STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Our Killer Elite on Multiple Deployments

The past fifteen years has seen the evolution of a new type of military warrior—an Army Ranger/Marine with five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. In a NYTimes article by Benedict Carey [May 29,2016]:

“The idea that these elite fighters can adapt solely by addressing emotional trauma, some experts said, is badly misplaced. Their primary difficulty is that they thrived in combat. It’s rather a matter of unlearning the very skills that kept them alive: unceasing vigilance; snap decision making; intolerance of carelessness; the urge to act fast and decisively.”

Unlike our recent spate of insolent U.S. Navy Admirals whose primary occupation at sea were to hustle as much money, prostitutes, and payola from the private sector, these elite Army Rangers/Marines perform brilliantly while in combat and commit suicide while in civilian life.

In fact, when they return to civilian life they have a very hard time not acting hyper-vigilant and meditative; worrying about whether they should or should not react in a NY minute ---irrespective of the surrounding situations.Now we see these 90,000 soldiers/marines who have been deployed 4/5 times overseas as new type of warrior, who find ordinary life intensely boring and unworthy of their acquired talents.I can empathize with these men.

No amount of psychotherapy or drugs could tame the savage beast within me that could not tolerate bureaucratic discussions; nor allow for the tiniest errors,nor poor judgements that surrounded my civilian State Dept.job. In part,the sadistic training I received as a medical student,intern, then resident,demanding the greatest amount of precision in the shortest amount of time, prepared me well for my overseas assignments. Such missions required split second timing and accountability for completion of the task and as such allowed me to flourish in distant lands with a ‘natural killer’s instinct’.

However, when I had to come back to civilian life, I found it highly disturbing. It was replete with the unbearable sounds of boredom and enveloping ineptness. In part, I buried myself in my writing of novels as a way to dull the acuity of my heightened existence for survival. My self-therapy prevented me from using my lethal skills against an ordinary person making ordinary mistakes.

Unfortunately, neither the Pentagon nor the VA system has any idea of how to decondition those types of warriors like myself who had multiple tours of duties overseas in different conflicts. The article points out the key characteristics of those people: “who excel in combat or international crises.…  they tend to be assertive, active, and excitement-seeking, and enthusiastic.”

The article continues to define a very disturbing characteristic: “I hate to use the cliché, but these guys who love to be at the TIP OF THE SPEAR, said a psychologist…..It’s more than the camaraderie; there’s a need to protect life directly…. And if necessary…. to take life”

The lesson of war is very simple: It’s Hell!

Yet going into hell on multiple occasions, makes one inured to the horrors of mayhem; as well as completely indifferent to the blood and guts that inevitably spew forth from the intense kinetic action. Unlike the ordinary human being or 85% of the one-tour soldiers, one becomes a virtual vampire feeding off the carrion of destruction for sustenance. This blog is a warning to those civilians [POTUS, Presidential Candidates] who have sent our elite troops to war not once, not twice—but four to five times.
The security of our nation relies on these warriors who have been trained to react in split seconds… for good or for bad.The Dogs of War are not the mercenaries who get paid for their profession. They are the newly conditioned men who have been deployed 4/5 times to the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. They have tough time coming back to civilian life in America.

Beware America!
Wars have become a part of our military/industrial output which sacrifices thousands of brave warriors for billions in worthless paper money.

Genesis 9:6 :

“Who so sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”