consequences.
As an example, I spent nearly 34 years periodically suffering what I viewed as survivor guilt concerning what I believed was the eventual death of a teammate from burn wounds suffered in Vietnam when his helicopter was shot down near Kontum and the wreckage caught fire. My friend was evacuated with serious burns and I lost touch with his wife after he arrived at Brooke Army Hospital for treatment. Years later, not finding his name on the “Wall” in Washington, D.C. at the Vietnam War memorial, I concluded that maybe he was alive, or that a mistake had been made. I made some initial inquiries based upon a faded old document with his name and Social Security Number on it but they were fruitless. Occupied with my own life and family, I relegated his status to a fading memory, but I never forgot.
Then in 2006, additional information from a Kontum related Web site led to some Internet searches, use of private investigators, and contacting surviving MACV Team 33 survivors in an effort to gain closure. The faded war document that had provided that Social Security number, ultimately proved to have a reversed digit due to a wartime typographic error. Despite this setback, additional efforts by team survivors eventually recovered the correct SSN and an ironic form of closure was gained.
Ironic? Yes, the “dead” comrade was actually alive. He had “died” on the operating table at Brooke, but had, through a variety of what might be called medical miracles, survived, though badly scarred by his trial by fire. We eventually reunited, and it was an emotional and at times psychologically painful occasion. My survivor guilt had been lifted, 34 years after the event… I had remembered his last conversation before that flight, when he showed me a rocket fragment lodged in his flak jacket and said, “Well Jack, they’ve had their chance. I’m gonna make it.”
He later took that fatal flight, I thought at the time to fill in for me to look for NVA tanks, as I had just finished an all-night shift. You can imagine how I felt when I learned of the shoot-down, the loss of the pilot, who was also a good acquaintance, and my friend’s burn wounds. During the reunion, he told me that no, his flight was to distribute new communication security codebooks and was not as a replacement for me. Thirty-four years of thinking I was partly responsible for his death… There is a cost to violence… As the authors ask… how far are you willing to go?
Thankfully, I’ve only shot and killed one enemy soldier that I know died from my bullet only, my pulling the trigger, a teenaged NVA sapper at Kontum in late May 1972. I have written of the story elsewhere over the years, but the bottom line is that it was unexpected, a snap decision (the infamous but accurate 1 to 3 seconds rule of gun fighting), him or me, his ChiCom stick grenade versus my M-16A1. My rifle was held only in my right hand, my left held a baseball grenade, and so the shot was attempted at his chest but as some do in crisis, instead of squeezing the trigger, I jerked too quickly as my hand brought the rifle to bear, and the round instead stuck him fatally in the head. The resulting wound was reminiscent of the JFK head shot in Dallas in November 1963.
It remains etched in my aging mind and memory even to this day. From time to time, I see the old photograph taken by a news photographer who was there that day, and I ponder the irony of its eventual publication in the
Also during the Kontum fighting, there was an engagement at a water tower where an enemy heavy machine gun had already shot down a Vietnamese Air Force A1-E and damaged a U.S. Marine Corps F-4 Phantom. I lost six out of ten Vietnamese soldiers in helping destroy that tower. Here’s the hard part to that Silver Star I was awarded. The award was presented by B.G. “Iron Mike” Healy and then Colonel “Barbwire Bob” Kingston. I’d never met either of them, but as the medal was awarded, I remember seeing the faces of those six dead soldiers and thinking of B.G. Healy’s dead predecessor, the controversial and legendary John Paul Vann who died flying to Kontum at night in early June 1972. There is a cost to so-called “glory”…
With that thought in mind, for those readers who know they will never be in uniform, be it military or in law enforcement or related service, ponder this. As I now work with psychiatric forensic maximum security patients, you might think that murderers have no such feelings. And in some cases, I would agree. But I have seen convicted murderers suddenly awake screaming from a sound sleep and try to run from what they had done, I believe, honestly describe as the hands of their victims reaching for them through the walls of their room. As we staff intercepted these scared criminal patients, we realized that despite their crimes, there was more to their punishment than that meted out by the legal system. Some of them suffered a continuing cost also.
As you currently scan your various news media, I’m confident that you have been made aware of the increasing numbers of U.S. combatants now diagnosed with various forms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) related problems following combat operations in various parts of the world. Searches via the Internet will reveal other related problems for law enforcement, emergency responders, and emergency department personnel as they deal with the results of interpersonal violence. Experts like Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (U.S. Army, Retired) have written about the costs of interpersonal violence in books like
I now live in a state where a citizen can, after meeting certain conditions, legally carry a concealed firearm. I am one of those citizens who do carry such a firearm. My wife and I live in a fairly remote area, and so when strangers come to call we tend to meet them at our outer gate carrying concealed. Sheriff’s deputy response time is likely thirty minutes or more to our location, so we are on our own so to speak. With that said, if you are ever “on your own” and have to make that 1 to 3 second lethal force decision, please also remember this old legal adage: If the fired bullet came from your gun, then it’s your lawsuit if anything goes wrong, like hitting an innocent bystander.
So, even though I’m now sixty, I follow Massad Ayoob’s expert advice and still regularly practice with our weapons—dryfire, presentation, concealed carry options etc.—while always remembering in the back of my mind “the cost of it” that looms if “on that day” I again meet a lethal force threat. Remember… “your bullet, your lawsuit” so try not to miss. When I served as a reserve police officer, that thought was always there during our patrols, especially when responding to calls for assistance. It may serve you well also if you carry a firearm.
I leave you with this thought and image. At the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, hundreds of U.S. and allied troops were purposefully brought to the carnage at the so-called “Highway of Death” north of Kuwait City where allied airpower had devastated retreating Iraqi formations. I was already there with a British unit and can still see some un-blooded American troops cheering and laughing as they investigated the destroyed columns and spray painting “US #1” and related sayings on the destroyed hulks still reeking from the heat bloated bodies within. I think the commanders who ordered these tours were trying to ensure that their troops were able to see the battlefield power of the American military.
I’m not so sure they fully contemplated the psychological trauma they may also have inflicted on their units. How many, who may have never slain an enemy combatant are still haunted by those images and smells as they now visit VA hospitals for psychiatric treatment? I do not know, but I ask you to ponder the “cost of it” effect before you voluntarily enter that arena of interpersonal violence.
Be safe,
John R. Finch
