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Military Killing Is Not What Messes With Your Head

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anthony

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The first question I get asked, more often than not, when someone discovers I'm a combat veteran, is whether I killed someone. Whilst the rudest question to ask, it's also the most obvious question. The problem is naivety though from civilians who do not really understand what is traumatic about operational deployments.

Killing someone is the easy part... not being killed is the constant unknown, let alone survivors guilt from seeing or hearing about a buddy who lost the battle of survival, and deployed home deceased. The things you see and come across that engagement orders don't allow you to intervene, these along with the constant threat of death, are what I would put on the two highest issues of combat trauma.

Watching someone get blown to bits, decapitated, shot for just being there, raped and lots more... these things play on your mind after the fact. There is nothing worse than having engagement orders where you simply cannot shoot someone if they're dressed in civilians and raping another, or killing them even... if you intervene, your own military will punish you / send you to jail, because you didn't follow your ROI (rules of engagement). It is you the soldier who has to stand back and watch civilians be their worse, watch the enemy done civilian clothing and do things, which you can't stop... all because you can't clearly identify them at that time as the enemy. A civilian killing another civilian, raping, torturing, so forth... is not typically within ROI, thus you can do nothing but let it happen and continue on your way.

To understand combat, it isn't about killing... its about watching humanity doing the worse things to one another, that really otherwise wouldn't occur.

Most soldiers can justify killing an enemy combatant, because it is kill or be killed, that simple. Very easy to reconcile in your brain. Why your buddy next to you got hit and you didn't... not so easy. Or why you can't stop someone shooting that child, again, not easy when you come from western society where things like that are against the law and you go to jail for.

I've been on some operations unarmed, such as humanitarian missions... yet there are rebels who are armed, do shoot at you or people who just want to kill you because you're different from them and they don't do different. Being in situations like that with constant threat of death... that is another thing that plays with your mind... right at the top of the list. Plenty of soldiers go into combat, see nothing, do nothing, but come home with PTSD. Why? Because of what I mentioned above... that constant threat alone, let alone if you see or do things as well... it adds up when deployed for month on month, compounding tours, your mental psyche breaks eventually.

Why am I saying this? Because civilians, even military who have never deployed to an operational zone, they don't understand that its just not about killing. Its about taking someone from a society of rules and laws, putting them in one with rules they have to comply with, yet the population / enemy doesn't. Some of it is the politics of war... and that alone causes PTSD for soldiers.

It is easier to be a civilian within such a place, than a soldier in uniform, wearing a constant bullseye to everyone around you.
 
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My vet has had people tell him to his face he is a murderer because they personally don't agree with the war. (No, not Vietnam - Afghanistan.) I wish they understood that every night when they sleep the deep self-satisfied sleep of the fat, lazy and safe, that the reason they are able to do so is because of men like mine, who night after night lie awake, or wake up shaking in a pool of sweat, or sleep curled in a ball with their hands over their heads yelling "no no no" over and over again.
 
My mother used to say to us about our father when we'd ask that same question (we were kids and didn't know better), "Did daddy kill people in the war?" she'd say, "Yes, and don't talk to him about it. He doesn't like to talk about those things, it makes him cry too much." So I never spoke to my father about his experiences in Korea, any stories I heard were from my mother, sadly, to this day unverifiable and inaccurate.

My dad had nightmares, not so much when I was older but when I was little I could hear him crying sometimes at night while my mom tried to reassure him that he was okay. Sleep was something he went without often, sometimes just getting up in the middle of the night to sit and watch TV or he'd go out on patrol, being a cop suited him in that way....being the only cop in a small community he was on call 24/7 anyway. He chose a life of constant watch, I know why now.

It's not the same, but i know what it's like to be unarmed in a volatile situation where your uniform is the same color as that of the cops and an angry violent person can't tell the difference. I've been attacked because of the uniform I had on and boy, the will to survive can give you some amazing strength in those situations. I've fought with men twice my size and managed to subdue them by the grace of God. There were times we walked into volatile situations and had to mediate with no police response because the situation wasn't a priority to them...it's really tough on you to have to be constantly on watch. I think this is why I can't fully settle in crowd situations, I'm getting better at it but I will still avoid them if I can.
 
@anthony, thank you for clarifying all that vets go through while deployed. I guess I never realized that you could do nothing but watch as a "civilian" harmed another. I know that must have been terribly hard.

I do understand that constant stress of being in a life-threatening situation, although my is different. As a medic you are always anticipating that call that will be so bad, so tramatic, that you are not sure if you can handle it, or if it will be that call that puts your life in danger. So I can relate to that aspect of deployment.
 
Insightful post, thank you for writing it. It gives way more clarity to the perspective of a soldier.

I've been studying anthropology/conflict studies, all very theoretical, no experience with actual conflict whatsoever. But the topic has always fascinated me. So from the point of view of all my theory I would like to comment on one thing, not as criticism, but as an observation:

yet the population / enemy doesn't.

Although other cultures have varying degrees of moral laws, it is usually your enemy (terrorist groups, criminals, warlords and the like) that caves in to an utter decay of moral value. I don't think this depends on the moral values of the culture in itself, because you see how this happens throughout the world (think of Germany).

Perfectly civilized cultures suddenly are affected by mass-scale outbreaks of absolute barbarianism. A few take the lead (the criminals) and soon the "rogue" civilians, those who are very much susceptible to propaganda and bullying, give in to the moral decay. Others are not that easy to give in to it, but they will see their own family in harms way and start desiring revenge.

Ok, this is the end of me being a wise-ass. I think I've been studying too much, but it is fascinating to me how honest men and women turn into morally deprived creatures from one day to the other. Appreciate your post!
 
First of all to all the Vets - thank you for your service!

I can't believe that some people are so ignorant as to insult you. Now the PTSD makes so much more sense to me. There are so many parallels to living in an abusive home as a child. Not knowing when an attack will occur, seeing horrific acts against others, having to protect yourself but lacking the tools, feeling powerless. I suppose, almost by definition that is the recipe for PTSD, duh, but the penny really dropped for me. Thanks for the post.
 
There are so many parallels to living in an abusive home as a child.
Yes... it is something similar. The difference though is that in childhood you're learning foundational roots to who you will become, where in adulthood... those aspects aren't being as affected. Saying that, a childhood brain is far more resilient to most types of trauma than an adulthood brain.
 
I am reading around on this site and ran across this thread and my first thought to it is "wow". This was one of the first questions I asked my son after both of his deployments. Until reading this, I would have never considered it to be a rude question, but now I can see how it is.

I was a medic at a fire station and have seen many deaths, including one where there was a rollover accident and the three adults in the car (whom had seatbelts on), did not check to make sure the 4 children did. I ended up working on a 5 year old who was thrown from the vehicle during a roll and crushed to death. Unfortunately, until we could get a time of death from the ER doctor, I had to keep working the child.

I was already desensitized to death and trauma that it was not really a big deal for me, but the feeling of hatred at the mother who stood screaming, "please save my baby" over and over again really hit me. The desire to kill the mother so overwhelming.

Although the situations are different, the point is that I never once considered the effects that the other people had on me and related it to the effects that my son probably saw the shit that others did and while wanting to do something about it could not.

Allowing someone who has blatently hurt another to live, while watching had to be hard, but I focused on the simple trauma that he could have been going through, like killing someone.

Thank you for this post, I think it has really put me in check to look outside the box more and hopefully will help me to understand my son a little better.
 
I did multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and a combat infantryman. Ended up seeing alot of heavy action. Like you said, killing is easy. The most horrible moment I can remember was when one of my guys stepped on a booby trap. I watched him fly through the air- in different directions as I yelled for a corpsman and rushed to his aid. I stopped suddenly, frozen in terror as I wondered if my next step would see me meet the same fate. I quickly shook it off and continued to his side, but the guilt and shame of pausing even for a moment is eating me alive! The kid lost a few parts but recovered. It's been four years and I still hate myself every day.
 
I was on the outer edges of a market one day when a grenade got tossed into it by militia, and it was crowded. The outcome wasn't pretty. I had just walked through that area, exiting the market. Obviously no idea who tossed it... civilian clothing and all.

Don't take the past personally, but rationalise it. What you did control versus what you would have liked to control, but realistically do not have any control over.
 
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