to die with a face so mutilated by bullets that he is unrecognizable to his loved ones. You do it out of concentrated rage and of the intent of preserving the lives of your mates, who in your eyes are more deserving of life than these lunatics (lol irony).
You know how when you're in your element on Starcraft? When every flick of the mouse is the most geometrically efficient movement possible, when every click is 100% accurate, when every decision is the very best decision you could ever make in that given situation, when you feel like you're playing on the slower speed setting because of how at peace and clear your perspective on the game is... when you feel invincible. You're the fuckin unstoppable force; nobody can touch you. You're in absolute and total control.
That's the best analogy I can give when you're killing somebody who is attempting to kill you, only the setting isn't ritualized digital warfare, but actual warfare. You're so honed in on the moment, so full of focus and clarity that you feel as if you're about to transcend and see past the air molecules that your body maneuvers through and into the fabrics of time and space and the cosmos itself, infused with such divine purpose and raw will in that exact moment that it is a near religious experience. When you have positioned yourself correctly and your enemy exposes himself, you pull the trigger and take the most perfect shots you have ever shot in your life until he drops and you move on to the next targets. But your job isn't done; this person hasn't been delivered yet. A person dropping doesn't mean he's dead instantly like in the movies; people are more resilient in these types of situations than I could have ever imagined prior to joining the military. So when you're clearing through the objective area after it's been contained and there is a corpse with an AK next to it, everybody that is able to dumps more rounds to completely and positively kill the enemy. The effects of an exploding skull or ragdoll flailing of whatever body parts rounds are impacting in ensure that this person has been delivered to his fate.
A swirl of emotions impact you when it is all said and done. When the end results played out perfectly for you, you feel like the fucking king of the world. You're in absolute control. You eradicated or helped to eradicate a negative influence(s) to humanity. You realize that you were incredibly close to dying but beat the odds. The whole family that is your platoon is still alive and intact; if you sustained casualties, then you avenged your brother in arms to the best of your ability. You have in this instance fulfilled your purpose and reaffirmed your place in this sacred profession. You're high on life and all of a sudden, you start to see how some people could have rode this feeling into committing the most serious of war crimes. The thrill and satisfaction of combat is immeasurable in comparison to the dullness of normal, civilized life.
Winston Churchill was not lying when he said, "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result."
edit: Cleaned up the grammar. Also, I forgot to mention and explain a bit about how this a common sentiment shared amongst members of all-male combat units. I was going to wrap this up in a cleaner fashion relating to what I was talking about in the first paragraph and adjustments into society, but got kind of caught up at the end there describing things and just wanted to end it.
The hardest part for me is the fact that so many people are so fucking bent on being politically correct and passive and worried about offending somebody that it seems like relationships and communication with people is more vapid and fake than a set of silicon tits. That, and things you would say half serious in and in a nonchalant manner in your old environment (jokingly expressing how you want to shoot your neighbor's annoying, self-entitled teenage son in the face) don't fly in the regular world
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