# Dealing With "The Question"



## Marauder06 (Feb 13, 2017)

Dealing with being asked "did you ever kill anyone downrange" has been easy for me, in large part because my "trigger time" in the sandbox was on the static range.

What are your reactions to being asked "The Question?"



> During my first two deployments, I spent a fair amount of time going to Iraqi villages with Civil Affairs or living with Iraqi soldiers operating a major training center. I was always armed, the whole bullet in the chamber thing as well, but the situation never got to the point where it was needed.
> 
> So, the answer to “The Question” is “no,” I have never killed anyone.
> 
> …and I’m OK with that.


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## Marine0311 (Feb 13, 2017)

Only when I was angry or hungry.


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## Kraut783 (Feb 13, 2017)

"that's not a question you ask people"  walk away or change the subject, depending on who your with....friends, strangers...etc


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## SpongeBob*24 (Feb 13, 2017)

Simple...the first one was hard.  You had to kill him for his weapon because yers was cut free on on a bad exit.  After that you had to kill to stay alive...its easier to blend in if you are wearing your enemies skin.  After 50 to 60 kills it becomes a drug.   After 100 you start collecting trophies....ears or fingers. Soon...nothing can eaze the hunger of another kill....

Yepp.... That first week In the TOC is Rough......


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## Viper1 (Feb 13, 2017)

I've never killed anyone, but I've caused the deaths of many.


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## Grunt (Feb 13, 2017)

I have seen a lot of violence, so, what you say we talk about something else for a while!


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## Teufel (Feb 13, 2017)

Taking another man's life is a very personal and emotional event that is not a good subject for idle conversation. Some of the things we have done are best left overseas.


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## racing_kitty (Feb 13, 2017)

"It's a number that I'm quite comfortable with," then walk away. Let them imagine I'm the second coming of Elizabeth Bathory, for all I care.  It's none of their business.


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Feb 14, 2017)

The only time that question bothered me, was when my oldest daughter asked it. In most case's I just told people it was none of their fucking business (although my brothers and I have had some odd conversation about it). It's a bit different to have that conversation with a 8 year old, that you don't want to mislead or lie to. I settled with her, that when you are 18 years old I will tell you...I am not looking forward to that talk at all.

I've never had another veteran ask me that question, outside of my guys wanting to discuss thoughts. Generally it's a fuck wit, who gets a "fuck off" reaponse.

From a personal opinion,  killing a man who was trying to kill me or my brothers did not bother me at all. Still think about it and have those odd thoughts, but know what I did was right.  $.02


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## RackMaster (Feb 14, 2017)

Call of Duty or Battlefield?


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## Gunz (Feb 14, 2017)

I got it all the time. Usually from civilian friends.  My answer, if I liked them: "If it's alright with you I'd rather not talk about the war right now." Then I'd change the subject and go get another beer. I had one work acquaintance, a smart-ass former hippie chick ask me, "How many babies did you kill?" I was always ready for that one. "You mean weekly? Or year-end total?"

The motivations were different in Vietnam. The Viet Cong never flew planes into the World Trade Center. They weren't at the outset of your tour the living embodiment of evil like Al Qaeda or the Taliban or Saddam Hussein. So that hate had to build and the first one made you feel rotten, like your soul was blackened, like you'd crossed some threshold into a dark place you'd been taught all your life--in church, in school, at home--never to enter. The macho rhetoric of bootcamp and infantry training seemed cheap and hollow...and you stayed quiet for a few days, introspective, turning the whole thing over, coming to grips with it...and then finally you're training, your sense of responsibility to your teammates, the demands of the job, your present duties all combined to bring you back down to earth. You said "fuck it, it is what it is and the motherfucker had it coming." And then you'd be ok. They're not human anymore, now they're just fucking assholes that you need to kill if you ever want to see the Land of the Round-Eyes again. And after a few more weeks you can sit near a pile of dead dinks and eat your C-rat peaches and pound cake or ham and motherfuckers and not bat a fuckin eye. From now on you just didn't give a shit how you killed them, you just yearned to fuck those motherfuckers up. Revenge for that ambush, revenge for your bro who got his foot blown off, revenge for having to hump 100 lbs of gear through thigh-deep rice paddies, revenge for open sores, revenge for leeches, revenge for lousy fucking canned food, revenge for no pussy, revenge for warm beer; revenge for the sake of revenge and finally revenge for trying to kill me and my bros you slope-headed non-human fucks. Let's kill as many as we can so at the end of the month our team has the most ear silhouettes on the Captain's Ear Board back at the compound and we get a case of Black Label choppered out to us.

There was a saying among the trigger-pullers in Vietnam: "It don't mean nuthin." And those four words meant everything.


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## Devildoc (Feb 14, 2017)

"Yes, usually with my cooking."

"I don't know, I had my eyes closed when I pulled the trigger."

"If you forgive me for not answering, I will forgive you for asking."


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## policemedic (Feb 14, 2017)

My answer depends on who asks.  Sometimes it's a bit sharp and sometimes it's just a deflection.  The only people who'd get a real answer are the ones who wouldn't ask because they've been there themselves.


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## Teufel (Feb 14, 2017)

Diamondback 2/2 said:


> From a personal opinion,  killing a man who was trying to kill me or my brothers did not bother me at all. Still think about it and have those odd thoughts, but know what I did was right.  $.02



I'm with you there but what about civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or child/teen combatants? Soldiers do the best they can to accomplish the mission without compromising their moral values but warfare can get very messy when you have to click off safe. I default to it's not something you ask someone. It doesn't bother some people and others never killed anyone but there are many who don't want to stir those memories. Some gunfighters may not have killed anyone but may have seen people killed and this probably affected them.  Best for everyone to educate the overly curious and ignorant.


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## Gunz (Feb 14, 2017)

I had a teammate who was with our Alpha unit on a daytime patrol who snuck up on three unarmed people in a clearing, two young men and a young woman, all unarmed. The Alpha counterparts said they were VC and members of the local NLF cadre...so the guys mowed them down and brought the bods out on bamboo poles. My buddy, Joe, still has some guilt about killing an unarmed woman, but it is what it is. Sometimes you have to rely on what your counterparts tell you.

I've been in firefights on trails that run through small villes, sudden eruptions of gunfire where the bullets and fragments go everywhere...and when the shooting stops and the smoke clears all you hear is this haunting wail from some woman mourning her dead child, killed by some random piece of flying steel and you wonder if it was your steel...you remember shooting in that direction...and you have the rest of your life to wonder if you killed that child...


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## Teufel (Feb 14, 2017)

Ocoka One said:


> "..."


This problem is especially acute in dense urban environments. The .50 cal does not discriminate and it's rounds will travel well beyond whatever you were shooting at. Aviation delivered fires can be incredibly accurate but still sadly much less discriminate than we wish they were.


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Feb 14, 2017)

Teufel said:


> I'm with you there but what about civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or child/teen combatants? Soldiers do the best they can to accomplish the mission without compromising their moral values but warfare can get very messy when you have to click off safe. I default to it's not something you ask someone. It doesn't bother some people and others never killed anyone but there are many who don't want to stir those memories. Some gunfighters may not have killed anyone but may have seen people killed and this probably affected them.  Best for everyone to educate the overly curious and ignorant.



We as in my squad lit up a few car's where noncombatants were injured and killed, one young kid as well. When multiple people are firing it's hard to say who's bullets did what. And yes some of our guys did not take it well. As I stated before, the odd thoughts come in, wondering about their families, could you have done something different, should you have fired, etc. I just try not to harp on it, I was there to do my job and did it as morally and professionally as I could while at war. Nobody wants non-combatants to die, especially at our own hand. As for the combatants, armed idividuals, the assholes digging in IED's, I couldn't care less.


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## Kraut783 (Feb 14, 2017)

on a lighter note....my Titanfall 2 kill total is more that my COD or Destiny totals.


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## Devildoc (Feb 15, 2017)

On a lighter note, this thread does me remind me of this scene from Major Payne:






"There's gotta be somebody that needs killin'."

"It's been two whole weeks since I killed me a man....."


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