\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m not a murderer. I once considered doing it. Contemplated doing it for years. I was going to blow people up- or gun them down, maybe do both at the same time. If I sound like a psychopath right now, then I\u2019ve met my goal.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I had a pretty normal childhood. Mom, dad, two older sisters, a golden retriever. Growing up, I loved playing with army men. I would sit down on my bed and fold the sheets until they made a series of little ruffles. To a child\u2019s imagination, the ruffles in the sheets made for great trenches; in each crease, a fox hole, each wide distance of flat\u00a0<\/span>terrain\u00a0between the ruffles, the dreaded \u201cno man\u2019s land.\u201d T<\/span>his is where my two armies would fight. One was green, the second gray. They\u2019ll heroically charge the each other, fearlessly brave the other’s onslaught while dishing out mayhem of their own. In the end, one side would prevail in glorious battle!<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Even young, I knew something about tactics. The machine gunners, crouched and hunched over their massive guns were positioned in pillboxes (folding the sheets to make cover was quite easy). Their guns were too large and too heavy for them to be mobile, but in these pillboxes, they could lay down surpressive fire on the enemy infantry; the hail of bullets flying over the enemy’s heads, keeping them pinned them down. While the machine gunners laid down some cover fire, the riflemen were assembled in the trenches behind them. Equipped with lighter weapons, they were assault troops. They were the ones to brave across no man\u2019s land. They\u2019ll take the most casualties, but they\u2019ll also win the battle- no army ever wins a war by staying put. Every bag of army men came with some troopers who held a radio in one hand and an uzi in the other. I considered them useless at the time; carrying a little submachine gun while their squadmates carried rifles and also talking on the radio during a shoot out- did these guys want to die?!<\/em>\u00a0I usually had them killed off early. It was not until later that I discovered that in real-life, these radio men were some of the most powerful men in the battle. They could call in air and artillery strikes over the radio, effectively giving them the most firepower of any soldier on the field. I promptly started using them as such. I also had a few tanks. The tanks were awesome. With their thick armor, they\u2019d drive right across no man\u2019s land, enemy bullets simply bouncing off the steel. They would advance over an enemy trench, running over enemies troops under their treads, sending the defenders in a panicked flight. The only things that could destroy the tank were an artillery or air strike, a bazookaman or a lucky grenade tossed down the hatch. The tank, either its destruction or its triumph, was the climax of the battle<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 As I got older, I discovered videogames. I loved games where I\u2019d get control over an army and conquer the world. I became great at the games Risk and Total Annihilation. As far a shooters go, I loved Call of Duty and Brothers In Arms. I fashioned myself a strategic genius. I also got more and more into real life warfare. \u201cSaving Private Ryan\u201d opened in theaters while I was in sixth grade. When I first saw the opening of the movie, when the soldiers storm the beaches under a hail of machine guns bullets, I was blown away. It amazed me that such scenes actually happened in real life. The drama of the Higgins landing craft full of men approaching the beach- waves shaking the vessel and the crew, enemy artillery shells landing and blowing up these boats before the men even had a chance to land, the German MG42 machine guns shredding the Americans to pieces as soon as the frontal drop door of the Higgins came down, the sheer desperation of the Americans as they crawled through the sand, bullets flying over their heads and bouncing all around them, and the final push of the Americans up into German bunkers using their flamethrowers and grenades all left me so pumped up. It created an infinite curiosity.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In high school, I started reading about World War II. I learned about the Western, Eastern, North African, Bruma and Pacific fronts. My interest began to focus more and more on tanks. The Wehrmacht\u2019s \u201cblitzkrieg\u201d which won the German\u2019s win early victories at the start of the war (Germany conquered Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France in just ten months) was entirely based on the revolutionary idea of grouping all their tanks into dedicated tank \u201cpanzer\u201d formations; and using these extremely mobile, fast and lethal concentrations of tanks to punch a hole through enemy lines and proceed lighting fast hundreds of miles into the enemy rear; encircling the enemy and cutting off the frontline troops from their supply lines, reinforcements and communications with headquarters, obliterating that unit\u2019s combat effectiveness and morale. I learned to respect the tank. It\u2019s strength was awe inspiring. It\u2019s appeal impeccable.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I knew I wanted to serve. It seemed logical for me. I wanted to join for a whole host of reasons. I knew much about and very much wanted to be a part of the history of the United States Army, I loved shooting stuff, thought explosions were cool- honestly, they are- loved the idea of discipline that army might bring, wanted to wear the uniform proudly and get the respect and appreciation that comes with it, to travel and see the world, to live adventure, to pay for school, and finally, my idea of a good time was and still is crawling around in the dirt under barbed wire, running around in the wilderness, and getting dirty.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I did my research and opted to join the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps in college. Upon graduation, I\u2019d be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army, with command of some twenty to forty combat troops. During the troop surge in Iraq in 2007, I spoke to a recruiter and took the ASVAB, the military version of the SAT which determines which MOS, Military Occupational Specialty, I\u2019d get to do, and qualified to be a tanker on the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. Standing eight feet tall and weighing in at 65 tons, this war machine is deceitfully fast, traveling at 42 mph on road , 25 mph off road. It has a turbine engine- yes, an engine for aircraft, put in a tank. It\u2019s main gun is a 120mm cannon which could accurately hit targets at more than two miles away and it\u2019s secondary gun is the devastating .50 caliber machine gun. The Abrams is a legend. It is the most battle tested and feared tank in the world. In the 1990-91 Gulf War, American Abrams destroyed hundreds of Iraqi T-72 tanks with impunity, not losing a single Abrams to enemy fire.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 However, as I I made the rounds and told my family, friends and colleagues of my intention to enlist, the more vocal among them challenged my militarism. An ex teacher of mine from high school was adamant that I not go. He was one of those Greenpeace malcontents who had a problem with everything about our capitalistic society though, so I was able to dismiss his objections without much consideration. However, one of my best friends in high school whose opinion I valued much higher, would really push at me as to why I wanted to fight. Her questions of why I thought the uniform looked so cool or why I knew so much about guns and violence really made me look internally at the type of human being I am. And finally, my first boss, a man whom I had all the respect in the world for, said the wisest thing anyone has ever told me about war:<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cI would never do something like that. Go to another country and kill someone who I have no idea what their name is- who their family is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0He might have said more, it happened so long ago I can\u2019t remember, but those first words, they are what stuck. I went home and contemplated what he had said. I never quite thought of war in that way; war is human beings volunteering to go to another country and kill the human beings living there even though they have NO idea who these individuals are. They are killing complete strangers to them. They don\u2019t know these people\u2019s names, they don\u2019t know these people\u2019s parents or siblings, they don\u2019t know who these people love, they don\u2019t know what these people\u2019s favorite past times and hobbies are. They know nothing about them. Yet, they are willing to risk their lives to kill these strangers because that is what they were ordered to do. If I joined, I\u2019d be volunteering to kill a complete stranger just because someone else told me to. Conversely, the people trying to kill me, Iraqi or Afghan resistance, would also have no idea who I was and would have no motive for wanting to kill me besides the fact that that is what HIS superiors had ordered him to. It is the epitome of being a tool: literally killing someone because someone else told you to. It is like when some instigator in elementary school tells you to go fight another kid in the playground and you go and fight him or her just because that is what the instigator said; except it is with adults and the fights are fatal.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I started reassessing my drive. I had a hard time justifying why I wanted to volunteer to fight somewhere else. I came to terms with the fact that I\u2019m not a violent guy. I haven\u2019t gotten in a fight in school since third grade and I avoided the gangs and petty school rivalries and jumping that happens in high school. I simply don\u2019t like fighting or even arguing. I would never kill someone in my personal life; yet here I was ready to commit to wearing a uniform and training to end somebody\u2019s life on someone else\u2019s account- why would I do that?<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I started giving more consideration to antiwar arguments. I scoured the internet, trying to figure out what path I should take. Among the dozens of interesting quotes I found that challenged me, the following three (with my thoughts following) are my most thought provoking:<\/p>\n 1) \u201cThere would be no war without soldiers.\u201d – Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n If NO one volunteers to fight on either side, then the war mongers and generals would have no one to send to battle. Literally, there would be no one to fight the war. The argument that the war mongers and generals could enact a draft to force civilians to fight is a fallacy because who would exactly be going door to door scooping up these draftees? There is no army and if it was the police force sent to scoop up the civilians, then what happens when these same police officers disobey the order? No one would be around to put them in check. It is the public that enables war, without the populace\u2019s support, the war mongers would have to take their ball and go home. This may sound like a pipe dream, and you may call me a dreamer, but as Lennon said, \u201cI\u2019m not the only one.\u201d<\/p>\n 2) \u201cIt is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.\u201d- Voltaire<\/span><\/p>\n We as a society despise murderers; in the evening news and in the paper, we are brought up to believe that every homicide we read or hear about is a tragedy, and the culprit is fittingly judged. Yet, when it comes to warfare, we honor soldiers whose job it is, by definition, to kill people. The double standard is blatantly obvious.<\/p>\n 3) \u201cNaturally the common people don\u2019t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it\u2019s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.\u00a0<\/span>Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. \u00a0This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every\u00a0country.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0-Hermann Goering, Reichsmarschall, Third Reich\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Goering was one of Hitler\u2019s closest aides and one time second in command. He headed the Luftwaffe as well as the Gestapo. World War II is a tragedy unlike any other the world has ever witnessed (unless you\u2019re not counting the dinosaurs- if this case we\u2019re not counting the dinosaurs). For one the its chief architects to frankly explain how he and the Nazi party manipulated the German people to get them agitated and on the path of war, shows us how other societies can use the same methods to get the war they want waged. Particularly during the build up to the Second Gulf War in 2003, President George W Bush and other war hawks galvanized the American people by convincing them that Saddam Hussein was a threat and possessed weapons of mass destruction (an accusation that was later proved false) while at the same time questioning the patriotism of those Americans who did not support the war.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I thought long and hard about these things. Particularly in American history, one could make an\u00a0<\/span>argument\u00a0on behalf of the\u00a0<\/span>justification\u00a0of war. This nation was forged in war. Without the founders of fighting for\u00a0<\/span>independence, there would not be a United States of America, at least as we know it today. War is what freed the slaves. War is what ended the Holocaust and saved the world from Nazism. But then I realized, every argument that soldierdom can be a good thing, can be struck down by acknowledging that the other side used soldiers too. There would have been no fight for independence without the red coats; there would have been no need for a civil war without Confederate soldiers; and there would have been no Holocaust or D-Day without the Wehrmacht. Soldiers are as much part of the problem as they are part of the solution. Therefore, all claims of the good war and soldierdom had achieved can be negated by the fact that it is also the enabler of ills it supposedly saved us from.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I contemplated for years, wrestled with my childhood dreams and my adult reality, ultimately deciding war is a terrible tragedy that I want no part of.\u00a0<\/span>I still like shooting guns. And explosions are still awesome, I love setting the sky ablaze on the Fourth of July. And I love the adrenaline of playing paintball and lasertag. I still read a lot about World War II and think the Abrams tank is one of the coolest things ever, but I would never be a tool. I can never contemplate ending another person\u2019s life. It is so cruel and wrong. I\u2019ve seen a few of those new ROTC students walking around campus in their uniforms. I wonder how it is that they rationalize their willingness to murder.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m not a murderer. I once considered doing it. Contemplated doing it for years. I was going to blow people up- or gun them down, maybe do both at the same time. If I sound like a psychopath right now, then I\u2019ve met my goal. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meadmedia.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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