Vet's day 1: pot washer
[violence trigger warning]
There was this guy working at the pot washing sink. Commercial kitchen at my job I had twenty something years ago, right? He was in his late twenties. Talking to some other worker who was a older Viet Nam vet.
Younger guy was talking about how he was in the American military deployed in Beirut. Said he had guard duty one night, walking the fence, patrolling the compound. Said a Lebanese guy came over the wire with a torch in some sort of attack. So he shot and killed the man with a shotgun. The other soldiers came and buried the guy quickly with a bulldozer. A literal cover-up. And this soldier was quietly sent home and discharged within a few weeks. I remember him asking the other vet something like,
"I don't know. Did I do the right thing? Should I have shot him? Was that wrong? Why'd they send me home? Why'd they want to get rid of me?"
He was fucked up. And he was thrown away.
This is one of the things I think of when I hear people praising the military.
There was this guy working at the pot washing sink. Commercial kitchen at my job I had twenty something years ago, right? He was in his late twenties. Talking to some other worker who was a older Viet Nam vet.
Younger guy was talking about how he was in the American military deployed in Beirut. Said he had guard duty one night, walking the fence, patrolling the compound. Said a Lebanese guy came over the wire with a torch in some sort of attack. So he shot and killed the man with a shotgun. The other soldiers came and buried the guy quickly with a bulldozer. A literal cover-up. And this soldier was quietly sent home and discharged within a few weeks. I remember him asking the other vet something like,
"I don't know. Did I do the right thing? Should I have shot him? Was that wrong? Why'd they send me home? Why'd they want to get rid of me?"
He was fucked up. And he was thrown away.
This is one of the things I think of when I hear people praising the military.