Haunted.

I’m haunted by the past, and the past only happened last week. I’m finished. I’m only scared of what I might do to my friends who seem to accept this slaughter without losing any sleep. Perhaps they don’t see the aftermath of the devastation of what they have wrought. The families decimated all in the name of some perceived difference from us that is unacceptable.

I had belonged to the hand on the heart, salute the flag, Mom’s apple pie variety. I truly believed our way was not only right but the only way for civilized people to live. But seeing that little wandering girl looking at where she had once lived and unable to conceive that not only it but her family were not anymore. For what? For the possibility that the him whom we were seeking was sheltering there, and I did it from thousands of miles away. I poured destruction upon her home and family, for what in the final analysis was for oil. Oil, which this country had in abundance and making it difficult for us to easily take it from them. I couldn’t let my friends do this any more, no matter the reasons we are given to justify our actions. I could not let the ‘higher’ authority that governed our actions do this without also suffering the consequences of their ruinous conclusions and orders. I became a traitor to our ‘cause’ of corporate oil and apple pie.

I puffed pepper into my nostrils and put a piece of bar soap in my mouth and then swallowed it just before visiting the medical doctor at our base and was duly granted a sickness absence when he saw high temperature and copious amounts of mucus spilling from my body. 

Under the guise of wanting to be able to wipe out more people, technical people gave me access to further information regarding the workings of drones and their missiles of enlightenment. I swotted and became more familiar with the technical details. I found the drones were secreted far away from the monitoring and activating body of us trigger-pressers. However, eventually and many early morning hours I felt just a little more in control of the mechanism that I was moved to seek vengeance for that little girl.

It can be perplexing to understand just what is it that can stir someone to action when many a similar time can leave one relatively unmoved. Whilst I was preparing for my retaliation I was aware of my irrational behavior. The men that I would target were virtual automatons in a chain of command. In order to effect a real change, one would need to tear down a total political structure that enabled my little girl to be deprived of her home and family. Still, I was determined to carry out my intention.

It is well known that the individuals that were in military service experience a comradeship that is very seldom duplicated in civilian life. One, in other words, would take a bullet for a buddy, or you felt you would especially after downing a few beers. Correspondingly, there existed a high level of trust throughout particularly the lower ranks. It was easy to get access to telemetry data that plotted our exploits. GPS is very efficient and capable of almost pinpoint accuracy.

I found there were many drones located close enough to my control panel that I could bring about a serious curtailment in the taking away of other little girl’s families and homes. I had surreptitiously copied the information I needed including the residence of a particular CEO of an oil company operating in the far country aided by mercenaries that information said brooked no opposition. As the days passed and my resolve increased, I suddenly realized I had gone mad.

As I lay in bed, I found that I had actually foamed at the mouth and not from any soap. I had awakened my compatriots with my fumings and what I would do. Esprit de corps, even in the services has its limits. My mouthings and rantings registered with the fellow remote arbiters of death and realized they had a serious problem on their hands. Feeling that they were betraying a comrade, they nevertheless went to see their very understanding chief of operations and laid out their concerns. He listened and then acted.

I was still in my bed when the invasion of my quarters proceeded. I was shifted unceremoniously to a room which I discovered had a locked door. After some hours it opened to an unsmiling trio of high-ranked individuals who sat down and started to ply me with questions.

They had brought in with them papers which were the result of my deliberations and searches. It was very comprehensive and damning against me. I, a lowly rank had somehow obtained information in my dedicated undertaking that was possibly classified above their own security status. Why had I selected out not only military personnel but private individuals to target? So I told them about the little girl. They were bewildered and started to yell at me. I kept my patience and explained even in more detail how this little girl now has no home or family. I had killed them. They still didn’t really understand that she had to be avenged and I was the man to do it. As these words came out of my mouth I knew I was preaching to the deaf. They came back at me that it had been important to eliminate the person that had been targetted. But I said the little girl had lost her family and her home. They couldn’t grasp the importance of this. They were not haunted, they were gung-ho. They said we were bringing civilization to a backward race. This was a race in which a lot of our civilization had inherited and benefitted from, and now we were destroying little girl’s families and homes.

They threw their hands in the air and consigned me to a prison cell and forced medication by way of injections to try to make me not think of little girls anymore.