Well it's late...err early in the AM and I've been reading as I am known to do. My latest read is the story of a war pilot in WWII, excellent reading BTW.

I see a lot of cold, calculating discussion of death, doom, and dying here, so I thought I might share this passage from this book, take from it what you may.

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"And there I was, wing tip to wing tip with the flaming [Japanese] Zero. I looked across and I could see the pilot plainly, sitting there in the cockpit, the sun flashing off his helmet goggles and the entire aircraft, from his engine cowling aft, a mass of flames.

Then he turned and glanced across at me, and for a bizarre, transfixing moment before the Zero exploded in a shower of flaming pieces, we looked at each other. It was an incredible experience that remains as vivid in my mind as it was the day it happened, more than a half century ago...

I was pleased to finally get a confirmed victory, of course, despite some deep, secret feelings that I have never discussed with anyone. And my folks and everybody back home was proud, of course, because it was in our hometown newspaper that 1st Lt. Richard Kirkland 'Shot down a Zero'..."

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), August 05, 1999

Answers

Well, I appreciate your story Unc!! And to prove it i have decided not to be so callous as to set the background music here to 'Turning Japanese......'.

I like how he shot down a zero......could I safely say that if he had shot down two zeros, he would have in some strange way been part of a Y2k remediation project...........

Or is my diatribe all for naught.......

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), August 05, 1999.

Looking at each other - fate known - ...

Now they look at blips on a head-up display...

Ain't life grand...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), August 05, 1999.

Andy is just depressed because he can no longer lawfully run a human being through and through, all snicker-snack with his vorpal blade.

-- (Doh!@doh.doh!!), August 05, 1999.

It would seem that the quote is intended to make the point that the act of killing, even when justified, permanently changes one's life.

A good point, and well worth keeping in mind.

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), August 05, 1999.

Nobody said it would be easy. That's the whole point of preparation. Most people think only about the physical preparation, but if you aren't mentally prepared for what's coming, all the beans and rice in the world won't mean squat.

-- (its@coming.soon), August 05, 1999.

My guess is.... when he looked into the other man's eyes.... he realized, "Hey, he is a human being just like I am!"

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 05, 1999.

Had the pleasure of going to a firing range last week to site in a .22 rifle a friend gave me. (Squirrel hunting of course).

Anyway, had the pleasure of sitting next to a guy with a high powered rifle (30-06). If the concussion wasnt enough the noise was deafening. At the time my knees were knocking just thinking about being in a fire fight with someone with heavy arsenal. For those that have not fired a rifle or pistol seeing it on tele or the movies does not due it justice.

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), August 05, 1999.

OK you want to know about this? Fine.

A young man went to war many years ago. He had grown up with John Wayne, all the hero movies, etc. His father had been in WWII but couldn't really explain what it felt like but he tried. The young man went thru basic and advanced training, airborne school, jungle school. He got sent overseas as a replacement for someone elses son.

He got sent to a squad made up of young men just like himself yet somehow different. He was called the new guy, the cherry. He got on a heliocopter one morning and flew off to a high mountain plateu. He followed the other young men down from the plateu. He was afraid, afraid of doing something stupid, afraid of shadow behind the tree, the shadow behind the bush.

Then the bushes exploded with gunfire, shouting, the explosions of grenades, the screams of human beings being torn apart. He fell to the ground, terrified. He looked up and saw a man running at him firing a rifle. He looked down the barrel of his rifle and fired. 5 rounds, 10 rounds, he wasn't sure how many. Another man came at him from the shadows. He fired again and again. Somewhere in the smoke, the screams, the shouting, he reloaded and kept firing.

The roar around him was suddenly replaced by silence. He looked over at his fellow soldiers who lay beside him. They were all covered in mud, sweat and piles of empty cartridges surround them. Each ones eyes were the size of 50 cent pieces and then he noticed that everyone's hands started shaking, his included. The smell of urine and gunpowder hung next to the ground like a grey fog. The shouted command to check out the enemy dead echoed down the tree line.

The young man rose from the mud and debris and started forward. 30 feet directly in front him lay the enemy soldiers he had been firing at. Gaping holes covered their bodies. Black pools of blood trailed out from them. Flies were beginning to swarm around the bodies. The young man from middle America threw up. He shook as if being tossed by a wind of hurricane proportions. As the bile ran down his chin he now realized why the others in the squad looked different. They, like he now, were. He didn't know the man he had killed, he knew the man trying to kill him didn't know him. But their respective leaders had decided to send their young men to settle their differences.

That was the first time. After that it got "easier". The fear was still there, but it got easier. The faces all began to look the same, but it got easier. The other young men in the squad taught the new guy the tricks of survival, and it got easier. Hateing as an alternative to loosing ones self got easier. Time blended together until that day when the young man was told he was done, time to go home. Home he went, home to his friends who were now the different ones. Home to pack away the uniform, the photos, the rememberences. Home to be a normal 21 year old.

For those that think killing to defend yourself, your loved ones, etc. is easy, you are absolutly right. Pulling a trigger on a weapon only takes a couple of pounds of pressure. Pulling yourself back together afterwords could take a lifetime. I don't have bad dreams, I don't need drugs or alchol. My memories are as clear as the day they were made. I did what was asked of me and I apologize to no one for doing it. Would I do it again? If I was defending something I believed in then the answer would be yes. Do I want to be in that position again? Not in my lifetime if I can help it.

Do not forget that there is a human being on the other end of your weapon. They may be trying to take your life and you may have to take theirs. Realize that if you are not willing to go all the way then you had better not get yourself in that situation. There are no time outs in warfare or combat. No one yells "cut". Pray or whatever you do that you are never in the situation where you have to make that choice. It is one that will change who and what you are forever.

think about it......

-- Been there (anon@yahoo.com), August 06, 1999.