“When the Lamb broke the second seal, I heard the second living being say, ‘Come!’ and another horse appeared…a red one. Its rider was given a mighty sword and the authority to remove peace from the earth. And there was war and slaughter everywhere.” Revelation 6:3-4
This verse is one that has stuck with me for years. I heard it spoken by a Navy Chaplain giving a sermon the day of 9/11. I had just recently completed 10 weeks of one of the most difficult and revered training programs known within the Marine Corps; Marine Scout Sniper School. On that day, when I saw the towers fall in New York, it was not fear that gripped me...it was rage, pure and intensely directed rage. It engulfed me in a twisted version of comfort, a sensation that (like a drug) I could not stop craving; similar to the childhood memory of wrapping myself in a soft blanket, straight from the drying machine and warm to the touch. This new sensation would be my motivation for the years to come.
When I was young I used to pretend that I was a doctor. I passionately wanted to be someone that could aid the sick and heal the wounded. Even as a child I knew that healing the spirit was just as important as healing the body, “Why not do both?” I would tell myself. Even when I was that young I wanted to protect and save the lives of as many people as I could. I believed that all life was sacred and that there was good in all things. How naive I was to think that a single boy could change the world. The man that I became, however, was the antithesis of what that child had dreamed of for so many years. The United States Marine Corps took an intelligent young man and successfully transformed his mind and body…creating the perfect predator; a calibrated and methodical hunter of men. I was young, angry, driven and completely oblivious to what I had become. My focus was razor sharp, my movements…unseen. And now all I wanted was to be turned loose on those responsible for the massacre that happened that fateful day.
Just so you know… on average each Marine Scout Sniper class will consist of about 30 – 40 candidates. Out of those candidates, less than 8 will make it to graduation. The primary mission of the Marine Scout Sniper is (verbatim) “To deny the enemy freedom of movement by killing enemy leaders, crew-served weapon operators, radiomen, observers, messengers, and other key personnel with well-aimed fire and evasion.” The Scout Sniper also “provides reconnaissance and surveillance information to infantry battalions.” His motto is “One shot…One kill”. *HooRah*
In my mind, my rifle was my sword (An M40-A1 Remington that fired 7.62mm rounds the length of your ring finger). I would wield this weapon to break those that opposed me on the field of battle. When I heard the Chaplain speak of the RED HORSEMAN …it instilled itself into my persona…and I became “War”. As such, I donned a red sash under my uniform to reinforce my devotion to this train of thought. (Crazy? You’re damn right… Effective? You have no idea…)
When you take the mind of an angry young man, instill into it a strong force of will, then provide him with a weapon designed for a single cold purpose…you will, in fact, see the embodiment of the Red Horseman. This is something that earned me respect among my peers, pride among my superiors and fear among my enemies who knew that even though I was hundreds of yards away from them…I was still only a few inches away from their head.
Pretty heavy stuff huh? All of this paints a REALLY dark and predominantly evil picture. As well it should. It should terrify you. …Definitely a change in pace from my last blog isn’t it? Good. I was hoping to grab your attention. This is all absolutely true however, and as you can tell, at this point, I’ve come a long way from sitting behind my computer desk entertaining a hamster turning the wheel in my head. At this point there is no longer a cute little hamster…there’s a bloodstain on the floor and a wolf picking his teeth with a piece of that little squeaky wheel, because…well…the thing just made to much noise.
The term, “War is hell” couldn’t even begin to describe my thought process…the longer I was out there the angrier I became because I had more of the truth exposed to me every time I looked into the scope of my rifle. Christians were fighting Muslims…Muslims where fighting Christians and even themselves. They would use children as walking bombs and human shields knowing that the typical American soldier would rather disengage than risk hurting a child… I, however, was not a soldier… I was something more; the physical manifestation of War (…a Marine with a REALLY big chip on his shoulder) and to me these people had become more like cockroaches and less like humans. So when approaching these tricky situations I would not back down…much to the surprise of the aggressor. “In the eyes of war there are no innocents… only casualties”
No…”war is hell” is not the right wording. ”War…brought them hell” was much more fitting from my perspective.
My new occupational specialty came with some pretty high risks. But those risks were actually pretty fun to someone of my mental “caliber”. There were times I had to jump out of an aircraft, behind enemy lines, in the middle of night, at an altitude so high that I had to evac with my own oxygen supply just so I could breathe long enough to pull my rip cord at just the right distance from the ground as to avoid radar detection. There were times that my spotter and I would cover ourselves in motor oil and roll in the dirt to appear as nothing more than mounds of sand, at a distance, while lying in the prone. I remember dressing in garbs and turbans to blend in with the locals, strolling within a few feet from Iraqi Paramilitary soldiers patrolling through the cities…all for the sake of collecting intelligence information on enemy positions. (I guess they didn’t think that Americans could blend in so well with the Arab population…As a side note I’d just like to ad that I look pretty darn stylish in a turban)
My spotter was Lance Corporal Fletcher (call sign “Lucky Chicken” due to a tattoo he had on his leg of a chicken with a 4 leaf clover in its mouth….don’t ask…he was just a random guy). He and I worked out pretty well together because we were two sides of the same coin. He wasn’t the best shooter, however he was excellent at spotting (which entails providing distance coordinates, wind speed, target acquisition and additional mathematics required to make an accurate shot). I, on the other hand, was a terrible spotter (math was never my strong point) however I was a crack shot with a rifle…so “The Brothers Grimm” (as we were deemed by our fellow Marines) were born…and let me tell you…we made one hell of an impression out there.
While serving in a combat environment, time seems to slow down, especially when you are in the middle of a barren waste land. A single hour can feel like an entire day. All that you can think about is living long enough to hug your loved ones one more time before getting sent back into the meat grinder (or “the sand box” as it is referred to by most veterans). Out there it’s hard to tell who’s just a person walking down the street and who is an enemy soldier with a rifle hidden under his clothing or a bomb strapped to his chest. Everyone is tired and stressed from being in a constant state of fight or flight. At times we were so tired that we would just stay in our bunks and rest through scud missile attacks, figuring that “Our missile shelters are right outside our tents…if one of those things hits that close it won’t matter if we’re in there or not”. It was a curious feeling to not have any fear of the imminent danger of rockets heading your way. We’d hear them explode somewhere and think, “Ok…that’s better, I’ve got another 5 minutes before Iraqi troops fire the next set at us and those damn warning sirens start screaming again…enjoy it while you can”.
You’d be amazed how comfortable a cot can be when you’re used to sleeping in a three foot deep fox hole with a rock jabbing you in the back. I was just more concerned about getting a few hours of rest with my itchy wool blanket and hard fabric cot, than I was over the missiles landing all around our base. I figured that if it was my time to go…then at least I’d be rested enough to not feel anything when it happens. Others had a much different approach…they’d rather die in a four foot, hollowed out, concrete block praying to god that they might live another day. By that time I had given up all hope of praying, what was the point? God wasn’t out there, and if we weren't among god in heaven...that meant that surely we were in hell. The god I thought I knew wouldn’t have allowed any of this to happen in the first place. For all I knew, we were all already dead…this was our purgatory, being forced to fight a never ending battle. Every patrol spent treading over hundreds of dead bodies. All of them men, women and children just lying there...their final terrified moments of life captured in a cowaring position; their corpse telling the final story of their life - that of a meak, helpless and sad existence coming to a sudden and horifying end. Other moments are memories of one day listening to your buddy talking about his new born son and how proud he is to be a father...and how dearly he wishes to hold his boy...to tell him how much his father loves him. Only to sit and stare at his empty cot the following night, a picture of a his wife & son in my left hand and a letter of condolence to his family in my right. So I laughed at the ones that retreated, like rats scurrying away to their holes, during the missile attacks. Apparently they didn’t know what it was like to really live and enjoy the moment…regardless, I figured that any day now someone might be staring at my empty cot…holding a letter of condolence addressed to mother back home. (God how I missed her summer iced teas and the warm bowls of home made chili she used to make.)
If you ask the Marines about their thoughts on retreating, they’ll tell you that there is no such thing as a retreat…there's just advancing in the opposite direction.
But not to special ops, the men of Force Recon who were in front of the front lines; not to the ones considered to be the “tip of the spear”…the only place I ever retreated to was my cot. Damn the scuds…I need my beauty sleep.
I could sit here and tell you all a lifetime of stories that that only took place in hindsight of about a year and half during my time spent in the war. All of which are guaranteed to shock, amaze & horrify you. But I’m not going to. I could sit here and tell you about all the BS that the news channels are releasing to the public in order to make everyone think that things are just freak’n peachy. But I’m not going to. I could sit here and tell you the truth of what’s really going on out there…but you probably wouldn’t believe me. The media just has too strong of a grip on society. People want to believe what the TV tells them. They want to hear that America is bringing democracy and freedom to the Middle East. They want to believe that we are doing the right thing in order to bring those responsible for 9/11 attacks to justice. They want to believe that what our nation is doing is righteous and justified and that our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and close friends are giving their lives for the “Greater Good”….who am I to be their buzz kill? I will tell you this. There are good things happening over there but it has nothing to do with the original mission objectives. It is the kindness of many of the peacekeepers doing their best to aid families and individuals that have been devastated by those of us that have negatively affected their lives. Those events however are rarely reported on. The news would rather conjure up fake reports on rare acts of kindness (that the govt. wants the world to see) than tell the stories of actions performed by the service men and women that have truly made a difference in the lives of those people .
War is truly hell…you get there not realizing that one way or another you’re coming home…it’s just a question of if you’re stepping of that plane with your own two feet…or carried off in a wooden crate draped by a blood stained flag that you fought (and died) to protect. The last memory of you being a pair of your combat boots sitting on either side your rifle, posted upright with your helmet mounted on top; your dog tags hanging across the trigger…..chiming with the wind.
Upon my return from my second tour my family could tell that their happy go lucky, kind hearted Jason died somewhere out there in the desert. The person they were looking at was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I hardly spoke a word for close to 3 years and by the time I finally opened up…it was just to tell the bartender to pour me another drink.
“Give me something that’ll kick my ass in the morning…I need a break from doing it to myself throughout the day.” *HooRah*…or something like that.
Ultimately…I would realize that something drastic needed to happen and soon. I found myself at the bottom of every bottle, and in front of every drug hoping that I would eventually free myself of the memories and truths I learned about myself and the dark side of human nature. But no matter how hard I tried, I would still always find myself alone again….deep within the desert.
To be continued…..
