Gunfire
We all got on rooftops and started shooting.
Rapid gunfire
So, I launched grenades and to a fixpoint do if there was an insurgent
more a mother of 10 or
an astronomer or the future Nobel prize-winning
scientist or a murderer or rapist like it didn't matter who was there
they're gonna catch that...
Explosions and cheering
So it's all the moral mess of difficult experiences. War dishes them up in spades
it's the processing that can bring on enormous moral anxiety
and a lot of moral hurt.That's really what moral injury is.
You deploy somewhere like Iraq and
everything's really really gray but you learn the see in black and white.
I had to make these decisions in a moral vacuum,
you know those those instant ones, like
this guy that's running across the road. do I shoot him or not?
This guy moved from from left to right in my view across the street.
think I hit him twice.. like in a sternum and like this side area.
So what's tough about that is like somehing like that happens and you're relieved
but you don't think about it: "what do that mean?"
A year passes or three or four years pass...
what did I do that guy?
what does that mean?
explosion
There can be this dissonance
you know, "I thought i was a good person-- a good woman, a good man
and Here I am killing my counterpart.
That that hits a party the brain but doesn't quiet itself easily
The morals and the right and wrong and
things and make you a good person or a bad person or just a person
are removed from the equation. But then come back in those things
are reapplied.
How am i someone who gives to nonprofits
and goes to church and, you know,
helps people that are in need but also that guy who shot somebody
who was not even sure that they were a bad guy. There's this moral essence knocking on the door saying
"why did you do this why did you do that? Couldn't you have done this better?"
It's just always kind of humming in the background.
My set of moral values is different than when I was 22 getting into gun fights.
Using the same moral lens...
it's bad news. It just doesn't work and
it will take you to some dark places if you try that.