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Posted by: Victoria! ® 04/12/2003, 23:13:33 Author Profile Mail author |
Hello Folks, You will forgive me for starting multiple threads but since there seems to be a serious lack of active participation (and no one around to scold me), plus the fact that I've taken it upon myself to re-name the board so if the old community starts checking in they won't recognize the place anyway-- I'm starting another. The following article is from aol news. In it you will notice the expressions of a soldier who is also a believer. He expresses enormous guilt for killing even though killing is what he has been trained and paid to do. Please read the article if you will, and tell me, if he were your brother, husband, friend, or significant other...how would you go about reassuring him that killing (in war) is justified when weighed against the scripture he believes in? BAGHDAD (April 11) - Marine Cpl. James Lis, 21 years old, is worried that for the rest of his life he'll be haunted by the image: A clean-shaven, twentysomething Iraqi in a white shirt, lying wounded in an alleyway and reaching for his rifle -- just as Cpl. Lis pumped two shots into his head. "Every time I close my eyes I see that guy's brains pop out of that guy's head," Cpl. Lis, from Shreveport, La., told his platoon mates Thursday, as they sat in a circle in the ruins of the Iraqi Oil Ministry's employee cafeteria. "That's a picture in my head that I will never be able to get rid of." For Marine infantrymen now occupying the eastern half of the Iraqi capital, the worst fighting is probably over. But they're just beginning to cope with the psychological aftershocks of having faced death and inflicted it. One lesson the military learned from painful experience with post-traumatic stress disorder after Vietnam is that troops may come home more mentally intact if, as soon as possible, they talk to each other about what they've gone through. In infantry school, Marine officers are taught to encourage their troops to talk about their experiences after battles. So, platoon by platoon, many Marines in Iraq are starting to hold informal group-therapy sessions -- "critical incident debriefings" in military parlance -- in which they share their feelings about what they've seen and what they've done. "The touchy-feely stuff -- that's no joke," Second Lt. Isaac Moore told the platoon he commands in Lima Company of the First Marine Division, Seventh Regiment, Third Battalion. "If you keep picturing this guy and you shot him in the head, you've got to talk about that. "Though a few had been shot at in Somalia, none of the 47 Marines of Lt. Moore's Second Platoon had seen any real combat before arriving in Iraq. Even during the war's first weeks, it seemed unlikely that they'd have to test their mettle. Iraqi forces always ran away before the platoon arrived. The platoon's first scrape was a minor encounter three weeks ago near Zubayr in which somebody took a few shots at the Marines, who returned fire for 40 minutes to no practical effect. No one on either side was hurt. As they moved into Baghdad, however, the platoon ran into an escalating series of firefights with pro-regime militants armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The fiercest was a battle Tuesday in the shell of a large building under construction in the city's southeast. The platoon began taking sniper fire, and the Marines soon found themselves shooting at enemy fighters just a few feet away, in a maze of pillars and open staircases. It's a fight that has left deep marks on the young men. That's what Lt. Moore wanted them to talk about. So as they relaxed on cushions stripped off Oil Ministry sofas and awaited orders to patrol the city for Fedayeen holdouts and foreign suicide squads, the lieutenant invited each Marine to tell the platoon what he experienced, and how he felt about it. Cpl. Anthony Antista, 29, from Monrovia, Calif., initially celebrated after he shot dead two Iraqi paramilitary men in a corner of the building site. But the exhilaration instantly gave way to guilt, especially for having felt glad that he had taken lives. "Hey, I shot two people," he told his comrades immediately after the fight. The rest of the platoon brushed him off. He persisted: "I shot two people." They thought he was bragging. What he was really doing, he said, was trying to find someone who might understand how bad he felt. It's an issue that was still on his mind two days later. "I can't share my pain with you because you don't accept that I killed two guys," Cpl. Antista told his comrades. To emphasize his point, he removed the magazine from his rifle, emptied the round from the firing chamber and acted out the encounter. He showed how he raised his rifle and fired. Then he sat on the ground and demonstrated how the Iraqis slumped when the rounds hit them." The life just flowed right out of them," he said in a pained voice. "They were like Jell-O." Staff Sgt. Matthew St. Pierre, 28, from Vallejo, Calif., faced off with an Iraqi fighter whose eyeglasses and face reminded him of one of his own Marines, Lance Cpl. Lance Carmouche, a 21-year-old machine gunner from Beaumont, Texas. The sergeant, the platoon's senior noncommissioned officer, took two shots as the Iraqi popped up from behind a low wall five feet away. He wasn't sure whether he hit the man, but the sergeant saw his body later." Now every time I see Lance Cpl. Carmouche, I think of him," Sgt. St. Pierre told his men. A few minutes later in the fight, Sgt. St. Pierre found four Iraqi men in a small enclosed area. Three were apparently dead, but one, wounded, reached for his weapon. The staff sergeant shot him between the shoulder blades. The man again reached for his rifle, this time more slowly. The staff sergeant shot him in the back of the head. When the gunfire quieted, the staff sergeant "eye-thumped" the Iraqi's body, to make sure he was really dead. The process involved poking the man in the eye with a rifle muzzle, the theory being that no man alive can avoid scrunching up his face in response to such a provocation. It was an "eerie feeling," the staff sergeant recalled, "like I just did what the Lord in the Bible says not to do." But he added, "we did nothing wrong. They made no attempt to surrender, and we put them down." Lt. Moore, 26, tried to comfort his troops by relating his own experience as a hunter, growing up in Wasilla, Alaska. He shot his first caribou at the age of seven or eight, he told them. It was thrilling to see the animal fall. When he got closer, however, he saw the caribou was still alive, convulsing in pain. The boy was unsure whether he was supposed to feel good or bad. Over years of hunting caribou, bear and other animals, he grew accustomed to eye-thumping and death. So when Lt. Moore looked down from a staircase in the building in Baghdad and saw three Iraqis below, he didn't hesitate. The men had been wounded by a burst of machine-gun fire, but they were still moving. The lieutenant shot one man point-blank in the head and watched the results; the next man was twitching and got the same treatment." It's gross, but here's the thing," the lieutenant told his Marines. "That queasy feeling -- I don't get that at all." Keep in mind, he continued, the kind of die-hards they are fighting. To illustrate his point, Lt. Moore told them about something that had happened earlier in the day: A man who had escaped from one of Saddam Hussein's prisons after 13 years walked back to Baghdad to look for his family and somehow got past Marine guards at the Oil Ministry. The Marines found him curled up asleep in a corner. The man, Lt. Moore recounted, had acid and electric-shock burns on his legs. The people who did that to the prisoner, the lieutenant said, are the sort of people the Marines were killing. "This is not somebody you need to worry about killing," he assured his troops. "When you stand outside the Pearly Gates or whatever you believe in, you're not going to be looked at any differently for what you did here." Cpl. Lis, however, couldn't shake it off so easily. A genial jokester with a sand-colored buzz cut, the corporal has had the platoon's closest brushes with death in Iraq. He recounted them, one after another, for his fellow troops. On Wednesday, when the Marines seized the Oil Ministry, Cpl. Lis climbed to the roof to take a look at downtown Baghdad. A bullet heading towards his face missed him only because it hit the narrow metal rail in front of him. At one point during the gunfight at the construction site, Cpl. Lis threw a hand grenade at an enemy fighter, only to have the Iraqi throw it back at Cpl. Juan Nielsen, a 26-year-old from Los Angeles. The grenade exploded, sending small pieces of metal shrapnel into Cpl. Nielsen's outer left ear -- a painful, but minor wound that turned out to be the only American casualty of the fight. Later, Cpl. Lis saw a pineapple-shaped Iraqi grenade land less than eight feet in front of him, and two others -- Sgt. Timothy Wolkow, 26, from Huntington Beach, Calif., and Cpl. Dustin Soudan, 21, from Girard, Pa. Cpl. Lis yelled at the others to get down, and they crouched, covering their heads as it exploded. None of them were injured. Then there was the moment that he worries will always haunt him: He saw the young Iraqi in the white shirt lying on his back, his right arm extended above his head, where a rifle lay. Another rifle was near his left arm. When the man moved his right arm toward the rifle, Sgt. Wolkow shot him. The man started moving again, and this time both Marines shot him in the head, Cpl. Lis firing twice. Then Cpl. Lis performed the eye-thump ritual on the man. "It's the sickest feeling I've ever had in my life," he said at the therapy session. Sgt. Wolkow had a more fleeting reaction. "As much as I love the Marine Corps and want to kill people, for a few seconds there was a kind of eerie feeling," after the first time he shot the man, he said. "It went away, and I shot the guy some more." Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Thanks and welcome to Spout-off.com! Victoria
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Re: "Thou shalt not kill" Re: "Thou shalt not kill" -- Victoria! Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Mat ®
04/13/2003, 18:22:52
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Believe me, it's difficult to justify killing to one that has killed.
I think this is particularly true if you are a soldier or other military member. As a soldier, it doesn't matter what your thoughts are concerning the reason you are fighting, you are to simply follow orders and complete the mission. As a soldier fighting against an enemy soldier, I don't think you can help but relate to the other soldier in this manner. Enemy soldiers, just as our soldiers, have a mission and orders given to them by their commanding officers.
It's sad, but the military is only a tool. The military of Iraq is a tool to protect the country and the regime while the military of the US is a tool protect the interests of this country. Unfortunately, soldiers are stuck between two countries, their governments, and the diplomats that couldn't seem to get things done without military action. Both sides do what they consider to be their duty and both sides lose men and women doing it.When it's all over, one can't help but see the reality of war. A person that kills another can't help but realize that, by taking the life of another(justified or not), other lives are affected. That enemy soldier had a family, and that family will not see their loved one again. I think about that all the time.
In summary, you may be able to justify it to your loved one, but even justified, I don't think it totally gets rid of the guilt associated with taking a life.
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Re-naming victims, actions Re: "Thou shalt not kill" -- Victoria! Top of thread Archive
Posted by: james ®
04/13/2003, 19:40:22
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Well, one thing to do is to rename the activity, and rename the result. You can rename mass killing and call it war. So, its not really killing its just following orders. I suppose much of the personal motivation that is involved in murder isn't present in war, so in that way it is different. I don't know how well I could recover from killing another person.I once tried to talk about vietam with an uncle of mine. Not a bright idea, he didn't want to talk about it. He said he left that country, and did not want to go back in anyway, not even mentally.
If everyone followed the command 'thou shalt not kill' there would be no war, no military, no nuclear weapons. Some choose to take it further by not killing or eating any animals, fish or insects.
I have heard that people working in slaughter houses have higher rates of alcoholism, depression. And quite often complain of similar complaints of being haunted by hearing screams of animals, or fear on there faces. A forester told me that he had to shoot animals as part of his job. He said that to make sure and kill them quickly, as they let out a sound like a baby screaming.
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Re: "Thou shalt not kill" Re: "Thou shalt not kill" -- Victoria! Top of thread Archive
Posted by: TLC ®
04/15/2003, 12:30:32
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Military training is an intense form of mental training as well as physical for young men and women. The mental patterns of their concept of the world are not fully formed and jelled, so to speak. This is why the very young are used and not the old. Anyone over the age of 40 (too wise?) would not have a chance of being reconditioned in this manner. Old dogs and new tricks and all that.
But religious teachings are also an intense form of mental training and that is why the churches of the world mainly concentrate on the very young to get their message across. If a person had no "organized" religious teachings under his/her belt by the time they were 40, (again, too wise?) in no way would they be as easily influenced by the churches teachings or any other products of the mind.
The parable I have chosen here is to illustrate how two forms of mental training are often at odds with each other when each has it's utility in life.Now a normal soldier in combat, religious or not, is going to be abhored at the idea of killing another human being. This moral guilt is not the sole sanctity or moral franchise of religious believing people. They don't hurt anymore than anyone else when trained to act against their inner moral teachings.
Even the most thourghly trained killing machines that our military can produce will still have serious soul searching to do after the fight. They are still human beings.
When I was a very young boy, many many moons ago, I shot and killed a squirrel for no reason other than to test my new rifle on something. This was the first living thing that I had ever shot. The squirrel meant me no harm and deserved to live his life as I do mine.
But, after all these years, that event will still occasionally well up in my memory, such as this moment, and sometimes in a dream and still bothers me. Why? It was just a dumb little squirrel.Terry
Modified by TLC at Tue, Apr 15, 2003, 12:38:19
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Re: "Thou shalt not kill" Re: Re: "Thou shalt not kill" -- TLC Top of thread Archive
Posted by: JAK ®
04/15/2003, 23:04:12
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Your final paragraph illustrates well the necessity to get them when they’re young. (Old dog, new tricks)
By today’s modern American military, many who are killed (murdered) ARE from thousands of feet in the air. The “target objective is met.” From military-speak, we often neutralize and sanitize words.
One of the photo-journalists was interviewed on network television, and he spoke about what he would photograph. One of his pictures was a long shot of a man sitting in a car. The picture showed the whole car and just the head of the man. The photo-journalist went closer and discovered that the man was without a face. It had been blown away by the weapons which hit him. The journalist made a conscious decision not to take that photo. He also said there were many others which he did not take. Photographing the feet of fallen Iraqi soldiers or the feet and legs up slightly past the knees was a way of photographing death.
Very often in recent wars, American soldiers who engage in face to face combat require rehabilitation when they come back. They didn’t just kill a squirrel.
Religion has always found ways to justify killing people. “Friendly fire” is a nice phrase, don’t you think? “Collateral damage” is another. You just can’t have a war without killing people, destroying real-estate, and bringing great pain and suffering on those who survive the attack, who live -- damaged for life.
JAK
Modified by JAK at Tue, Apr 15, 2003, 23:05:15
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Re: "Thou shalt not kill" Re: Re: "Thou shalt not kill" -- JAK Top of thread Archive
Posted by: TLC ®
04/16/2003, 07:36:28
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TLC
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Thou shalt kill -- then offer help Re: Re: "Thou shalt not kill" -- TLC Top of thread Archive
Posted by: JAK ®
04/16/2003, 22:04:47
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We also must dehumanize enemies in war. There is the good side, always ours and the bad side, always whoever is our enemy. We (the leaders who leadeth us into war) are always in the right. Our cause is always just. Our purpose is always noble.
NPR had a piece today which said that if the toll on Americans were in percentages like that on the Iraqis, Americans would have suffered four million causalities. If that is correct (or even close), that leaves many relatives living in Iraq at this moment who have lost a loved one to the American military power (that should read coalition’s power). The shock and quantity of dead will be enduring for those who lived through the war and remember.
One perception in war is that my life is better than your life -- worth more. Today, the taking of life is by remote control in many cases. Of course the rationalization is articulated by the leaders. Those who listen, hear and believe. For example, G.W. Bush is extremely popular at this moment. He has carried the messages: Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and will use them. Iraq is part of the axis of evil.
Now the leaders are saying, we have every confidence that we will find the WMD. Americans may witness a doctrinal shift in the messages from the Bush administration. Things like: Oil for palaces when the need was for hospitals.
What is needed now is security, electricity, and water. Without those, nothing works.
JAK
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Did anyone answer my question? Re: "Thou shalt not kill" -- Victoria! Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Victoria! ®
04/16/2003, 23:30:45
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"Please read the article if you will, and tell me, if he were your brother, husband, friend, or significant other...how would you go about reassuring him that killing (in war) is justified when weighed against the scripture he believes in?"Victoria
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Re: Did anyone answer my question? Re: Did anyone answer my question? -- Victoria! Top of thread Archive
Posted by: TLC ®
04/17/2003, 09:56:58
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We have an all volunter military at the present time, and anyone who joins it, should first consider what ,in essence, the military is really in existence for.
Also, I am sick and tired of listening to people that think that religious believers have some kind of monopoly or franchise on the moral principles against killing of other human beings. An Atheist could be just as easily mentally damaged by the events of war. No more, no less.
Terry
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Still swimming Re: Re: Did anyone answer my question? -- TLC Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Victoria! ®
04/18/2003, 00:11:21
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It's late but I wanted to log in at least a brief reply to your post. I could be wrong but you come across as one who has done his time in service. If so, tell me, Terry--how much time do you think recruiters devote to the "we're going to ask you to put your life on the line and ask you to take the lives of others"? I already know the answer to that. When faced with Joe High School Graduate, recruiters deliver "the package". Training, skills development, commissary, health/dental, retirement, VA bennies, lifestyle, comraderie, housing etc, etc. Joe High School Graduate doesn't have the mileage to look beyond the package. There is more in your post that I want to address, but it's very late and I'm fizzling. I'll try to get back here tomorrow. Thank you for answering my question more directly.
Victoria
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Re: Still swimming Re: Still swimming -- Victoria! Top of thread Archive
Posted by: TLC ®
04/18/2003, 11:26:21
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While not up to speed on video games, I have noticed that most of the violent types involving some kind of military action, which a multitude of Joe high school graduates have under their belt by graduation are disgustingly very graphic, with the blood and guts portrayal of war and human conflict. When I was a young boy, you could not have paid my parents enough money to allow me to indulge in such trash. They did allow me to see the hollywood versions of the conflicts of the time, John Wayne, Audie Murphy and others. Compartively sanitized from reality.
But,none of the ones (games) that I have witnessed show any of the "bennies" that are designed to better a young persons life.
The marketing experts of these games spend a lot of money to appeal to the natural desire of youngsters (mainly boys I think) to seek adventure, competition ,excitement and yes, killing without consequences.But,I don't think the games would have their same appeal to youngsters if the putrid smell of decomposing bodies, or the real screams of pain and death were included some in the package for them to experience.
In my youth, almost all boys played war. We would go around the neighborhoods on an early saturday, gathering up as many participants as we could ( sometimes 20 to 30 kids) and choose sides into the "good guys" and the "bad guys" or us and them. This was the excitement of our young days. There was no little league or youth programs in existence. We made up our own programs. War was well imprinted on our young lives as natural and everlasting. I remember it all, as if it were yesterday.
I agree with you that the recruiters of today do not put the primary meaning of the military up front because after a long period of peacetime in this country, they know that the idea of having to kill someone or dying in combat is very remote. The positives outweigh the negatives so greatly, they are not worth mentioning. Maybe a little more honesty here might be in order. I'm not sure.
How things have changed. A typical recruit in 1943, when asked why you want to join up, would have awnsered " I just want to kill Japs".
There are still WWII, Korea and Vietnam vererans that still suffer from the acute mental, as well as physical damage caused by the horrible consequences of war. Many will never heal.I spent 16 months during 1966/1967 at Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam flying a F4C Phantom and flew 87 missions over North Vietnam as a 2nd Louie in the AF. The AF was a means to further my education and I wanted to fly airplanes. I still have very strong mixed emotions after all these years, especially when I view pictures of what we did to that country. I lost some very close friends during that time. I can't change it now. If there was a God, I would want him to bring them back to me. Do I sound a little bitter? War affects all it touches on all sides.
I am now a retired aeronautical engineer and fly my Cessna on occasion along with building and flying radio controlled model airplanes which I love.
Terry
P.S. My statement about "believers" being the only ones who hurt was probably out of line.
Modified by TLC at Fri, Apr 18, 2003, 17:12:07
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Grunts and Flyboys! Re: Re: Still swimming -- TLC Top of thread Archive
Posted by: Victoria! ®
04/18/2003, 19:17:29
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Your words are very charitable. After 30 months (geez), thousands of posts, and my fair share of brawls (didn't notice, did you?) I can probably count my most personally satisfying posts on one hand. I never intended to stay in this place but it would seem that I have an unspoken and ongoing stand off with someone in this neighborhood that began day one and I'm too stubborn to let him win! (Now all the guys are saying..Is it me? Is it me? ;-) That and the fact that I just like hanging here.
I had a feeling you were prior service. The pride comes through. I did 24 years as an USAF/DW so I know something about the package. I have very mixed thoughts and feelings about those years. Mostly, I hated them but always respected the committment. I think, unless one goes in with the intention of career, it's kind of like putting a carrot in front of the horse. I know what the recruiters present, how they present it, what is promised as well as what is NOT delivered. I know the enticement of re-enlistment bonuses, when you're over 6, 10 seems do-able, when you're over 10--you've pretty much shifted to lifer.
I know from Audie Murphy, playing war (though I much preferred cowboys and indians...yes, I owned more than one toy rifle...oh my gosh...do you remember the intro to the Rifleman with Chuck Connors? Geez, I practiced that religiously! :)Still and all, I don't think those childhood games or video games today come close to preparing one for taking a life in combat. I can only guess at that.
Thank God for the grunts and flyboy's of this world, Terry, who VOLUNTARILY serve our country! So many young women and men go in healthy and due to war or service related injuries exit disabled. We take them when they are healthy and strong and use them up. It is my thought that the majority of US citizens have no clue as to how we "use" our service members, the committment related sacrifice or even the sacrifice of military families. When we are at peace, the military goes completely unnoticed. In my book, it is a sin.
Now USAF/DW-Ret DAV
Victoria
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Re: Grunts and Flyboys! Re: Grunts and Flyboys! -- Victoria! Top of thread Archive
Posted by: TLC ®
04/19/2003, 09:35:57
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So you had a Daisy Red Ryder carbine too, I bet. (watch out kid, you'll shoot your eye out!!)
Remember Flexible Flyer sleds and Radio Flyer wagons?
Terry
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