” I also don’t understand what you were looking for in your answer, if I hit it it was accidental pessimism. “ <<<<
I think the answer I was looking for; you did hit it by accident. On one hand, valor and exemplary behaviors have their rewards in medals and well deserved recognition for extraordinary action, which are given from a grateful nation, appreciation, respect, and thanksgiving for a glorious act of courage, beyond the call of duty. On the other hand, something like this, this act of debasement, a desecration after a kill, seems to come from a sort of inglorious madness to deliver also a reward, of another kind.
The theater of war and many of its deeds are all together foreign to the sensibilities of man, but maybe the madness of some awful deed must somehow be a man’s defense, surely, of his own soul, surviving in awful battle. In other words, there is no planned valor really, there is just instinct, reaction, and abnormal levels of endorphins, adrenalin, and all those things you mentioned that will sometimes result in different things; sometimes the result of all those endorphins and adrenalin will result in an act of valor, but some other time the same will result in an act of abhorrence, or even an act of cowardice.
My point was on the official reaction to these deeds. One results in a medal and seen as good. The other a court martial and seen as bad. My thought was that the medals are invalidated, when the “bad” behavior is somehow justified, or defended as in this case. That was the discussion I was looking for. Does it invalidate the reward of medals?
You kind of make me think that when in the battle, on the ground and in the moment, you just react. Period. Sometimes it’s a fine reaction and sometimes it isn’t, but good reactions and bad reactions all come from the same place actually. If it does come from instinctive reaction and physiological conditions we don’t control, when we are in a condition of “fight or flight”, either bad or good can happen. Coming down to earth after the kill must take some time and even afterwards some awful things can happen.
I think, now, maybe medals and court martials do kind of come from the same place. I don’t mean that ingloriously, I mean the torment of the moment, of which you wrote so well.
I'm taking a short piece from your prose. Basically, no, there is no planned valor unless you're writing your own reports for a silver star and a purple heart( guess who that was) No one as you well know is going to earn a medal for such antics. Oh they'll fool so many for so long but those medals are just pieces of tin, pinned on a donkey for power and prestige, not earned, but store bought.
That as immature as looks in the picture blowing off steam( so to speak) and a band of brothers that have worked, trained, slept, pooped, farted( albeit illegal in front of a muslim) living with inane ROE's eating filth or no food at all on recons, and worse. I'm not going to pass judgment though later down this "book" i do say it's immature, but we just don't know the whole story, and we may never. Muslims love this crap because they need hatred to keep fighting, it''s in their ideology, and from a LOT of articles I've read this could be a CAIR plant...but maybe not.
You sem well read but there is a difference to earnig a medal and surviving war with your head still on. Most soldiers and i would like to ask thise question don't mind the medals and honor and valor but i can guarantee you most soldiers who aim for medals get nothing because they are not linemen or a spec ops or some unit or platoon that is in the sh** every day. I believe, having been a part of one of those units all the medals in the world would be tossed into the depest ocean if they could bring back one man, one arm or leg, on brain damaged friend, one human or a child in battle plans that always go awry. They always so, even the one on bin Laden had supplemental back up plans just in case Murphy screwed the pooch and it happened.
Now I was in during the 80's and don't speak much of anything doneas i use the analogy of martial arts that no matter how good one is, there is always better, and landing a punch may be palanned but sometimes it's incredible coincidence one stands upon the stage( and heree i change to military) for the MoH, the Navy Crozz, the Bronze with Valor or a Purple. I tossed all my medals in a fire, threw them over a cliff in Big Sur and in a fire and drank and flipped for years living like a freak in the mountains. The very thought of war brought me to a point I didn't want to see people, any other military ever again and never wanted to read a front page because of the klies, the inhumanity to one another and the ...well a lot of lies to cover a**es.
Now, later in life I have gotten out my flimsy DD-214( the papers that proves you were in and what you did and when) and I still think valor is part and partial coincidence, I do not like to use the word luck becuse I cannot explain it, maybe it's the mystic in me but there's always the tree branch the ricochet, the one pperson in the world that can carry a wounded man to copter just has to be there or maybe a rian squall comes up and a hundred children are saved because of a flash flood. So one person earns a medals and usually the arms of the military are pretty good at that and there are seriously GOOD hard men with big hearts that have earned a cabbage patch full of medals and there's a man that stands next to him with one and they could not live with out each other on the battlefield of hell because maybe one guy was slower but the other guy gave the cover for that man to earn his medals.
Are you understanding? One last because FReepers know I'm long winded whereas another can summarize well with a great sentence or a blistering analogy a paragraph short long. Medals cover a multitue of heroics and a miultitude of sins at times. it is indeed humbling and in a sense embarrassing or lame to earn a medal for just misting twenty guys that were trying to kill you and your platoon but you were in the right place whereas everyone else was pinned even the flankers getting picked off, and you had the right rifle maybe a spooter, maybe not, maybe set up a claymore or had a LAAW that worked and you saved the squad, so throw out the poarade and hip hip hoorahhhhh because were it not for you it would have been someone else so when you see your father, your brother, your cousin( I like speaking of my cousin as he's a SEAL and the kindest person you'll ever meet if on your side) and they'll stick theit medals deep in a lock box and the old paperwork or the photos because one guy they loved died or one danged thing went all to hall and many were killed that day, maybe a civilian, maybe even an enemy you respected( yes sometimes it happens) and no one pulls it out for many years because that valor you speak of caries scars, scars of the heart, scars of the minds, and maybe scars on the sitrep that's all wrong but that's the way it's written.
I can only write so much because like a metabolism everyone is different and deals with war differently. i had few problems( yeah just read above ha ha) but I no longer hunt, I no longer go boozing and no longer teach martial arts unles i know the kid or the man or woman need it or have to have it because it's their turn in the sh** box and maybe war is long range now but martial arts keeps one as focused as anything I can think of to be focused in war.
To get back to the main subject which is a few marines whizzing on dead bodies in which we have no idea of the true story. If they were in a firefight, they're lucky these guys are actually getting a shallow grave, but that's only because dead bodies stink bad. Maybe it was brutal and ruthless so much they felt a little icing on the cake was well warranted and if you're around death and dying enough( whether a doc, a nurse,a firefighter, police officer, an aide workers in Sudan, or a warrior) death is all too common and some, I don't care who you are,but some deserve killing. I do not agree with the videoing of the whole thing but that's me; as I wrote, I'm a mystic, so when the body is gone people can use mine for the college cadaver and smoke dope, party with my wired bones and eat pizza over my liver with the stench of formaldehyde in the air, or they can roast me to powder in an oven or they can bury me ina $20,000 casket the overlooks a beautiful bay only my body is six feet under, and that's where the valor ends; then it's merely betwen God and me, and that is , to me, the only thing that counts.
What we do in this world is what makes us who we are and how we deal with pressure and the worst of what this planet can dish out in these days of imorrality, lost ethics, lies and political BS. I've seen children dying of leukemia or a man with Parkinson's disease, seen lepers and the most amazing ingienous peole living in the middle of war content and happy to give their last chicken for a meal knowing the guys up the road will kill them dead tomorrow, or the Parkinsonian person with no wc and thier family( all medals of valor) waits on him hand and foot, or the leukemia patient that gives you a hug through the chemo that will stay with you until your last breath, or maybe it was one of those guys that whizzed on the enemy and saved you from sure death, that is the person or persons that deserve a medal, a medal of unconditional love, of selflessness that brings me to believe God exists, and so does evil and war, sadly, tragically is the only way to keep some few innocents alive or get thtt food to the real starving, not the rebels( the aid worker recieves the medal but she or he will die if they give that food to the real starving). I can't write anymore. I hope you understand.
God Bless you