Marine Explains: War Warps Minds

[JGeropoulas]

I encounter a lot of veterans during the course of my day, and one has written a book that’s just been published. Although I’ve heard many veterans describe their individual – and unique -- horrors from combat, reading this book somehow made a deeper impact. I suppose it’s because the reader begins his journey with the author in his pre-military days and then accompanies this soldier, often in numbing detail, step-by-step, through his military indoctrination. Then, without warning, the reader is ambushed, just as the author was on that first day in the jungle.

Here are some excerpts from
“I Wake Up Screaming—Vietnam and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”
by Lucian J. La Joie

This soldier’s first moments in the Vietnamese jungle illustrate how similar combat is to the ego-disintegrating traumas used in Satanic Ritual Abuse and other mind-control techniques routinely used by psychopaths in civilian society:

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

The First Sergeant informs me I will fly out to a company position in the jungle that afternoon. There is a lot of activity in the company office. A marine in Echo Company has been killed in the jungle and the First Sergeant is going nuts filling out all the paperwork. I don't understand what all the fuss is about.
I fly out to the jungle on a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter which is flying a resupply mission and is to pick up the body of the dead marine. The three platoons of the company have established a Night Defensive Position (NDP) in the jungle and it is there the resupply will take place. I am the F***ing New Guy (FNG), and it is a tradition that the FNG has to help load the dead body of the man he is replacing onto the chopper. This is indoctrination, wakeup call, reality check to let the FNG know what the score really is. The dead marine's body will be transported to Graves Registration Unit (GRU) in Da Nang.
When the chopper leaves it is already dusk, the foxholes are already dug and the marines are eating chow, Combat Rations, "c Rats': With the holes already dug, the fields of fire are established, the listening post (LP), and observation post (OP), already selected, I am assigned to a hole/fighting position with a marine called "Bear': He is from California and there is a bear on the California state flag, hence he is called Bear. I ask Bear a lot of questions, how things work, what are the passwords, what is the sleep/awake rotation and what are the rules of engagement?
As we are talking we are looking in opposite directions. An enemy sniper fires, a round goes off, and we duck into the bottom of the hole. I feel something warm and sticky on the back of my neck and the Bear is lying next to me in the hole. I look at the Bear and half of the back of his skull is missing. I roll him over and look at his face. The sniper's round had entered through his right eye socket and exited through the back of his skull I realize I am not hurt but I have the Bear's blood, brain matter and bone fragments dripping from my hair and I freak out.
The Bear bleeds to death in a few short minutes. By the time the corpsman gets to the position there is nothing the Doc can do. Command decides it is too dark to evacuate the body by helicopter. They will have a helicopter come out in the morning to extract the Bear's corpse. Command orders me to spend the night in the hole with the dead body.
After dark I push the Bear's body out of the hole. I use my entrenching tool to cover the pile of brains and blood that has gathered in the bottom of the hole. I spent the night alone in the hole totally awake and freaked out by what has happened. I got no sleep and went through the whole range of emotions - fear, terror, adrenaline rush, and anger.
As daylight approached I pull the Bear's body back in the hole figuring if his friend's see him pushed out of the hole it might upset them. Rigor mortis has partially set in and it is difficult to get the body bent into a position where it will fit back in the hole.
In the morning the Lieutenant says to me, "Sergeant, this is your squad:' There are no inquiries about the sniper incident from the night before. For me, it is a traumatic experience for me. For the Lieutenant, just another day in country, another man lost…

Soon after this soldier’s initiation into combat, an episode unfolded that poignantly illustrates the insidious process of pornerization that draws many non-biological psychopaths into the sickness (i.e. the ARVN). It also illustrates how normal people (i.e. the Vietnamese woman--who cried) become desperate, calloused and deformed from living in a society ruled by psychopaths:

...A native village flooded during the monsoon season. Every year this village floods during the rainy season. An American would think, move the village to higher ground. To the native peasant Vietnamese, the ancestral homeland where the past generations are buried is one of the most precious, important possessions of life. This is one of the reasons that the Strategic Hamlet Program of the South Vietnamese government failed. Uprooting the peasant farmers from their homeland and keeping them in "protected enclaves" generated resentment between the peasants and the South Vietnamese Government.
At this particular village, the villagers were being evacuated by the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). There was a shortage of boats to evacuate the villagers. Too many people, not enough boats. The ARVN were in charge of the operation. Our squad was assigned for extra security under operational control of the ARVN. The ARVN Captain said because of the shortage of boats the peasants could only bring one item as a carryon. One suitcase, one bag, one box, one only, no exceptions, one only.
A Vietnamese peasant woman shows up. Under one arm she has her baby about one year old. Under her other arm she had a small pig about fifteen inches long. The ARVN Captain stops her and says only one item as carryon. The peasant woman protests, arguing that the human baby is a live child and not a carryon. The ARVN Captain will not budge on his position. Only one carryon per person.
The peasant woman steps back and places her baby face down in the river and drowns it, holding the baby until it quits kicking and lets go of the baby's body and climbs into the boat with the pig under her arm. The peasant woman could always have another baby but she might not ever own another pig. That is how poor the peasants were.
Tears stream down the mother's face as she watches the small corpse float down the river. The ARVN Captain gloats and the Marines are getting pissed off. We are here to help these people, not to enforce a police state. The ARVN troops think what has just happened is funny.
After the baby's corpse floats down stream about fifty yards the ARVN troops use it as target practice, laughing all the while. I walk over to the ARVNs who are shooting and use my steel helmet and hit the ARVNs in the head and knock one of them unconscious. I sucker punch them with my helmet. The rest of the ARVNs point their weapons at me and, in response, all the marines point their weapons at the ARVNs. It is a Mexican standoff.
Here we are, supposed to be allies and we are pointing weapons at each other ready to shoot the shit out of each other. The ARVN Captain orders the u.s. Marines to lower their weapons because he outranks everybody. I tell the ARVN Captain he is a bad officer and marines do not take orders from bad officers. The ARVN Captain then orders the marines to provide security until the ARVNs had evacuated all the peasants. I tell the Captain ''F**k you, we're leaving! 'The marines promptly get into their boat and escort the boats of peasants that are already loaded in boats down the river.
Upon returning to our parent unit, Echo Company, I filed an after action report detailing the incident, including statements from those who witnessed the Vietnamization [i.e. “pornerization”] was in progress. The report was buried in the paperwork. Life is cheap in a war zone.

http://www.myspace.com/llajoieiwakeupscreaming

 

[GRiM]

Surreal is the most fitting word I can conjure up, so much in a short time. I too have read (at least) a lot of horrorstories about both vietnamn and "operation desertstorm" war and the present, met a frontline soldier from the the IRAN/IRAK war. He described how he became like an animal/"psychopathic" when they killed and his friends died. He had much psychological consoling after he came to Sweden as a refugee.
After reading this description I have another reason to think that 'War is truly hell'.