On television. On video games. Violence without consequences. It’s mind-numbing.
Killing is more real than that.
My mind wanders back to a moment. In Viet-Nam I never had to put a person in my sights and pull the trigger. That was not my primary job. My primary job was to provide ammunition to the people whose primary job it was. It was my secondary job; pulling the trigger. Was I well programmed enough to do that? Could I hold the bead on another person while I pulled the trigger, knowing the consequences; extinguishing the life of another human being? I never had to find out. Might I have lifted off him ever so slightly as I pulled the trigger, trusting that I would just miss? It would be excusable to just miss. It would be hard to tell if a person just missed, or just missed on purpose. It never occurred to me at the time, but it occurs to me now.
There was a moment though, when another person might have faced that same decision. Our entire unit was under fire. I was in an exposed position. So was Mosley. We found what cover we could and scanned for targets. All we got was jungle a hundred yards away. Our own men were between us and the jungle. We held our fire. I heard the bullets snap through the branches over my head, but no leaves or branches fell on me. I looked up to see no foliage above me. I was hearing the sound of bullets snapping through the air as they went past my head. I don’t think either of us ever got full cover. How could the bullets come that close without actually hitting us?
Only now has it occurred to me to wonder. Was there another man out there with a fellow human being in his sights? Did he try to hold that bead steady and just miss, or was it just too real? Did he shift his aim slightly as he pulled the trigger so that he would barely miss, just close enough that no-one could tell if he missed on purpose or not?
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