Confessions of a War Addict
I wake up to the feeds of drones dropping bombs. Russian soldiers scramble into trenches as they hear the whir of the small rotors overhead. A few point their AKs at the sky to shoot, but within seconds there’s a concussion on the ground and those nearby the blast crumple over, seizing in the last moments of their life. When it’s over, I swipe my thumb over my phone screen, sometimes hitting Instagram’s heart-shaped love button before a new video or image appears.
In a tradition dating back to the Napoleonic Wars, and likely long before that, I’ve joined the party of picnickers who’d sit on a hill overlooking battles–soldiers in brightly colored uniforms blasting each other with muskets and cannon. I can imagine the men popping grapes into their mouths with each volley, the women sighing as they tend to the children. What justification is there in such perverse observance? Is this no better than pornography?
I tell myself that to bear witness to the atrocities of human existence is to honor those involved. I read the stories of those who’ve been under heavy bombardments, bare the scars, and swear vengeance. I watch GoPro videos of men unboarding helicopters onto a battlefield where the captions reads–”This is the last they were seen. They will all die.” In my most dramatic engagement with the War in Ukraine, I rushed to see a screening at a community theater of the Hamlet Syndrome, in which veterans of the war in Donbas attempt to process their experiences through the words of Shakespeare. I sat alone in the back.
Before I joined the Army, I engaged in the same behavior. This was circa 2007–Youtube had just entered the popular consciousness, and I remember cracking cans of beer open in my dorm room, as I watched machine gunners atop humvees light up the streets of Baghdad. When this was not enough to satisfy my moral nature for enlisting, I sought out other media and Hollywood delivered exactly what I was looking for. “We're fighting a brand of evil that thinks the last 1,300 years of human progress is heresy punishable by violent death.” says Tom Cruise, as a U.S. Senator, in Lions for Lambs. Later in the film two former idealistic college students who enlisted in Army Rangers are seen valiantly combating the Taliban to their death.
I’ve gleaned insights from Ukraine’s engagement that I figure the Pentagon would envy. A 20 year old with a joystick and drone equipped with a hand grenade can kill more enemy combatants more precisely than our most expensive aircraft. The morale and resolve of the entire Ukrainian army can be more accurately gauged by the statements of a single soldier who has spent extensive time on the frontlines, than the statements of any general or president. I know this because I follow all the accounts, the personal accounts and the content aggregators. Everytime I hit the “love” button, more are promoted to me. My only dilemma is whether I keep following or look away, but I know, because of who I am, what decision I will make.
I can’t look away.
In a tradition dating back to the Napoleonic Wars, and likely long before that, I’ve joined the party of picnickers who’d sit on a hill overlooking battles–soldiers in brightly colored uniforms blasting each other with muskets and cannon. I can imagine the men popping grapes into their mouths with each volley, the women sighing as they tend to the children. What justification is there in such perverse observance? Is this no better than pornography?
I tell myself that to bear witness to the atrocities of human existence is to honor those involved. I read the stories of those who’ve been under heavy bombardments, bare the scars, and swear vengeance. I watch GoPro videos of men unboarding helicopters onto a battlefield where the captions reads–”This is the last they were seen. They will all die.” In my most dramatic engagement with the War in Ukraine, I rushed to see a screening at a community theater of the Hamlet Syndrome, in which veterans of the war in Donbas attempt to process their experiences through the words of Shakespeare. I sat alone in the back.
Before I joined the Army, I engaged in the same behavior. This was circa 2007–Youtube had just entered the popular consciousness, and I remember cracking cans of beer open in my dorm room, as I watched machine gunners atop humvees light up the streets of Baghdad. When this was not enough to satisfy my moral nature for enlisting, I sought out other media and Hollywood delivered exactly what I was looking for. “We're fighting a brand of evil that thinks the last 1,300 years of human progress is heresy punishable by violent death.” says Tom Cruise, as a U.S. Senator, in Lions for Lambs. Later in the film two former idealistic college students who enlisted in Army Rangers are seen valiantly combating the Taliban to their death.
I’ve gleaned insights from Ukraine’s engagement that I figure the Pentagon would envy. A 20 year old with a joystick and drone equipped with a hand grenade can kill more enemy combatants more precisely than our most expensive aircraft. The morale and resolve of the entire Ukrainian army can be more accurately gauged by the statements of a single soldier who has spent extensive time on the frontlines, than the statements of any general or president. I know this because I follow all the accounts, the personal accounts and the content aggregators. Everytime I hit the “love” button, more are promoted to me. My only dilemma is whether I keep following or look away, but I know, because of who I am, what decision I will make.
I can’t look away.