I have been in war with lot of people, I mean I spent lot of hard time with folks who in that time I could call friends, or at least some kind of allies.
After that I lost contact with most of them, sometimes I heard something about someone, or see some of them, but real „buddy“ contact with people from that time and events is rare.
People who have not gone trough experiences like war probably imagine that there is something like annual meetings of old buddies who used to shoot together and kill other folks, and on that meetings there is huge barbecue and drinks…
And on that meetings we all like laugh and remember how hard it was and we are lucky that we are alive. Actually I was on some similar meetings, but it was everything but fun, so I stopped with that.
People there mostly look at each other and we all see how destroyed we are. I have met many broken people there and the question is has life screwed us or we screwed up in life. And at the end, we all drink, but without music, we just look in fire from barbecue, angry because of some triviality and asking why we are here.
More @ SHTF School
On the giving or receiving end of (violence) you will be affected. The level of "fuckedupness" that you carry with you after those experiences, is very personal, and in large part up to you. (Active war zone is Selco's reality, mine is decidedly different, but am resigned to the sad fact that history is going to repeat itself, and my/our reality will soon change)
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteI recall reading a post a woman had made while I was researching General Patton.
ReplyDeleteShe said her husband had come back from Persian Gulf war and always had
a faraway look. She started asking him about his past military experiences and
he told her something very disturbing. He said that he was ordered to kill
people thought to be weak or that might slow their mission down. He is probably
broken.
He said that he was ordered to kill people thought to be weak or that might slow their mission down.
DeleteThanks, but doesn't sound right to me. In some instances, soldiers might be shot who are fleeing battle, causing others to do so, or something as egregious.
I have also read in various articles that during the VietNam war, if
Deletethe men did not like their supervisor, they shot him. Have you ever
encountered this?
Fragging was in vogue back then.
Delete