I grew up a fighter, thats what I was taught but along the way I developed a unknown to myself code. I fought for the downtrodden and those that needed protection. I always fought in a manner that was considered fair; one on one fisticuffs. Often I found myself fighting more than one cretin. I had develop a moral code through my street fighting when growing up. I took that sense of always fighting a fair fight and never cheating it, my honor was important. The military gave me a better sense of these values even though they were still yet undiscovered by me. In the Army I was a driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, my unit was Dco, 6/6th Infantry of the 1AD was deployed to the Gulf War. My vehicle was point for our brigade. We had advanced weaponry; armored piercing rounds were new, GPS was invented for this war we received ours in the middle of the desert on our dash for the left flank of Iraq and Kuwait plus the best training in the world. Im here to tell you that a BFV can travel 55-60 miles an hour in the sand. But, thats classified. As was the real story of the First Gulf War. Saddam Husseins Republican Guard were combat veterans of decade old war with Iran in the 80s. Their soviet tanks and equipment were no match for our superior numbers, over 500,000 million troops from around the world. It was really the closest weve ever been to WWIII. Everyone wanted to kill us including half of our allies. Thats why we didnt go to Baghdad. The Republican Guard fought to the death and only ran when a fiery missile or tank round blazed their way. Over and over at night green little men scurrying on the screen from the vaporizing rounds. The night vision screen was similar to the Game Boy I played. Except I didnt couldnt put this one away. They had the same howitzers as we did, the US sold them to Saddam a decade before. We were dodging artillery rounds with our Bradleys and leading our tanks into position, was easier to go around the explosions in the day. Over a period of three days my company led a tank brigade that was credited with over 20,000 enemy kills in three days during the 100 Ground War. In three campaigns over three days our division had over 40,000 kills. I have all three campaign ribbons. I was on point and witnessed it all. Ive been reconciling this vast sense of disconnection to everything born from the moral dilemma. Recently I gained the perspective of moral injury and sharing with MOH Korean. veteran. It helped me attain a long view of living with combat trauma. I was mentally wounded in battle, my scars are visible if you care to see. Our nation needs to share the moral burden of war.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 19:03:32 +0000
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