- Post starter
- #13
jackrabbit
Bronze Member
You should be correct, Jimmy, but that's not what he wanted. He wanted to go at it from "all sides", so he "needed full disclosure." He wanted to put together a full timeline of events, and all kinds of other shit.
That, for a number of reasons, is not okay. Some of the actions I've been involved in will not go down on any more paper than they're already recorded on. Or, at least, not because of me.
Truth, that's part of my problem. Deniability has meant leaving bodies behind and watching lies become official record. It's led to a ridiculous suicide rate among my old squad. It's meant never going back to some parts of the world.
For me, I don't glitch much about the hole in my arm or the scar tissue in my hip or the piece of my ear that's missing. In fact, i dont know that I ever feel bad about shit happening to me. It's the moments of grey that haunt my system the most.
I don't like some of what I did. Not just the killing, but the questions behind the killing.
I get how some of the 'Nam boys feel; I have a hard time reconciling just being there. And the fact that my own government--the same f*ckers who signed the paycheck I got for going--would throw my ass in Leavenworth for doing what they asked me to do makes it especially hard.
One time I ended up in hand to hand with a kid. Good looking kid. Probably had a hot little girlfriend. A mom. Fifty siblings. We came around a corner at the same time and his rifle ended up on the ground, then he got his hands on mine, so I put my hands on him. Got into the mount on him. Beat him bad. He almost certainly suffocated on his own blood after I moved out.
When I think about it; he was trying to kill me, so it's not like he's some innocent civilian. And when I say kid, I mean it retrospectively, he was probably older than me at the time.
So I shouldn't feel bad. Him or me, right?
But his mom got the call, or the letter, or whatever, because I went.
I went somewhere we were not supposed to be, killed a kid who did not know who or what I was, and I go to jail if the wrong people ever find out that it happened. I get drug before some bullshit comittee who'll pretend that kind of thing is unheard of and unprecidented and whatever, then i get tossd in a cell for the rest of my life. Or, worse, I get extradited to his country and god knows what happens to me then.
I have no idea how to talk that shit out. No idea at all.
I feel like I've come to terms with it on a fundamental level, rationally, but it sticks with me. It makes me question my value. It makes me hate myself.
I think this is one of those things I should feel sad about; cry about the humanity and maybe feel victimized by the system, but I can't. I'm always either dispassionate or angry. It's always either, "it was him or me", or it's "I'm a f*cking murderer."
Not just because I killed him. I don't want to be crass, but I've killed enough that its not that. I'm not the guy who sees every face at night when I'm trying to sleep.
But he, and some others, stick in my head because I can't...I don't know...be proud of that tour. Can't add a ribbon to my uniform. f*ck, I can't anything. Can't tell my wife. can't admit i was ever in that country. Can't anything. It didn't happen.
You know, except for his pretty little girlfriend, his mom, and his fifty siblings. It sure as f*ck happened for them.
That, for a number of reasons, is not okay. Some of the actions I've been involved in will not go down on any more paper than they're already recorded on. Or, at least, not because of me.
Truth, that's part of my problem. Deniability has meant leaving bodies behind and watching lies become official record. It's led to a ridiculous suicide rate among my old squad. It's meant never going back to some parts of the world.
For me, I don't glitch much about the hole in my arm or the scar tissue in my hip or the piece of my ear that's missing. In fact, i dont know that I ever feel bad about shit happening to me. It's the moments of grey that haunt my system the most.
I don't like some of what I did. Not just the killing, but the questions behind the killing.
I get how some of the 'Nam boys feel; I have a hard time reconciling just being there. And the fact that my own government--the same f*ckers who signed the paycheck I got for going--would throw my ass in Leavenworth for doing what they asked me to do makes it especially hard.
One time I ended up in hand to hand with a kid. Good looking kid. Probably had a hot little girlfriend. A mom. Fifty siblings. We came around a corner at the same time and his rifle ended up on the ground, then he got his hands on mine, so I put my hands on him. Got into the mount on him. Beat him bad. He almost certainly suffocated on his own blood after I moved out.
When I think about it; he was trying to kill me, so it's not like he's some innocent civilian. And when I say kid, I mean it retrospectively, he was probably older than me at the time.
So I shouldn't feel bad. Him or me, right?
But his mom got the call, or the letter, or whatever, because I went.
I went somewhere we were not supposed to be, killed a kid who did not know who or what I was, and I go to jail if the wrong people ever find out that it happened. I get drug before some bullshit comittee who'll pretend that kind of thing is unheard of and unprecidented and whatever, then i get tossd in a cell for the rest of my life. Or, worse, I get extradited to his country and god knows what happens to me then.
I have no idea how to talk that shit out. No idea at all.
I feel like I've come to terms with it on a fundamental level, rationally, but it sticks with me. It makes me question my value. It makes me hate myself.
I think this is one of those things I should feel sad about; cry about the humanity and maybe feel victimized by the system, but I can't. I'm always either dispassionate or angry. It's always either, "it was him or me", or it's "I'm a f*cking murderer."
Not just because I killed him. I don't want to be crass, but I've killed enough that its not that. I'm not the guy who sees every face at night when I'm trying to sleep.
But he, and some others, stick in my head because I can't...I don't know...be proud of that tour. Can't add a ribbon to my uniform. f*ck, I can't anything. Can't tell my wife. can't admit i was ever in that country. Can't anything. It didn't happen.
You know, except for his pretty little girlfriend, his mom, and his fifty siblings. It sure as f*ck happened for them.
