OOM: Booth family home, Dec. 31, 1978
The first time Booth fired a weapon, it wasn't exactly loaded.
It was a Booth family tradition to fire off shotguns on New Year's Eve. Not loaded shells, of course, just the cartridge without the shot. It wouldn't do to fire buckshot at your nearest and dearest on a holiday, of all days.
And it was the entire family out, too. Not just Booth's mom and dad and little brother Jared, but cousins and aunts and uncles. New Year's was a big event for the family, and it just wouldn't do to celebrate it quietly. Noise and light and explosions were required. That meant fireworks, sparklers and shotguns.
Not everyone got a gun, of course. The little kids all got sparklers, and Seeley's Uncle Clifford was in charge of the actual fireworks. Uncle Clifford didn't have much use for guns, but he did enjoy a good fireworks display, and always put on the best one in town for Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Seeley's mom always said Cliff would light fireworks on Valentine's Day if his wife would allow it. Seeley had even asked Aunt Connie if she would, and she'd laughed and said he'd understand when he was older.
That was four years ago, when he was only a little kid. Now he was 8, which is quite a big boy, but he still didn't understand what his aunt meant.
But that New Year's Eve he didn't care about fireworks or sparklers or anything so childish. Now that he was 8, Dad had finally agreed to let him fire off a shotgun with the other older cousins. Seeley had been fairly dancing with glee all day, to the point Mom had given him extra chores to calm him down a bit. It hadn't worked, though. He'd been worked up all the same.
Just before midnight, when Seeley's barely awake anymore, his dad shakes him off the couch, and the whole group, even Jared, who's blinking and yawning like the little kid he is, go down to the dock by the lake, where Uncle Cliff's ready with the fireworks.
And then his dad hands him the 20-gauge Remington 870 shotgun, the smaller of his father's weapons, the solid feel of it seems even heavier in the dark and the quiet. The coldness of the metal and the weight of the gun calm him in a way peeling potatoes and cleaning his room hadn't - couldn't, maybe. Domestic tasks were all very well, but this - holding the gun was like being offered a glimpse into adulthood. Seeley wasn't sure he liked it. It felt like too much, suddenly, and sure, he's proud as hell of holding it, but shooting it seemed like something else again.
This was quite a responsibility, wasn't it? To be entrusted with something so precious, something that stood for all that being a man was about. Defending your family and home, feeding them, clothing them. Sure, this particular shotgun hadn't fulfilled those functions exactly, but Seeley had heard Granddad's stories about the Depression, knew what a shotgun had meant to the Booth family in those days. It's the big 12-gauge his dad holds that Granddad's father carried, and that Granddad had inherited.
He's too young to verbalize any ideas as abstract as "symbolism," but that's what he's thinking about all the same.
Then someone yells "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" and the fireworks go off, and his cousins are shooting, so Seeley lifts his shotgun and joins the joyful noise, whooping and hollering as loud as he can as they say goodbye to 1978. The first, small recoil startles him a bit, and he'll have a bruise on his shoulder the next day, but that doesn't matter much right now. Right now, all that matters is the noise and the light and the laughing, happy people around him.
Of course, when the hullabaloo subsided, he looked at his father, fairly glowing with happiness. "What's it like with real shot, Dad? Does it make a bigger noise? Is it cooler? Can I try? Please please please please plea-"
His father laughed, clapped Seeley on the shoulder. "Sure, kid," he said. It's probably not the best idea, since the old man's had a few, but Mom's gone inside and there's no one to stop this rather rash course of action. "Let's go round to the shed and I'll set you up."
A 20-gauge isn't the biggest shotgun out there, but it's sure too big for an 8-year-old to shoot comfortably, especially if he's not expecting the recoil. Seeley, with a new cartridge full of shot, is beaming like a champ as he takes aim at some bottles set up behind the shed. He's sure he can hit one - he's an ace at darts already, and he figures a gun can't be harder to aim than a little bit of metal and feathers.
Seeley stares down the sights, picks the bottle he wants to shoot, and sloooowly pulls the trigger.
He's certainly not prepared for the recoil that hits him. The bang, he was ready for, but the falling over from the force, that was unexpected.
Seeley was now staring at the sky. The shotgun lies beside him, and his father is howling with laughter.
In later years, he'd laugh too. But right now, he's embarrassed and in pain, so he does a typical 8-year-old thing - he cries.
He'll be hopping mad later, when he realizes his dad got a picture of him as he pulled the trigger.
Seeley remembers this as he undergoes weapons training at Fort Benning. He remembers it as he lies on a rooftop in Guatemala, when he sits in a small, dark room in Gaza. It's the memory that comes back to him every time he picks up a gun. The memory comes back, smooth, pleasant, like a well-rubbed worry stone, makes the flicker of a smile move across his face. It goes quickly, always goes quickly, but it's there, and it makes the job he does just a little less awful to contemplate. Unfortunately, it also has the reverse effect - all those jobs, all that shooting, all those deaths - have darkened that once-sweet memory.
When it no longer made him smile at all, even at family gatherings, he knew it was time to leave the Army.
It was a Booth family tradition to fire off shotguns on New Year's Eve. Not loaded shells, of course, just the cartridge without the shot. It wouldn't do to fire buckshot at your nearest and dearest on a holiday, of all days.
And it was the entire family out, too. Not just Booth's mom and dad and little brother Jared, but cousins and aunts and uncles. New Year's was a big event for the family, and it just wouldn't do to celebrate it quietly. Noise and light and explosions were required. That meant fireworks, sparklers and shotguns.
Not everyone got a gun, of course. The little kids all got sparklers, and Seeley's Uncle Clifford was in charge of the actual fireworks. Uncle Clifford didn't have much use for guns, but he did enjoy a good fireworks display, and always put on the best one in town for Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Seeley's mom always said Cliff would light fireworks on Valentine's Day if his wife would allow it. Seeley had even asked Aunt Connie if she would, and she'd laughed and said he'd understand when he was older.
That was four years ago, when he was only a little kid. Now he was 8, which is quite a big boy, but he still didn't understand what his aunt meant.
But that New Year's Eve he didn't care about fireworks or sparklers or anything so childish. Now that he was 8, Dad had finally agreed to let him fire off a shotgun with the other older cousins. Seeley had been fairly dancing with glee all day, to the point Mom had given him extra chores to calm him down a bit. It hadn't worked, though. He'd been worked up all the same.
Just before midnight, when Seeley's barely awake anymore, his dad shakes him off the couch, and the whole group, even Jared, who's blinking and yawning like the little kid he is, go down to the dock by the lake, where Uncle Cliff's ready with the fireworks.
And then his dad hands him the 20-gauge Remington 870 shotgun, the smaller of his father's weapons, the solid feel of it seems even heavier in the dark and the quiet. The coldness of the metal and the weight of the gun calm him in a way peeling potatoes and cleaning his room hadn't - couldn't, maybe. Domestic tasks were all very well, but this - holding the gun was like being offered a glimpse into adulthood. Seeley wasn't sure he liked it. It felt like too much, suddenly, and sure, he's proud as hell of holding it, but shooting it seemed like something else again.
This was quite a responsibility, wasn't it? To be entrusted with something so precious, something that stood for all that being a man was about. Defending your family and home, feeding them, clothing them. Sure, this particular shotgun hadn't fulfilled those functions exactly, but Seeley had heard Granddad's stories about the Depression, knew what a shotgun had meant to the Booth family in those days. It's the big 12-gauge his dad holds that Granddad's father carried, and that Granddad had inherited.
He's too young to verbalize any ideas as abstract as "symbolism," but that's what he's thinking about all the same.
Then someone yells "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" and the fireworks go off, and his cousins are shooting, so Seeley lifts his shotgun and joins the joyful noise, whooping and hollering as loud as he can as they say goodbye to 1978. The first, small recoil startles him a bit, and he'll have a bruise on his shoulder the next day, but that doesn't matter much right now. Right now, all that matters is the noise and the light and the laughing, happy people around him.
Of course, when the hullabaloo subsided, he looked at his father, fairly glowing with happiness. "What's it like with real shot, Dad? Does it make a bigger noise? Is it cooler? Can I try? Please please please please plea-"
His father laughed, clapped Seeley on the shoulder. "Sure, kid," he said. It's probably not the best idea, since the old man's had a few, but Mom's gone inside and there's no one to stop this rather rash course of action. "Let's go round to the shed and I'll set you up."
A 20-gauge isn't the biggest shotgun out there, but it's sure too big for an 8-year-old to shoot comfortably, especially if he's not expecting the recoil. Seeley, with a new cartridge full of shot, is beaming like a champ as he takes aim at some bottles set up behind the shed. He's sure he can hit one - he's an ace at darts already, and he figures a gun can't be harder to aim than a little bit of metal and feathers.
Seeley stares down the sights, picks the bottle he wants to shoot, and sloooowly pulls the trigger.
He's certainly not prepared for the recoil that hits him. The bang, he was ready for, but the falling over from the force, that was unexpected.
Seeley was now staring at the sky. The shotgun lies beside him, and his father is howling with laughter.
In later years, he'd laugh too. But right now, he's embarrassed and in pain, so he does a typical 8-year-old thing - he cries.
He'll be hopping mad later, when he realizes his dad got a picture of him as he pulled the trigger.
Seeley remembers this as he undergoes weapons training at Fort Benning. He remembers it as he lies on a rooftop in Guatemala, when he sits in a small, dark room in Gaza. It's the memory that comes back to him every time he picks up a gun. The memory comes back, smooth, pleasant, like a well-rubbed worry stone, makes the flicker of a smile move across his face. It goes quickly, always goes quickly, but it's there, and it makes the job he does just a little less awful to contemplate. Unfortunately, it also has the reverse effect - all those jobs, all that shooting, all those deaths - have darkened that once-sweet memory.
When it no longer made him smile at all, even at family gatherings, he knew it was time to leave the Army.