Hmph. Sometimes I run across something that brings me up short and makes me realize just how lucky I am to have been born in a land of peace and plenty, having never seen a hungry day and my struggles have always been of my own choosing. In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought Id pass along this gem written by an anonymous American soldier. (Edited for language and clarity) I gave a little kid my chow (MRE) in Liberia - saw her looking at me with big hungry eyes, so I tossed it over the wire. She was happy, sitting under a tree outside our perimeter shoveling that food into her face. Shed smile and wave at me, and Id wave back. I was probably grinning like an idiot, too. A teenage/young dude came up and tried to snatch it from her, and she struggled with him. He shot her once in the stomach with his AK, grabbed the chow, and ran off into the jungle. The whole thing took maybe 20 seconds. That little girl dug these furrows in the dirt with her heels while she was dying, like the motion youd use to scoot under a car you were working on, only she didnt move anywhere. Scoot, scoot, scoot....and she was done. I think about those marks her heels made in the dirt a lot. You know what terrifies me the most? That young guy showed me a fundamental truth about human nature. Were all descendants of thousands of generations of humans who were smart enough, tough, enough, and ruthless enough to survive and breed successfully. When push comes to shove, a rational person will do what it takes to stay alive even at the expense of another human being. If people werent like this, tigers or some other predator would rule the earth. Its that old saying,Everybody is three missed meals away from being an animal, except it happened right in front of me. That young killer probably looked at it like,I needed food, so I got food. He was probably really, really hungry because the situation there was the grimmest of grim. I used to think he was some psychopathic outlier, but other things I saw on other deployments were worse in some ways, and reinforced the point. We lionize charity and self-sacrifice when they occur in bad situations because its uncommon and counter to survival. So, have a good one, my friend. And watch out for the human animals, theyre all around you, and inside you.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 16:13:42 +0000
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