Reply #9: Yes, families feel pain, but they aren't seeing war.

[qwlauren35]

I cannot imagine what it's like the first time you shoot and kill a human being. Or the second time. Or you miss one and s/he kills someone next to you. I've heard that in the moment, you might not actually think about it. But at some point, I think it catches up with you. I don't think you can forget that you saw it, or did it.

I think that's the experience the chaplain is talking about, and how it could cause someone to decide that s/he just couldn't live with him or herself any more.

I don't think the victims are ever that conflicted. Or the families of the soldiers. I think they only feel pain and sorrow. And perhaps incredible rage. But they have no real reason to feel guilt. Or a sense of being spiritually stained. The stain doesn't come from defending yourself. It comes from firing the FIRST shot. Sometimes, that's what our soldiers did, and they either find a way to live with themselves... or they choose not to live.

Shooting and killing someone who never did anything to anyone - except get in my way, because I was ordered to, isn't something I could live with.