Reply #27: It's called the fog of war... [View All]

[lectrobyte]

And I don't want to think about what happens to you after you see your best friend in your unit killed. A few booby traps, a few dead friends, who can say what any of us would do? Adrenaline, panic, fear, and (count with me now) you have one-thousand-one to decide to shoot or not... And beyond that, your mind gets pushed into an evil place. I was too young for the Vietnam draft by a few years, but I had plenty of friends and relatives over there (like the man says, they draft the white trash first around here), and I got to see the aftermath of those who came back. What's it like to see the guy who you thought was the confidnet coolest together guy in the world as a high school senior come back, shattered, halfway through a sixpack crying as he explains they hung the bodies in the barb wire around the fire base to scare off the patrols? How would you act if you thought your life could end any second?

Sorry if I'm rambling a bit. I can never blame the guy behind the M16 when shit happens, but I do hope (channeling a bit of Malloy here) that *'s master has the fires waiting stoked up good and hot for placing them in that situation.