Osama Bin Laden killed

[michaln]

ole and sven must have been drinking that new drink the bin laden

2 shots and a splash of water

[Randy W]

http://i51.tinypic.com/25iu0z9.jpg

[tsap seui]

"...If someone kills my mother, it won't amount to a hill of beans difference whether I see photos of her body of not. I'm still going to want to kill the bastard who did it..."

 

Collateral damage is, unfortunately, an aspect of all wars. innocents die. How does the combatant who kills by mistake live with himself? How about these who kill innocents in revenge and frustration? ( I gave a VN example here a few weeks ago) Senator Kerry --- (Nebraska not Massachusetts) describes with profound regret a 'special ops' blunder where he does just that: Kills an old man (surprisingly strong in his resistance) --- in a village that turns out to not be hostile after all.. The Patriarch ~ !! --- of an extended VN family! What young man in that family wouldn't sign up to kill Americans after that?

 

Yes, justice was done about as perfectly as it could have been this week, and my good friend, the recently retired American Airlines pilot---a surviver of 911 --- flying out of DC --- with all of the Pentagon crew --- told me he finally slept through the night. But it ain't pure---war. Kev (AA pilot) and me---VN war protesters ---- Kerry--- winner of the Metal of Honor in VN.

 

 

 

The one question I would want to ask the SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden is what his true emotions are. Killing bin Laden like he did with a "Double Tap" is a very personal way to kill another person. I have no doubt that the SEAL doesn't have remorse but I can't imagine he feels nothing. He has to have some level of regret. Regret might not be the right word. Maybe that is what makes these guys different, they can comparmentalize.

 

The media has said he likely was back with his family within 48-72 hours. I just can't imagine taking out Osama one day and cutting the grass the next. How do you do that emotionally?

 

 

I was never a Navy Seal, but it is my understanding that the "double tap" shooting you refer to is the way they are trained to shoot someone at close quarters. According to one of my friends who was US Army special forces, they are trained to place two shots in the chest, and one to the head...

 

By the way, you are right on the nail about their ability to compartmentalize. It's amazing what these guys go through, and are able to come back home and reintegrate back into a normal life.

 

Best Wishes

 

 

Warriors who are in sustained hard core combat compartmentalize, go home, and find in 5 to 7 years a lil' enemy called PTSD tears their guts and brains out.

 

I read about a new seal book where the seal author freely admits to PTSD. Not that I didn't think a seal could get PTSD, I just didn't think they would admit to it. Good to see one of them admiting that he is actually of the human race.

 

Maybe a warrior can go pop some guy, go home and cut the grass the next day and be okay...yeah sure, that's cool.

 

I don't know, I never got the chance to come home between flying missions into combat. Did you get dropped off into the bush, hump the rucksack a couple of hours and go home and cut the grass until the next mission, Mick? Imagine that.

 

Hell, we had to do it for weeks and months in a row, get a day down once in awhile and right back into the shit. If you ain't carrying 'em in to combat, you're picking up the dead and wounded....often with no "band-aids" cause the combat medics have been killed early on, just gore and grisle quickly and rudely thrown on back as you sit there in the open, all hopeless with rounds poppin' through the plexiglas as you await the word from the gunners to " GO GO GO". Listen to the grunts screams, smell their blood all over the back of the ship and blowin' in the rotorwash. Watch the grunts running from your chopper in a firefight, look at their bodys get torn to pieces before they can even fall to the ground. "Blood Bags" we called them cause that's exactly what their bodies look like when a round pops them and knocks off chunks of meat, letting their blood mist out from the rounds implosion.

 

You put stuff away deep in your head to survive the hell you are living every day. Then you come home, and try to live a normal life with a woman and the civilians....yeah right, most Vietnam "combat" veteran's marriages didn't last too long. PTSD waits it's insidioous wait and slithers up your brain stem when you least expect it...all the while you tell yourself, I can handle anything, I've survived hardcore sustained combat.....what a joke and idle thought that becomes when you find you can't handle jack shit cause the bugger man disguised as a mental disorder called PTSD has been paying you a visit and you never saw him coming.

 

Good luck seal team 6.

Good luck surviving the external enemy you train for everyday.

Good luck with the internal enemy. He's much more cunning and insidious than the external. He can't be sliced and diced, or double tapped. And the more you've seen and done, and the stronger you "think" you are, the more he will F you up brother.

 

tsap seui

One year in war.

Forty years in, and in need of therapy.

Edited May 14, 2011 by tsap seui (see edit history)

[knloregon]

Well Tsap,

 

I flinch and cringe when I read your account--its way too fresh. Sadly, you tell it even more forcefully --- and graphically than the grunt I worked with in the field at the Army Corps ... and THAT story --- his not mine--- still haunts me --- and his was much fresher than yours---he told em (confessed really with a sense of dread---in 1979). So keep up the therapy... But on the other side of that coin, Tsap---you tell your story so well, its worth putting down, so I hope you are are---IF you can keep your demons at bay --- best book in the world isn't worth the sacrifice of your shot at a real life ---and a real love----which finally is coming your way.

[tsap seui]

Well Tsap,

 

I flinch and cringe when I read your account--its way too fresh. Sadly, you tell it even more forcefully --- and graphically than the grunt I worked with in the field at the Army Corps ... and THAT story --- his not mine--- still haunts me --- and his was much fresher than yours---he told em (confessed really with a sense of dread---in 1979). So keep up the therapy... But on the other side of that coin, Tsap---you tell your story so well, its worth putting down, so I hope you are are---IF you can keep your demons at bay --- best book in the world isn't worth the sacrifice of your shot at a real life ---and a real love----which finally is coming your way.

 

 

 

Thanks Kim. Vietnam happened yesterday didn't it?

 

I have gotten through 6 chapters of the "mundane" character building childhood, hippy college stage, boot camp, flight school stuff... with a combat prologue to, from the very beginning, fill a new person in on just what the F this "therapy session" of mine is REALLY all about, along with a chapter just before the flight school one, giving yet another combat testimony explaining what we were REALLY training for 9 months to go do.

 

I admit, I put that all down in two weeks of intense writing, alas, at the same time, having to send in electronic info to NVC and cross all my T's and dot all them i's, for my dear family.

 

The book, while on the back shelf as I get ready to hop on that 777 out of Dulles heading for Beijing in a couple or three weeks, will one day get to see some light again. Lil' rabbit and I have been working since February on her interview questions, twice a day, everyday.

 

When I next get this stress off of me I can easily put together many more combat stories, another 100 pages or there abouts, as they started out being written 11 years ago, just need to be put into this book format....then there's the harsh story of coming home "alive" and what the hell do I do now? Well sir, I managed to mess up my life REAL dang good, the real war stories may well be my life in America where my ol' compadre, Mr. PTSD opened his voodoo into my who-do. Not too pretty. I am proud of nothing I did in those chapters and they will be pretty hurtful to try and relive as faithfully as possible, cause....THAT IS WHAT WAR DOES TO IT'S SUSTAINED HARDCORE COMBAT SURVIVORS.

 

Say, I was thinkin' of you and Mick the other day. Did you guys ever see Nils Lofgren play down in one of the Georgetown clubs back in the day? His band back then would have been called "GRIN" and he would do back flips while playing lead guitar...I kid you not. I think Nils played for Bruce Springsteen a bit, maybe not, but I sat in the 4th row in the pit at Merriweather Post Pavillion when I went to see Ringo and His Allstar Band back in 1992 with my 6 year old daughter. Along with Joe Walsh, and too many others for my poor head to spit out quickly, there was Nils Lofgren!!! A local boy from around Frederick, Maryland. What fun, eh? No, he didn't do his trademark back flip onstage with Ringo.

 

Take care Kim.

 

tsap seui

[knloregon]

Hey Tsap,

 

Trying to rack my brain about Nils, but only com up wit a sort of 'local boy makes good' memory of a gifted guitar picker..

 

---but heres one for ya ~ (and Mick) When I was at AU, as a swimmer, the athletes ate together at their own training table --- which basically meant --- 'all yo can eat' --every night, and yeah, a certain rather tall, broad guy named Kermit Washington would join us from time to time, (if his drop dead-----GORGEOUS black GF didn't have other plans for the two of them (soon to be his wife)). --but among us was a wrestler -tough little shit. One of the lowest weight classes --- so we were always trying to give him banana splits ---(he loved ice cream)--- HEY! anything you wanted! to get him over his weight just before a match---that way, he'd have to puke his guts out to get down to weight-----and what could be funnier than that?

 

So naturally, he took a liking to me, and as it turned out, his father---whom I think was probably very rich-- had a financial interest in a local club, and had set his son up as the manager. The club's name was 'Mr. Henry's'. So the wrestler offered me a job as door man, easy money (he said) since it was upscale (Capitol Hill) So no one gets bounced. And in addition the hourly wage, tips were split off the wait staff --- and the thing was, among the live entertainment was this local gal who was a huge draw 3 nights a week ---sometimes 4, named Roberta Flack. So when she sang, the place was packed! Unfortunately, I wasn't working the night of the "First time" ----- but did later that week -------and for Candle members, that would be: Roberta Flack singing for the first time: The first time I ever saw your face" ---it happened at Mr. Henry's, and EVERYONE working there was raking it in! I was mesmerized by her! ---even though I couldn't get a clear look at her from my position, her voice---with very little amplification, just filled the whole place! So within two week there, I let my guard slip, (and here's the deal: my job wasn't to keep people out---or throw them out---it was to keep people from skipping on the tab--as sure enough one rather 'big spender' did with his bevy of three beauties in tow----(real class act). After closing, tough little shit wrestler (shit to me now, because he was going to make a point to the whole staff that he showed no favoritism to other AU athletes) told me I was fired for that fuck up. So, say I ok: I'll pay double for the loss." ---nearly 400 dollars (lot of money at the time) . wait staff were pleased with that solution since it doubled the tips they didn't get from the skipping party, while the wrestler got to show both his tough side and generous side by keeping me on. But since on the nights Roberta sang, I was pulling in nearly 200.00 per night, it was the financially prudent thing to do ---- can't imagine how much the wait staff were making, but it must have been a small fortune. Wow, Roberta was the must see event in those days!