Regardless of what anyone else says on this board, it's all right to feel what you are feeling, and to have the perspective you do. Sometimes I feel the same way you do, and I'm not even a soldier. Actions speak louder than words, and the "average American's" actions bespeak selfishness and naivete.
As an educator, I try to combat that. However, I must also struggle with the same faults within myself.
I'm glad you feel free, and among friends, here at Hatrack. I'm also glad that unsupportive opinions have not stopped you from staying mentally strong.
I think you know your own strengths and limits pretty well, perhaps more than most of us here. Take care of yourself, in whatever form that needs to take.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
AJ, the idea that Pixie is in danger from Paul is quite ludicrous. <laughs> I'm sorry but I can't help but laugh at that. I think you'd probably best leave that worry to her. (There was a post on the being-married-is-good thread by Pixie which you might want to reread, for instance.)
Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Wow, if the bitterness surprised me at first, some of the reactions inside this thread are making me understand it more and more.
Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Really, aka? That's harsh. I thought most people were putting a lot of thought and care into their posts here.
I doubt Pixie is in any physical danger but that doesn't mean they won't grow further and further apart emotionally unless he learns to deal with some of these issues that have been brought up. She is an American, after all.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Your "military" not only taught you selflessness and honor; but it taught you that anything you loved could be taken from you.
My Dad is a Marine. He was actively enlisted for only 5 years, yet ...Semper Fi to the Corp. He was a bright, hopeful boy when they sent him to Vietnam in '61. He came back a silent, vengeful man who hates all people of color, trusts very few people and only gets along with men of similar age and experience. He's an angry, passive-aggressive man who looks back on his military days with something close to reverence and longing. The clear, black and white of following the rules, following orders were like a security blanket that swaddled him so tightly that nothing else will ever make him feel quite so safe.
I wish for more than this for you. You are a man now and can be the architect of your own destiny. You've always frightened me when you say that you're willing and ready to die; what I'd like to hear you say is that you're ready and willing to live. As an adult, you can choose to play it safe and push away love, people, happiness; or you can take a risk and live.
posted
aka, I'm sorry, but murder/suicides in the military are one of those harsh realities that no one talks about but everyone remotely connected to the military knows exist. I come from a proud family military history dating back to the Civil war. My grandfather was a carreer miltary officer that retired a full colonel. He has two silver stars. He was a chaplain in Korea and Vietnam. He saw the worst. He was the one got to be on the scene to clean up the emotional mess on the base after a murder/suicide happened. My dad grew up a military brat and served his country with honor as well. The absolute worst statistics of these sorts of things are for the men on Nuclear submarines. Nuclear service is only ever voluntary as a result. My Dad was on one; he saw the worst.
While I didn't experience military life directly, I've heard the stories, I know what goes on. It is the reason why jexx is so concerned. She has been on bases that have gone through several murder/suicides. The data is an open secret. Do a simple google and you will find it.
I don't know Black Fox well. He definitely seems conflicted, I think we can all agree on that. It is not possible to predict who will *snap* and who won't. Therefore, mentioning this possiblity, however farfetched it may seem to you, seems to me to be prudent.
You are the one who is concerned about an asteroid hitting the earth. Lets say the odds are actually the same for Black Fox doing something henious (and the documentation shows the odds are much higher in his case than in the asteroid case). Yes, the odds are still thankfully slim for either catastrophe happening. Does that mean we should reject that the possibity exists?
posted
To me, the soldiers over there ARE heroes. And if when they get home they have some wake up calls to issue to us at home, if they have things to tell us of which we are unaware, then I think we should listen to what they know.
Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I know too many soldiers personally to think that they're all heroes, or that I should be looking to any random one of them for moral guidance.
I know Black Fox enough to think that he, personally, is an intelligent and mostly wise young man, and respect him for his moral choices. But respecting him because he's a soldier seems rather back-asswards.
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posted
aka, everyone has a story that will break your heart. A soldier sees a different world than most, and a more difficult world than many. It's how they choose to handle it that makes them heroic or admirable, same as everyone else.
As for Fox, it's his choice to live his life fostering this bitterness and judging every civilian he meets, but I don't think it'll be much of a life.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I think the thing that really upsets me is that we as a country all know that we need soldiers. We ask people to do this job for us. It is an honorable job, and they do it valiantly. They put their lives on the line for us, and they kill and are killed, essentially as our proxies in the world. Because of that, they are exposed to a side of the world that we never see, because we are safely insulated behind our "skin" of fighting young men and women.
When they come home, they deserve our honor and respect and thanks. They do not deserve to be handled with long poles because we are terrified of what they have become in the course of doing the very hard and heartbreaking job we sent them to do.
It's true that nobody knows who will snap. That's true of civilians as well. Yet as many extreme and in your face opinions as I've read here on hatrack over the years, nobody has suggested that the posters are a danger to their loved ones before. This is apparently the reality which returning soldiers face. Especially those whose fathers served in VietNam, as you mention, AJ, I can certainly see why it might make them tempted to become somewhat bitter against civilians.
Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
"They do not deserve to be handled with long poles because we are terrified of what they have become in the course of doing the very hard and heartbreaking job we sent them to do."
But statistically, returning soldiers ARE a danger to their families and loved ones. I think, rather than denying this fact because it may offend, that we should concentrate on ensuring that this is no longer the case -- perhaps through some sort of mandatory deprogramming.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
anne kate I think it is tragic. I don't think that soldiers should be quarrantined or isolated from their loved ones.
Yet when the statistics say that there is far more chance of any given returned soldier snapping than there is in the general population, there is a problem that needs to be addressed. To deny that problem is to make it worse. If there are any signals that loved ones can be alert for, they should know them ahead of time and know appropriate coping strategies.
I guess as long as there is war it may be the best we can do. It's still tragic.
I just have this to say, very similar to what others are saying: you will come back and you will be living among civilian people who've never been in a war. It is your choice as to whether you can make that life as meaningful or more meaningful or live in some sort of nostalgia for the time when you used to be needed and useful.
There are many ways to serve humanity.
We cannot always serve on the scale of the world, or a nation. Many of us must serve on a much smaller scale. But the smaller scale does not make it any less important.
The better part of the world does not exist only through the acts of a few valiant men and women. It comes from the good acts of every person who serves in some way. The mother who paces the room, holding her colicky baby who has been screaming for three hours. What can she do? She has done everything she can think of. There is nothing but to give the child a loving and safe place the episode passes. Could you do that? Hold a screaming infant, cuddling them as if they were smiling sweetly at you, for hours? They need it.
The suffering of people not in war is not whining. Some of it is very, very real, even if it is common. And the people helping them are doing what is needed.
My husband has been in the military. Served on the border patrol between Finland and Russia, at the time the Soviet Union. He doesn't know if he shot and killed someone because he wasn't the only one shooting. He spoke of being afraid of the programming he recieved in the military. He was afraid that if anyone did anything bad to his family he would simply snap and hurt or kill that person.
He didn't, but only because he now stays behind the lines while I take care of what is needful.
And that is the balance. We are strong for each other at different times and in different ways.
Posts: 3495 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
From that link I posted earlier which is a pdf rom the Army Surgeon General. (don't forget you have to add the parentheses because ubb wouldn't let me put them in. Typos are mine because I had to manually typ since the pdf wouldn't let me cut and paste.
quote: From 1990 to 1994 in an anonymous survey 4% of returned soldiers self-reported severe aggresssion (defined as beating up, choking or using/threatening spouse with a knife or gun)
quote: A study conducted among U.S. Army combat arms soldiers deployed on peacekeeping missions to Kosovo showed that the number of adverse experiences in the operational setting in Kosovo (such as being shot at, seeing dead bodies, handling landmines etc.) had a direct relationship to interpersonal problems reported on returning home. Getting in physical fights, having serious conflict with family members, threatening or being verbally abusive, or having thoughts of hurting someone were reported significantly more frequently for those exposed to a greater number of adverse peackeeping experiences. Among soldiers who had more than 10 adverse operational experiences, 10% reported getting in physical fights, 20% reported threatening someone with physical violence, and 18% reported having serious conflict with family members or friends. Remarkably, this was not an anonymous survey, although it was conducted as part of a research protocol in which the questionnaires were kept separate from the medical record and therefore confidential
posted
I don't know what that page is like since the link no longer works, but you can, normally cut and paste from a pdf. You just have to switch tools (look up at the top of the screen and one should be a "Select Text" tool, the default is the hand.
posted
Yes I'll admit there are lots of problems for soldiers that are coming back from deployment. Many of which aren't just because of their experiences but simply what happens when you get back. Also in my company of 100 people plus there hasn't been one report of spousal abuse etc. Though I'll admit there were two cases right before we left. A lot of it comes from the attitude thats cultivated I'll agree with that, but then I believe its that mindset and cultivation of thought with normal reasoning which leads to a person being in combat. The idea is to create someone who understands the consequences of his action, but also always acts. In the military there is no action more wrong than no action at all. As we are always told, whatever you do end up doing, do it 100%. Plus the fact is most guys I know, a good 90% of my friends, joined the infantry to shoot guns and to kill people. They aren't murderers, just on the average they aren't adverse to the idea.
Good example I know, and this really can't go beyond this forum and I won't tell you what unit this comes from etc. A company had a soldier die during an amubush, through our intel assets we( I use we as in the army/soldiers) found out who equipped him. We raid his house only to find out he is in hiding. Instead we arrest all his male relatives and put out a bulletin that as soon as he peacefully turns himself in we'll give up his relatives. About two hours before the deadline ends this Terrorist/freedom fighter/capitalist ( they make good money) turns himself in peacefully at the company. They then procede to take him out back put a sack on his bag and hit him with body shots for 6 hours. From what I was told they even let the guys from their support platoon who delivered chow to go out back and have some "fun". To say the least I don't agree with tactics and actions as that, I consider it inhumane and unsoldiery. Doing such actions for intelligence reasons has some merit, to do so for the simple pleasure of causing pain to the enemy is without excuse in my eyes.
I'll be honest I have no problems killing a man, but to bring him pain for a meaningless reason, heck even with a decent reason is without forgiveness in my eyes. I know a lot of people that are like that in the infantry, they aren't so much bad people.. as in just someone who just.. had an odd way of though to begin with. I know dozens and dozens of individuals who have done something I would not agree with, and many of those persons have been dealt with under UCMJ ( uniform code of military justice). The fact is you don't turn pacifists into good soldiers/killers.
Again I don't feel I honestly deserve any respect for my actions. It is simply what I was told to do, and not a whole lot more. Its not like I wage war on my own discretion. I fight where I'm told to fight. Also I find problems with the post earlier that talked about the medal of honor winner who raped his daughter etc. For one the only two people to win the medal of honor in Somalia where the Sergeants that were froms 1st SFOD ( Delta force to you guys). They were snipers who asked to be inserted to give covering fire to the wounded 160th aviation pilot below. In doing so they knew they basically put their lives down to attempt to give the pilot enough time so that help could get there. They were turned down repeated times by their command until eventually they were given the okay to be dropped in. Second the man who did that was a sergeant from Ranger Battalion and he only won the silver star, though obviously what he did was wrong no matter what form of honor or achievement he had previously.
My father told me on multiple occasions that the best soldier is a child. The reason for this is that most children do not understand life, they don't understand that it can honestly end. As in the feeling of immortality so many have that fades off very quickly in combat or any risky situation. He said a child was an emotional beast and easily swayed into a way of thought. Basically a young man for the most part is still a child, but has the physical ability of a man. That is why basically he makes the best warrior of all. He still looks for his niche, his acceptance, and is easily bent to that of being a warrior without fear. As the only fear one can have is to be left on the battle field, something that the army has ingrained in itself never to do.
The reason I dislike the average American for the most part is simply what I find to be his lack of action. I do not get this from the mass media, some novel or text book. I simply gather this from first hand experience. The people that I know always seem to let their passions go for this reason or that. That their values and beliefs are not worthy of action, of word, of a simple vote. It is that your neighbor extends beyond your neighborhood, nation, creed, religion, or thought. That even though you may hate the enemy you must love him as well. As he deserves more love than most as he is willing to act upon his beliefs, even if those be the opposite of yours.
I went to our Chaplain today and had a little chat with him for a little bit to tell him how I feel. He told me that I shouldn't worry so much as their are many people who respect me for being a soldier and beleive that what I did was a good thing. That they value the action as much as the postion. I told him that what hurt me the most is that it seemed so few people acted upon what they believe, and that those that did seemed to only think the opposite of what I did, which isn't the worst thing in the world. I could very well simply be the evil, the wrong in the world. He said that I shouldn't simply look around, look at him, all my compatriots and see that there are quite a few people that feel the way that I did. It did make me feel a lot better, I'll be honest. He gave me a few little sections in the bible to read and those words made me feel better. I supppose I simply wish that America would be more than just a nation with a massive amount of potential for good great change.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Black Fox, Steve yelled at me about the Medal of Honor things too (he just read it) The guy lived. He got a Silver Star not the CMOH. I just put a retraction it in the original post.
posted
And Fox, thank you for talking to a chaplain. I think most of us only get so riled up because we care and fear for you, because we know you have been through experiences we can't comprehend.
posted
I'm posting this in response to your initial post, Black Fox. I'm sorry I didn't read it sooner, but I failed to realize what it was based on the title and thought I didn't have time for even opening it earlier.
Here's the thing, I found some real beauty in your post. Not that I like being "an American" that you now hate. But I think I see your point. And I do understand the desire to be just an entity and not need to be labelled or affiliated.
I have a globe in my house. It's the only kind of globe I want to think about. It has the continents and the ocean depths, but no country boundaries at all. The continents are identified by name, but no boundaries for which group claims which piece of dirt.
I like to think of the Earth that way.
As for the rest of your post, all I can say is that you will have to judge for yourself where to stop. If you become insular and negative, that's not good. It could be a sign of some after-effects of the combat stress you went through. Or it could be that you are disconnecting from the world around you. And that's not a good thing.
But if it feels like you just need time to decompress and maybe reevaluate, it's probably just fine.
What I can't do is even begin to relate to the situations. My daily life doesn't involve bloodshed. If I'm bleeding, then something is wrong. Pretty much true for everyone here at home. There, you're doing a job that involves it every day. And you had to willingly enter situations that could result in your death or serious injury. I can't even imagine it. And I probably wouldn't do it unless directly threatened (me or my loved ones).
But I can understand completely the idea that, having gone through that, you would not want to associate with the folks who hadn't.
If the natural state of mankind is war, however, then I'd rather not be human. If that is the state during which we achieve our best, I'd rather we go extinct.
I believe it is unnatural and aberrant. I believe that people were not meant for killing each other to achieve any particular end goal. And I believe that we should work hard -- very hard -- to avoid it. Even in the face of grinding evil.
posted
oh also Bannana the Ranger who did that was of all things a Clerk, that being supply. Wasn't an infantryman, he didn't hack up his wife and daughter and rape them. However he did rape and commit sodomoy with his daughter ( I believe she was 12) and is in Fort Leavenworth for a 30 year prison sentence. Might I say that its not a prison you want to go to. Plus if I'm correct the army punishmet for rape is higher than in civilian courts ( I know the max sentence is death), but lets not get into that really. Just don't like it when people try to over exaggerate things like that. I can't believe you think he hacked up his wife and daughter and won the medal of honor. Might I say a bit of a drama play there.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
I'm sorry, Fox if I got the facts wrong. I was not actually trying to employ drama. I corrected the medal of honor thing as soon as I knew I got it wrong.
I am discussing it with Steve, we both heard the story at the same time from a Ranger who went in and replaced the men who were in the Battle of Mogadishsu -Basrah Market. I had no reason to believe he was exaggerating at the time, being that he was not generally given to braggadocio.
It is possible at the time it was more of an urban-miltary legend and the facts of the inqury had not been determined. But I believe that the person telling me thought he was telling the truth.
I generally try not to post in Foxy's threads or ones he frequents a lot because I can chatter things out with him later on my own so I won't say much now but I do want to make one thing clear:
Paul has never threatened me verbally, with a knife, gun, or with any other weapon you can think of, including just his physical strength. He has never choked me, never hit me, never hurt me. As far as I'm aware, we had no "interpersonal problems...on returning home", there was no "getting in physical fights, having serious conflict, threatening or being verbally abusive, or having thoughts of hurting someone". Only the contrary, he was and is extremely gentle with me.
And not just with me either. My little brothers could exhaust the patience of a saint and Paul never once lost patience with them (at least not to the point of actually doing anything), even though he had ample opportunity to do so on more than one occasion.
Please know that Paul has not done any of the things mentioned, nor do I think him capable of ever doing so. He may get frustrated with people but, as he himself just said, he does not enjoy hurting other people. He is a genuinely good and caring man (one of the best in my opinion), and that is something I believe even those who don't agree with him would be forced to admit if they took the time to really know him. Oftentimes, it is those who have the greatest capacity for love that also have the greatest capacity for hate - the same holds true for light and darkness: you can not have one without the other, at least not in full awareness of what each actually is.
I am sorry if this came off strongly, but so is the nature of my beliefs on the matter.
Posts: 1548 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Didn't he get the Silver Star for his isolated act of valor having nothing to do with his actions after that? I thought the rules were basically the same but even more stringent for the act of valor required for a Medal of Honor and that it was isolated to that specific heroic act not the way the individual lived the rest of his life. It isn't some "lifetime integrity award". Though I realize that the Medal of Honor it is mostly presented post-humously so there might not be any further "life". But every now and then someone lives.
posted
Pixie, I am not afraid so much that Paul will hurt you (and I don't believe I ever posted such a thing), I am afraid that Paul will struggle with his feelings and harm himself emotionally, mentally, whatever. I realize that I do not 'know' Paul. I realize that I cannot know what he has gone through. I merely advised that he seek counseling. I don't see a problem with that.
I'm not posting anymore in this thread. I expressed my concern, and that is that. If you or Paul, or anyone else, wants to discuss this further with me, you can email me at sewsquare@yahoo.com, because I am banning myself from this thread.
posted
I just wanted to say publicly that I did not intend to offend anyone in any way whatsoever. I simply wanted to clarify an issue that, to me, was important.
I really do appreciate everyone's concern more than I can say - it's one of the things that kept me going throughout the deployment in the first place. For that, and for the support you all continue to give even now - Thank you. Your advice was good, Jexx - I even quoted you to Paul while trying to convince him to see someone. Just... Please don't be offended. Insulting you or anyone else was the furthest thing from my mind while writing that post.
Posts: 1548 | Registered: Aug 2002
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