this is the suicide letter i wrote a few months ago. names hav been omitted
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
I've always thought better by writing. It helps me organize my thoughts better, get things across that I wouldn't be able to say. I can't write a letter to J--, but I should be able to write about Memorial Day from my perspective.
I had been organizing music on my computer, adding and deleting songs. It was when I still lived with H-- and W--. We were all in the room, it was a day off. SFC M-- ran through the door, told us to get the vehicles ready, we were going to recover a downed helicopter. We grabbed our gear and ran out. Nobody really knew what was going on. H-- and I found SSG T-- and he told us which Bradley to get ready, one of the old ODS Bradleys. We got it ready while everyone else tried to figure out where to go, what they were supposed to do. There was no organization to any of it. In the end, dismounts just randomly got on vehicles. I remember M--, S--, C-- and W-- were on my Bradley. I know there were more, but I can't remember. W--, E--, S--, A--, and B-- were loaded onto the vehicle next to mine. It was ODS, too.
It was early evening, a couple hours from sundown. On the road we learned that a Kiowa had taken fire somewhere in Bravo Troop's AO. The pilots were presumed dead. We were to be security for Bravo Troop's air insertion. They would recover the bodies, recover the sensitive items, and destroy the bird in place.
We stopped in a town on the way there, pausing to give Bravo enough time to get ready. The dismounts got out to stretch their legs. That was the last time I saw M--. He was still wearing the nomex jumpsuit he had been wearing earlier that day, had his chin strap unbuckled. We got the word to move out and the dismounts loaded back up. We continued towards our objective.
The sun was going down. As we went further on we turned onto a route that had been classified as Black. I can't exactly remember the criteria for a Black classification, I think it may have been that an IED hits every patrol that goes down that route. The sun was down by now. There are points in the day, notably sunrise and sundown, when the ambient temperature of everything equals out, roughly. This makes it really hard to see with thermal optics. ODS Bradleys have an antiquated FLIR scanner, I called it the "red eye of hell." Everything shows up red. Heat is shown by a whitish or blackish tint, depending on which setting you have the FLIR set to. Regardless, FLIR hurts your eyes is you look through it too long. I used to dream in red, sometimes. I took breaks from scanning, couldn't look through the sight for long periods at a time.
We came to a town on the route, got held up for a little bit trying to work our way through the C-wire around the place. I was scanning through the FLIR, the town looked empty, deserted. There were no cars, no signs of life, just shops and houses lining the road. The alleys on both sides stretched off into blackness. I looked away from the FLIR. Not long afterward my Bradley was rocked by a concussion, dust choked and blinded us. H-- drove the Bradley forward while SSG T-- and I checked on the dismounts. S-- gave a thumbs up and asked what was going on. I started scanning again, looking for anything at all.
I didn't see anything.
The radio call came across that the second Bradley had been hit. They did not respond to radio calls. The vehicle behind them called for a medic to come up. The back ramp had been blown off the second Bradley by the explosion. T-- started working up a 9-line MEDEVAC request. He tried to get the names over the radio but no one came back. The CO came up to our Bradley and knocked on H--'s hatch. When H-- opened it, the CO gave him five battle roster numbers, KIA. T-- sent it up. Our dismounts were assisting with local security and doing what they could with the bodies. The IED had hit directly in the center of the belly, mangling everyone in the back. B-- lost his limbs, but was otherwise more intact than the others. The CO came back and told us. T-- called a bird for B--.
After the birds left and the M88 was called forward for recovery, the dismounts radioed that they thought they had seen movement in the alleyway to my nine o'clock. I scanned, thought I saw a flash of movement, didn't see it again. I scanned back over the front of the Bradley. Not long after, a secondary IED went off. EOD never said whether it was command wire or pressure switch. Our dismounts had been close to the IED, pulling security. T-- had been watching the recovery effort, saw the dismounts get thrown from the force of the blast. I was scanning when this one struck, saw a white spherical shape fly past the front of the Bradley, hit the road and bounce off somewhere. M-- had been standing almost on top of the IED, it had blown his head off. T-- thought it was a MASCAL, started getting ready to send up the report when we got the news that it was just M--. I never told anyone that I thought I knew where his head was. I think that's why I feel the most guilty about him.
After the bird had come for him and recovery had finished hooking up the second Bradley, we began the exfil out. My Bradley had to cross back over the kill-zone. I guided us back over our own tracks with the FLIR. I was halfway hoping that we would be hit. I felt completely responsible for the whole chain of events. It was reverse order-of-march on the way back. There was no radio talk from anyone. There was nothing to say.
When we got back Maintenance pulled the disabled Bradley to the maintenance bay, and Squadron posted a guard on it, I can't remember who. They may as well have not bothered, everyone saw inside at one point or another.
1SG G-- was crying when we got back, talking to people. I didn't hear. I wasn't listening. Later that day I helped to carry M--'s body to a helicopter. They had him in a bodybag laid out on a stretcher. I remember how heavy it was. I don't know if they took his vest off. The next day SFC M-- told me to get my ACH clean. They were going to use it for the memorial. I didn't like that at all. Bad juju. Seeing it on top of an M4 that had J--'s dog tags hanging from it, I feel like a murderer. I didn't touch the tags. I didn't feel like I deserved to.
Since then I've felt empty, like it should have been me that died, like part of me did die, that part that matters. So I've waited for something to get the job done. I've stood out of the gunner's hatch, smoking a cigarette, had a sniper shoot at me and miss. I've had an IED strike beside my truck, knock my gun out of the mount, knock me back in the turret, give me hearing loss, but not a scratch. I've been on foot patrols down streets that later had houses rigged to blow up on the IA. I've slept in the bench seat in a Bradley, sitting on the LOC, and the Bradley that relieved us got hit with double-stacked anti-tank mines. SSG B-- was sitting exactly where I had slept. He was blown to pieces.
I feel like Death has passed me over, watching and mocking. I wasn't lying when I said I'm not religious, but that isn't the whole truth. It isn't in my nature to accept religion, but to use it. I worship Eris as my homebase, the place I go when I'm not looking at anything else. The benefit of the Discordian way of looking at the human condition is the freedom, the access to other modes of thinking.
Seppuku was the Samurai method of ritual suicide. Samurai committed seppuku to atone for failure and to restore honor. I am not a Samurai, but I understand the simple beauty of this sacrifice. The atonement, the absolution. Not being Christian brings the freedom to not believe I will be sentenced to an eternity of torment for taking my own life. Believing, as I do, that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, I must therefore believe that my lifeforce will continue on in some way. In effect, suicide is not the end, merely the end of this life. Reincarnation, but with no karmic consequence. The Threefold Law applies only to those who believe it.
And so, while my comrades contemplate trivialities, I dwell on matters of life and death. I do constant double-takes, people who look like my visions. I am haunted by specters, usually standing or walking, sometimes disfigured, always looking at me with dead eyes. At times I am forced to consider whether I really am haunted by spirits from the past. The Headless Horseman, with a modern twist.
It was once said, "Whom the gods would destroy, they must first drive mad." Nietzsche said, "Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experienced them is not something dreadful also." Arthur Schopenhauer said, "They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person."
I could go on; I have a philosophical bent and the internet is friend to poet and pornographer alike.
This has been my confession and argument, phrased (I hope) more eloquently than I could have managed orally. Some things are better written, and some words sound wildly out-of-place when pronounced.
I have no plans for the future. How can I think of the future when I live in the past? Time is a river that flows forever forward, but I got off the boat.
I've always thought better by writing. It helps me organize my thoughts better, get things across that I wouldn't be able to say. I can't write a letter to J--, but I should be able to write about Memorial Day from my perspective.
I had been organizing music on my computer, adding and deleting songs. It was when I still lived with H-- and W--. We were all in the room, it was a day off. SFC M-- ran through the door, told us to get the vehicles ready, we were going to recover a downed helicopter. We grabbed our gear and ran out. Nobody really knew what was going on. H-- and I found SSG T-- and he told us which Bradley to get ready, one of the old ODS Bradleys. We got it ready while everyone else tried to figure out where to go, what they were supposed to do. There was no organization to any of it. In the end, dismounts just randomly got on vehicles. I remember M--, S--, C-- and W-- were on my Bradley. I know there were more, but I can't remember. W--, E--, S--, A--, and B-- were loaded onto the vehicle next to mine. It was ODS, too.
It was early evening, a couple hours from sundown. On the road we learned that a Kiowa had taken fire somewhere in Bravo Troop's AO. The pilots were presumed dead. We were to be security for Bravo Troop's air insertion. They would recover the bodies, recover the sensitive items, and destroy the bird in place.
We stopped in a town on the way there, pausing to give Bravo enough time to get ready. The dismounts got out to stretch their legs. That was the last time I saw M--. He was still wearing the nomex jumpsuit he had been wearing earlier that day, had his chin strap unbuckled. We got the word to move out and the dismounts loaded back up. We continued towards our objective.
The sun was going down. As we went further on we turned onto a route that had been classified as Black. I can't exactly remember the criteria for a Black classification, I think it may have been that an IED hits every patrol that goes down that route. The sun was down by now. There are points in the day, notably sunrise and sundown, when the ambient temperature of everything equals out, roughly. This makes it really hard to see with thermal optics. ODS Bradleys have an antiquated FLIR scanner, I called it the "red eye of hell." Everything shows up red. Heat is shown by a whitish or blackish tint, depending on which setting you have the FLIR set to. Regardless, FLIR hurts your eyes is you look through it too long. I used to dream in red, sometimes. I took breaks from scanning, couldn't look through the sight for long periods at a time.
We came to a town on the route, got held up for a little bit trying to work our way through the C-wire around the place. I was scanning through the FLIR, the town looked empty, deserted. There were no cars, no signs of life, just shops and houses lining the road. The alleys on both sides stretched off into blackness. I looked away from the FLIR. Not long afterward my Bradley was rocked by a concussion, dust choked and blinded us. H-- drove the Bradley forward while SSG T-- and I checked on the dismounts. S-- gave a thumbs up and asked what was going on. I started scanning again, looking for anything at all.
I didn't see anything.
The radio call came across that the second Bradley had been hit. They did not respond to radio calls. The vehicle behind them called for a medic to come up. The back ramp had been blown off the second Bradley by the explosion. T-- started working up a 9-line MEDEVAC request. He tried to get the names over the radio but no one came back. The CO came up to our Bradley and knocked on H--'s hatch. When H-- opened it, the CO gave him five battle roster numbers, KIA. T-- sent it up. Our dismounts were assisting with local security and doing what they could with the bodies. The IED had hit directly in the center of the belly, mangling everyone in the back. B-- lost his limbs, but was otherwise more intact than the others. The CO came back and told us. T-- called a bird for B--.
After the birds left and the M88 was called forward for recovery, the dismounts radioed that they thought they had seen movement in the alleyway to my nine o'clock. I scanned, thought I saw a flash of movement, didn't see it again. I scanned back over the front of the Bradley. Not long after, a secondary IED went off. EOD never said whether it was command wire or pressure switch. Our dismounts had been close to the IED, pulling security. T-- had been watching the recovery effort, saw the dismounts get thrown from the force of the blast. I was scanning when this one struck, saw a white spherical shape fly past the front of the Bradley, hit the road and bounce off somewhere. M-- had been standing almost on top of the IED, it had blown his head off. T-- thought it was a MASCAL, started getting ready to send up the report when we got the news that it was just M--. I never told anyone that I thought I knew where his head was. I think that's why I feel the most guilty about him.
After the bird had come for him and recovery had finished hooking up the second Bradley, we began the exfil out. My Bradley had to cross back over the kill-zone. I guided us back over our own tracks with the FLIR. I was halfway hoping that we would be hit. I felt completely responsible for the whole chain of events. It was reverse order-of-march on the way back. There was no radio talk from anyone. There was nothing to say.
When we got back Maintenance pulled the disabled Bradley to the maintenance bay, and Squadron posted a guard on it, I can't remember who. They may as well have not bothered, everyone saw inside at one point or another.
1SG G-- was crying when we got back, talking to people. I didn't hear. I wasn't listening. Later that day I helped to carry M--'s body to a helicopter. They had him in a bodybag laid out on a stretcher. I remember how heavy it was. I don't know if they took his vest off. The next day SFC M-- told me to get my ACH clean. They were going to use it for the memorial. I didn't like that at all. Bad juju. Seeing it on top of an M4 that had J--'s dog tags hanging from it, I feel like a murderer. I didn't touch the tags. I didn't feel like I deserved to.
Since then I've felt empty, like it should have been me that died, like part of me did die, that part that matters. So I've waited for something to get the job done. I've stood out of the gunner's hatch, smoking a cigarette, had a sniper shoot at me and miss. I've had an IED strike beside my truck, knock my gun out of the mount, knock me back in the turret, give me hearing loss, but not a scratch. I've been on foot patrols down streets that later had houses rigged to blow up on the IA. I've slept in the bench seat in a Bradley, sitting on the LOC, and the Bradley that relieved us got hit with double-stacked anti-tank mines. SSG B-- was sitting exactly where I had slept. He was blown to pieces.
I feel like Death has passed me over, watching and mocking. I wasn't lying when I said I'm not religious, but that isn't the whole truth. It isn't in my nature to accept religion, but to use it. I worship Eris as my homebase, the place I go when I'm not looking at anything else. The benefit of the Discordian way of looking at the human condition is the freedom, the access to other modes of thinking.
Seppuku was the Samurai method of ritual suicide. Samurai committed seppuku to atone for failure and to restore honor. I am not a Samurai, but I understand the simple beauty of this sacrifice. The atonement, the absolution. Not being Christian brings the freedom to not believe I will be sentenced to an eternity of torment for taking my own life. Believing, as I do, that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, I must therefore believe that my lifeforce will continue on in some way. In effect, suicide is not the end, merely the end of this life. Reincarnation, but with no karmic consequence. The Threefold Law applies only to those who believe it.
And so, while my comrades contemplate trivialities, I dwell on matters of life and death. I do constant double-takes, people who look like my visions. I am haunted by specters, usually standing or walking, sometimes disfigured, always looking at me with dead eyes. At times I am forced to consider whether I really am haunted by spirits from the past. The Headless Horseman, with a modern twist.
It was once said, "Whom the gods would destroy, they must first drive mad." Nietzsche said, "Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experienced them is not something dreadful also." Arthur Schopenhauer said, "They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person."
I could go on; I have a philosophical bent and the internet is friend to poet and pornographer alike.
This has been my confession and argument, phrased (I hope) more eloquently than I could have managed orally. Some things are better written, and some words sound wildly out-of-place when pronounced.
I have no plans for the future. How can I think of the future when I live in the past? Time is a river that flows forever forward, but I got off the boat.