After about the first six seconds of a real firefight, all you can hear is a loud ringing in your ear that pings to a higher painful pitch with each trigger pull and nearby explosion. So you yell and communicate with hand arm signals basically.
“Shoot him.”
Two men died at that order and pandemonium ensued. We found ourselves quickly surrounded and outnumbered and within the first few minutes, as the accuracy and volume of fire increased and our radio communications died, I realized that we needed to get out. I gave the order to break contact and the battle drill began.
At one point I looked to my left and noticed a pizza hat pop up over the mountain less than 25 meters away.
The enemy soldier was behind and above my fire team, in an excellent position to shoot every one of them. I raised my weapon and fired. The first round popped some rocks in front of him, the second was closer to being on target. As he flinched and looked up, he noticed me. I could see the fear in his eyes as I let rounds three and four fly while improving my standing firing position. He took off in a sprint and I continued firing, leading him just slightly. Somewhere between rounds 8-12 he abruptly dropped back below the mountaintop.
No thanks to my terrible accuracy under fire, Intelligence told us we killed 9 men that day. I had watched the first two go down, and i’m pretty sure a couple others took a LAW rocket to the face, but i’m not sure whether Mr. Pizza Hat was one of them.
What Should I Feel?
I’ve heard so many people say that taking a life isn’t easy, but I really never thought it was that hard. Combat was surreal to me. I remember looking into the lifeless eyes of a man missing half his skull and it felt like a movie. I never watched a man die at my hands, except maybe Mr. Pizza Hat, but I did watch men die, and the part that bothers me most is how little I feel.
I was doing a job, and they were trying to kill me. Their fatal flaw was being less prepared than I was. I don’t hate them for what they did; many surely believed in their cause as I believed in mine. I don’t pity them either, they picked a fight and lost. I don’t mourn their death, although i’m sure someone loved them, we all know the risks of that lifestyle. Most strangely it seems, however, I don’t feel guilt for what I did either. I really don’t feel strongly about it at all. I’m not sad, angry, or even happy; I’m indifferent.
Not wanting to talk about it
This post has sat in my queue in “drafts” for weeks because it sounds so damn crazy. Society and all those who don’t experience combat tell us we should feel something. We are bombarded with movies, images, and articles telling us how we should feel. It’s as if they think i’m afraid of reliving things I’ve seen.
No. I’m not afraid.
I’m cautious because I know what I’m capable of. I know how easy it is to snuff out a life, and that gives me more respect for the fragility of existence.
Death is easy, living is hard. Don’t quit.
-LJF