When I was a young lieutenant sitting alert on an F-4 Phantom in West Germany in the mid-'70s, waiting for the signal to go bomb a target in response to an attack by Russian forces from Communist Eastern Europe, I figured the chances of returning would be slim, assuming there was an airbase left to return to. We were given an eyepatch to wear, so that if an enemy nuclear weapon detonated far enough away not to vaporize us, but near enough to blind us in flight, we would still have one good eye to make it to the target. Although that signal never came, we were willing to risk it all if called to do so for God, country, and the American way of life. We won that Cold War through deterrence; always a better alternative to death and destruction.
When I think back on that, it surprises me that I gave so little consideration then to potentially taking thousands of lives, and the thought of it now weighs heavily on me. I never had to fly in combat, never took an enemy’s life, but I’ve lost track of the number of books I’ve read on the act of killing in war, the combat experiences of our young men and women serving in wars from WWII to Afghanistan, and their silent suffering on return to America. It is clear to me that with every life taken, a normal, civilized, Christian person loses a part of their humanity, never to be recovered, and the psychological ravages of combat live on forever, even if you return whole. Our Special Ops warriors might argue that this is to be expected; that we are too soft and, as a weakened civilization, have strayed too far from our ancestors’ readiness to fight and kill in defense of family and country. But Special Ops warriors are exceptional; specially trained to employ and control the primal instincts needed for capture/kill and rescue missions. Training in these skills and the warrior ethic would help us all put our freedoms in perspective and make us better citizens. But for better or worse, today’s America is not a warrior nation, and most of the military, while dedicated to defending America, are just people like you and me, still subject to the consequences of fighting and killing in war.