Something angry. olitical, personal embarrassing.

[pecunium]

Feel free to comment, but be aware you do so at your peril.

I just lost my cool. It's been a hard couple of days. I am pondering a couple of major changes in my life, which is stress. I was drafted to the estate sale at the last minute, and did it out of duty, not real desire.

I've had little sleep, for the past two days and then...

The guys here (I came down to do some gaming) started talking about the Marines shooting injured people in Falluja. I happen to have stong opinions about it. There are mitigating circumstances, but that is all they are. Fear, anger etc. don't give one a by. A crime of passion is still a crime.

The response to this was people who accuse me of having a lack of moral fibre, because I disagree on things relating to religion, engaging in moral relativism. See, the Marines were scared, and some people had been faking dead, when they were only injured, so they could kill attack Marines, so that made it not only understandable, but correct to shoot anyone who looked funny.

That sort of thing irritates me. Having this soft, civilian fuck, who has never had spent any real time in a place where life and death were actualy at stake tell me, not once, not twice, but three times, that I didn't understand what it was like, well I lost it.

Screaming at him that I most certainly did. No content. No reason. No explanation that he was being relativistic (he'd already discounted the facts, and was saying that if the men hadn't left before the Marines stopped letting them (some three weeks before the attack started) then they deserved to get killed, even though if the situation were reversed, he'd be shooting at people who acted like we did.

Nope. I was just yelling that I had been there. I had to be shut up. Told to chill. Which was right. I was over the line in the level of my reponse.

I don't think I was wrong, and I'm not sorry for laying into the him. I am sorry I blew up. I am even sorrier that I am in that contained mode I was in when I was fresh out of theater.

Terry is not a happy camper right now.

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry. What I have heard you say in public is intensely honorable, and not to be scorned.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Terry, in this you and I are both NCO's. (Let's disregard the state commission for now. I still think like a Master Sergeant.) I'd have probably gone off on the jerk too. We train our troops very carefully, and when they blow it - especially when they blow it badly - it reflects on us and all of the NCO Corps. Extenuating and mitigating circumstances are just that, things which explain but do not forgive the crime. A war crime was committed, and the consequences of that must be borne.

[lawgeekgurl.livejournal.com]

I do not pretend to know what the Marines in Iraq (or anyone on the front line) has to deal with. I do understand human failings. It's understandable that people do things that are normally unthinkable, if they're in a war and fighting for their lives. It's horrible, because there are no winners. We don't want the war, we hate what happens during the war, so how do we respond when we see things that happen that horrify us that happen during war? If we were against the war to begin with, we demonize the warriors, and say "if we hadn't been there, that wouldn't have happened; see, that just proves the reality of an unjustified war." They ignore that no matter if it's "justified" or not, people at war react in a way they wouldn't if they were at peacetime.

I don't have any answers, but I do understand.

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Terry.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Screaming at somebody because you are stressed out and they are an idiot is a far more civilized response than shooting them in the head.

If you were in an ironic mood, you might consider that....

And I have to say, I also have the utmost respect for you, although I only know you casually and from afar.

[bella-peligrosa.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that sweetie. But you know...although I don't nearly have the restraint you have, I do this more often than I would like.

but I still have a great deal of respect for you...you're still one of my favorite guys around here.

You're pretty damned OK

[pdx42.livejournal.com]

Having this soft, civilian fuck, who has never had spent any real time in a place where life and death were actualy at stake tell me, not once, not twice, but three times, that I didn't understand what it was like, well I lost it.

Yes, you lost it, but I don't think you were so out of line. That a civilian could take this tone and attitude with you is pretty fucking outrageous, and I don't think you were so out of line to throw it back in his face.

There are mitigating circumstances, but that is all they are. Fear, anger etc. don't give one a by. A crime of passion is still a crime.

Absolutely right. You know as well as I do that these Marines were trained in how to safely take prisoners -- how to check for booby traps on both POWs and KIAs. Well, my knowledge is perhaps a little assumptive. I know that *I* as an Army Commo guy received extensive training in safely and legally handling POWs. I am *assuming* that USMC Infantry receive even better training than I got in these matters.

Anyway, I understand. I understand because I have been there, and I too feel a twinge of guilt after losing it on someone, even if he deserved it.

Re: You're pretty damned OK

[trinker.livejournal.com]

As a soft civilian...I have to say that I've seen this bullshit line excusing the actions in Fallujah from military folk who...I have no idea why it is that they speak as they do, when you and Terry and Bill don't. I think I know why you and Terry and Bill don't. I don't understand those other people.

I suspect those other people are the ones who simultaneously assault some liberals for their "that kid couldn't help it, he came from a bad background" excuse-making, while holding on to some "that kid is $characteristic because he's $othercharacteristic" attitude. Or something.

Re: You're pretty damned OK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I can think of reasons for them to say it.

1: They've not seen the elephant, so they talk a lot of crap.

2: They are afraid they might do the same, so they don't want it to be wrong.

3: It was us, so it had to be justified.

After that the excuses just get lame.

TK

Re: You're pretty damned OK

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I know someone who falls under 1 & 3. He never got anywhere near people shooting at his head, but from his posturing, you'd never know that. He's also the most virulent anti-Arab I've encountered...at least among those I used to count as friends.

There's also #4 on that list -- they've had a brain-ectomy and are now walking transmitters for neocon talking points.

[i-come-undone.livejournal.com]

i can't imagine what that would have been like to hear those types of things, with the person not knowing shit about it. i would have blown my top too, and probably thrown a few punches.

i still think you're pretty damn awesome.

Thanks

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I was tempted to turn comments off on this one. I don't know that I wanted sympathy or not. I'm glad for it.

No, the situational irony, that all I did was scream at him, is not lost. I didn't even think about manhandling him, so I'm still not totally round the bend.

It easier to keep my cool here. If I get too frothy, I can stop, take a breath, look at what I've typed, and decide whether or not it's a meet and fitting response (measured... one doesn't drop artillery on a guy with a pistol).

ginmar posted that war crimes are like date rape, with a little less care it could be anyone of us on the front lines. It amuses me, for certain values of amused, that I, the liberal; the one painted as having a soft and floppy understanding of right and wrong, is being berated by conservatives (and it happens here, and in the flesh, and in other fora which I inhabit) for not engaging in moral relativism on Geneva.

And, with one thing and another, I am feeling beset. Did this guy (sitting a few feet away from me, even now) deserve my unloading on him? Yep. He led a duece and I dropped an ace on it, in No Trump. But this wasn't the drill field. I wasn't the armory, and it wasn't appropriate, no matter how right I may have been (actually, on a drill floor it would never have come to that. I'd have take him aside, or held my peace, but I digress).

It caused my friend to have to apologise to me, because he had to shut me down. It may have some good... no one is likely to bring the subject up in my presence again. On the other hand, there is no avenue of approach to try persuasion now.

All in all, a loss for the side. No wrong done, but no good gained. It could have been worse, and I (for all it seems I am beating my self up about it), to quote Dick Cheney, feel better for it.

TK

Re: Thanks

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, there is no avenue of approach to try persuasion now.


That assumes that the individual in question would be susceptible to such persuasion. Maybe I'm cynical, but from your description it sounds like they would not have listened enough for persuasion to be effective.

In any case, I think your response was justified.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Personally, it sounds to me like you had a measured response roughly appropriate to the level of displayed idiocy...

and yeah, the moral relativism that I hear coming regarding combatants and prisoners is IMO sadly ironic, coming from mostly the same guys who tend to preach moral absolutism in domestic, personal affairs.

[pygmymetal.livejournal.com]

*tight hug*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I don't think I was wrong, and I'm not sorry for laying into the him. I am sorry I blew up. I am even sorrier that I am in that contained mode I was in when I was fresh out of theater.

Hooboy. As with any situation involving someone else, I'm not sure I truly understand that, but I think I do, from the bones out. Not combat, something similar. You have my sympathies, and my reminder that you were provoked, highly provoked, you were stressed, and you were able to keep it at the screaming level. Not an A+ response, but certainly above a C.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, I have lost it with people who didn't have kids and had no psychological or medical training who tried to tell me how to parent a child with ADHD, learning disabilities, anxiety, depression, and some physical disability, so I certainly don't think your losing it in this situation was out of line. (Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself, but I don't think so.) For me, "I have been through it and you haven't" usually trumps everything except maybe an honest-to-goodness expert neutral observer.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I am of a mixed mind on the value of experience as a debating tool. Intimate contact with the subject matter is a tricky thing to evaluate, beause it is limited.

We tell interrogation students they are going to get an unbelievably detailed picture, of a very tiny bit of the war, but the bigger picture will be completely beyond their ken.

I've never had to deal with booby-traps. Not on objects, and certainly not on bodies of the dead/dying. Which is why the Marine gets my sypathy and understanding. Why he doesn't get my condemntation. But those don't get him my forgiveness.

I don't know what I'd do on a court. Probably find against him (unless the evidence the defense presents is pretty compelling there was an immediate threat, not evident from the facts so far presented) and then give him an honorable discharge.

A felony conviction, and back to the civilian world.

TK

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Intimate contact with the subject matter is a tricky thing to evaluate, beause it is limited.

Yes, you're right, of course. But there are certain kinds of information where I think the first-hand kind should prevail, and among those is "This is what it feels like to be in this situation."

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the only person I know (personally) who has intimate knowledge of booby-traps (in a military fashion) is someone I consider an unreliable witness for the duration of this "war".

See also these comments in The Guardian

[(Anonymous)]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1355973,00.html

Scarey to think that so many people want to - literally - shoot the messenger on this one.

Geoff (http://geoffarnold.com)

Re: See also these comments in The Guardian

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of the messenger (Kevin Sites), here's his perspective:
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/21/kevin_sites_responds.html

Geoff

[jennae.livejournal.com]

From the way I have read about your obligations, duties and how you live your life, I think you have every right to have flown off the handle. You, as an officer of the US Military, were highly disrespected.

While a person has the right to an opinion, which I know for a fact you most often honour, this is uncalled for and seemed to be an attack.

Don't feel bad for having a human reaction (although I'm sure you're long over this...)