Iraq vet heart felt confession

[727Sky]

The channel has recently added a lot of new subscibers and I feel like a lot of people do not know who I am or where I come from. I want people to know my personal story. I want to feel like this community understands what my intent is with these videos. I do not want to promote war. I want to promote the understanding of war. I feel like the more we know of its horrors and uselessness the more likely we are, hopefully, to avoid it. EDIT: thank you guys for the supportive emails you sent me and the stories you all shared with me everywhere. The kind words have been overwhelming.

[Ninurta]

Chris seems to think he dealt with the incident poorly, but I think he at least dealt with it, which was something the guys finding ways to go home were not capable of doing. He thinks that was a rational response, and it may have been, but it didn't keep boots on the ground or troops in the fight. And, for me, abandoning your brothers in such a place is NOT a valid means of "dealing with it". It's just running away. Running away may be the "rational" response, but what about the guys you are running away from and pretty much leaving for dead?

I personally think Chris dealt with it in the best way possible. You HAVE to deaden your emotional responses to the horror involved, because if you don't, you will become preoccupied with it, live in fear, and that will make you ineffective, or worse - it might be the very thing that puts you next in line for the meat wagon, because you are preoccupied with what has gone before, rather than concentrating on what may be coming for you.

That's just my two cents worth. Chris seems to feel bad about his response, but I don't think he has a good basis to feel bad about it. It's what allowed him to persevere and get through to the other side. He has the rest of his life for recriminations against himself, and he has that time in large part because of the way he reacted to tragedy.

Yeah, there will be times when you think back and feel bad about the way you reacted, BUT you are still alive to conduct that reflection...

You have the rest of forever to fall all to hell AFTER the emergency is over, but right then, when the shit is still deep, you better keep your head on a swivle and your wits about you, and an eerie calm all around yourself. You have to be able to THINK rather than just emotionally REACT - just reacting is what gets folks driven into the kill zone, just herded right into it because they've stopped thinking.

If he had not reacted that way, it could have ended very differently for him.

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