Out of my 22 year military career, I never took another person's life...

[MrScorpio]

Last edited Mon Dec 29, 2014, 11:06 AM - Edit history (1)

I have no qualms admitting to the fact that I served in an Air Force support career field. Had they put a weapon in my hand and sent me into a combat situation, it would have been one of those last resort situations. Besides, as most other military folks around here know, in the Air Force, the enlisted personnel aren't usually those who are trigger pullers anyway.

But I'm proud of the fact that I have no blood on my hands. I never considered taking anyone else's life an accomplishment worthy of serving my country.

As a matter of fact, I could of remained in the USAF for two more years before either needing a promotion or retiring. I chose to retire (partly) because I was sick of the fact that we were in an illegal war in Iraq, not to mention personal reasons.

Had I taken anyone's life for any reason, I don't know how I'd live with myself. Unlike the Army or the Marines, most US Airmen are not expected in engage enemy forces in close combat situations. It can happen, and has for people in support related, non-combat related specialties, but it's not always likely. Much of this has to do with mission and proximity. For example, old vets told me about Vietnam and when the Personnel Office was mortared. And I served with a woman who survived the Khobar Towers bombing and was awarded a Purple Heart. The closest I've ever come personally to any potential combat situation was during my 22 months in South Korea, during some times of tension with the North.

But, all in all, I consider myself extremely fortunate. I chose not to put myself in situations where I could take lives and I was lucky that those situations were never put upon me.

Before I joined the USAF, I told my one of my closest cousins, who just happened to be a US Marine at the time that I had decided to enlist. We were always very close since we were kids and she was very aware of my nature. It was she who suggested that I avoid the Army and the Marine Corps like the plague. I took her advice, of course. I served my time in the military and retained my humanity. I also had no blood on my hands during my service.

When I see people like George Zimmerman, Darren Wilson and others express NO REMORSE for the lives they've personally taken, I take them at their word. I also take it that they're people who have lost their humanity before they pulled the trigger. Taking someone else's life is a big deal. It can't be done casually and callously by those who have a deep sense of humanity. It can be taught, but I doubt that to even for those who have retained their sense of reality, they do have a sense of remorse. Taking the lives of others, for any reason, destroys one's own.

That's just basic human decency.

I would imagine that some of the most broken people walking around on this planet are those who have been made "heroes" for taking the lives of others and retain a deep sense of remorse for their own actions. Whether they're in war or on the streets in a cop's uniform.

Those that do not feel that remorse should never be allowed to be put in situations where they could take another's life. That is, if you want to abolish war and murder in our streets in the name of authority. That is, if you want to keep the people who would send them out to kill others out of power over all of us. That is, if you want peace.

[riderinthestorm]

1. Proud to be the first rec Mr Scorpio

[marym625]

2. Bravo! and thank you.

[whathehell]

3. Good for you, Mr. Scorpio..

[Orsino]

4. Yes to all.

Good post. Thanks.

[pinboy3niner]

5. Many combat vets took the lives of others

Even though it was necessary for their survival and the survival of their comrades, it is something with which they struggle. As justifiable as it was in life and death circumstances, a major part of PTSD is war veterans having undeserved guilts over issues like this.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. Plus 100000

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. yes

[pinboy3niner]

12. 'Undeserved guilts' is the key phrase

Most of us tried, and managed somehow, to act humanely even in the madness of war. We weren't Lt. Calley. But we were the first to doubt and second-guess ourselves and to take upon ourselves the responsibility for the consequences.

I once heard a top VA psychologist say, at a PTSD conference, that you have to be a good person to be affected by PTSD. I knew exactly what he meant, though it took me a long time to get there through my own struggles.

[catchnrelease]

21. +1

[Victor_c3]

7. Good for you

I don't have anything to add that I haven't said in previous post before.

I served as an Infantryman and was put in the position numerous tims to take and destroy lives. I hated it and it has and continues to impact me tremendously.

In the short term and during the deployments it gets easier to pull the trigger the more you do it, but that momentary lapse in humanity comes back to hit you hard later on.

Unless you are a complete psychopath, I don't believe anyone ever completely loses their sense of humanity. If anything, my afronts to humanity have come back to later strengthen it. My combat experiences have made me a much softer, kinder, and more compassionate person.

Although I'm troubled by my military experience, in a way I find that mere fact that I am troubled by it reassuring to me. To me, it means that I haven't lost my humanity.

[KingCharlemagne]

9. I hope you will consider running for public office at some point. Our democracy desperately

needs voices like yours.

[Scuba]

10. Another great post from one of DU's finest posters. Thanks MrScorpio.

[DustyJoe]

11. human indecency

It can't be done casually and callously by those who have a deep sense of humanity. It can be taught, but I doubt that to even for those who have retained their sense of reality, they do have a sense of remorse. Taking the lives of others, for any reason, destroys one's own.
That's just basic human decency.

.
Well I am one of those indecent, inhumane humans that at 18 yrs old was in close combat in an infantry unit and participated in both the Jan/Feb and May 1968 Tet campaigns.

I have as much remorse for them as the NVA and VC had for the US personnel they killed or wounded, NONE.
I consider I have no blood on my hands, but I did leave a bunch of mine in a ditch south of Saigon in May 1968. I can only hope as a combat veteran, not a hero (have never been called one or been considered one) as few teenage PFC infantrymen are ever called heros, can only hope my unit and I personally dished out as good as my unit took. I feel good about my service and will never look back in regret.

Kudos for you landing a calm rear echelon day job, and consider fellow military that were involved in combat as lacking human decency and less than human. But even your job was to support your fellow military.

Best wartime speech segment by Gen Patton
.
An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, and fights as a team. This individual hero stuff is bullshit. The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real battle than they do about fucking. And we have the best team—we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor bastards we're going up against.

All the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters. Every single man in the army plays a vital role. So don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells and turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch? That cowardly bastard could say to himself, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' What if every man said that? Where in the hell would we be then? No, thank God, Americans don't say that. Every man does his job. Every man is important. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the quartermaster is needed to bring up the food and clothes for us because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do.

Each man must think not only of himself, but think of his buddy fighting alongside him. We don't want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, goddamn cowards, and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.

.

[pinboy3niner]

14. As an Infantryman, I still feel remorse at the loss of life

As a grunt platoon leader, I was even the one who called in more death and destuction. As justified as we were in what we had to do, I still carried a shitload of undeserved guilt.

I had to process those feelings, and I still have to process them from time to time when things begin to get dark and heavy again.

Pardon me if I don't believe that you just don't give a fuck. We're human, and it's normal to care deeply about these things. It can beat the hell out of us and put us through a real meatgrinder. but that's actually normal.

Still, the ones I feel sorry for are those who lack the capacity to care.

[niyad]

15. perhaps you ought to learn the history of the involvement of the US in indochina--it isn't pretty.

[HereSince1628]

16. I dislike the contests over "right views"

You don't have to be a psychologist to realize that processing the experience and coming to a personal resolution with the experience is deeply personal.

In the end, what remains isn't the same for everyone, but because it's a personal resolution, it really will be defended as something personally important and that's unnecessarily contentious.

If you can get that, well then thank-you for not judging anyone's service or personal perspective on it.

[niyad]

17. and thank you for your reasoned response. but I can certainly comment on smugness when I see it,

however arrived at.

[GGJohn]

18. As a helicopter driver in Vietnam,

I still wrestle with the fact that I was responsible for the loss of HUMAN lives during CGS ops of troops like you.
You can be grateful that you survived, but still feel empathy for those, friend and foe alike, that lost their lives.

I'm no hero, never claimed to be a hero and would vehemently object to anyone calling me a hero, I did my job, that's all.

[DustyJoe]

24. That was my point

I'm no hero, never claimed to be a hero and would vehemently object to anyone calling me a hero, I did my job, that's all.

That was the point of General Pattons speech. The hero worship was ridiculous. Also the main point of the OP seemed to be he was a support troop, not a combat troop. Sure the front liners would take jabs at how easy the guys in the rear had it, but in reality knew they wouldn't last past a few days without them. Their service could never be diminished because they didn't handle a rifle.

But believe me after a bad firefight, low on ammo, no rations or water, the blessed sound of your Huey John, coming in to resupply and take out our dead and wounded was a sound from heaven. Believe me, I thought plenty about how many men it took to put together the resupply, the flight crews getting the supplies to us and the medical people that would save our wounded brothers lives.

There was plenty of empathy for your brother in arms dead or wounded. You trained with them, lived with them. The enemy, not so much. You could respect the enemies bravery and tactics, but the best enemy was a dead one and the feeling was not regret, but relief that one more was gone and you and your brother in the next foxhole may see tomorrow alive,

[Hoppy]

13. I also feel more sorry for the ones who went and did their job.

Then, came home and found out their entire sacrifice was based on bullshit.

Viet Nam and the Domino Theory.

Iraq I and getting Sadam to pull out of Kuwait even though April Bowlby told Sadam it was ok to enter Kuwait.

Iraq II and the smoking gun into the mushroom cloud.

It is one thing to have sacrificed years of your life. It is another to have done so and then realize it had no purpose.

[The River]

19. Self Absolution is Easy

if you can fool yourself into believing it.

I did 3 tours in 'Nam and although I didn't have to shoot anyone
in person, I played a direct role in sending 10's of thousands of tons
of bombs against the "enemy". I'd look at individual bombs,
waiting to be loaded and launched, and wonder who they would kill.
Some enemy soldier or an innocent civilian
in the wrong place at the wrong time? A child?

No, I never had to kill anyone in person.
I was just a cog in the machine.
I was just following orders.

I'm still drenched in blood.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

20. Well said, Scorp...

Thanks for posting. Common sense in the midst of hardly any.

[masmdu]

22. "I have no blood on my hands" I beg to differ. Just because you were removed from the actions you

supported doesn't make the people killed by your branch of the military any less dead. Nor does it make you any less responsible.

Did you fire a bullet that directly killed somebody? From what you say, no. Did you provided support that allowed others to do so, to drop bombs, etc. Yes.

Check your hands. They are red.

[JonLP24]

23. When I joined the Army, I avoided all the MOS that killing was its job description

I mean more directly like infantry.

I drove in semi-truck convoys -- Heavy Vehicle Operator.

The only time I fired my weapon was at the range.

[spanone]

25. k&r...