The Warrior's Dilemma

TW: violence, slurs, war

Despite the encouragement and training that Stephen had received over the years which confirmed that he was choosing the right course of action, something inside of him tugged at the reins, urging him to reconsider. As Stephen worked the rope around the man’s wrists and secured them tightly around the thick vertical support beam behind him, Stephen watched the man’s naked chest heave and tremble. It moved in concert with the man’s pleas, which, presumably, was meant to convince Stephen to stop what he was doing. The man’s voice exchanged nonsensical syllables like that of an infant who had yet to master the faculty of language, and his tone rose and fell in panicked swells, cracking intermittently. The babbling Arabic was extremely irritating to Stephen.

“Johnson, shut that fuckin’ haji up.” Staff Sergeant Fuller, Stephen’s Squad Leader, was just as annoyed as Stephen.

“Roger that,” Stephen replied. He was more than happy to comply. 

Yanking the knot tightly closed over the man’s wrists, Stephen stepped around the beam and rammed his palm into the man’s throat, immediately closing his fingers tightly around the man’s neck. The man’s body convulsed from the sudden impact against his throat and his core tightened with an instinctual need to cough. He could not. The veins along his temples bulged and his eyes reddened from the pressure. Stephen stared venomously at the man’s face, which seemed to shrink into itself as if doing so would reinforce the strength of his neck. “Shut. The fuck. Up.” Stephen spoke slowly as he tightened his grip. The message was clearly received, and the man fell silent.

Sergeant Fuller motioned to Private Gibson, Specialist Liu, and Private First Class Ramirez, who were locking the cell from which they had retrieved the prisoner. “Alright, bring it in, men. You heard the Interrogator. We’re fuckin’ these guys up tonight.”

The Interrogator on post arrived several months after the battalion took over the power plant and turned it into their Forward Operating Base. No one knew who this Interrogator was, as the uniform that he wore was not required to meet the typical identifying standards of the army -- his fatigues had no name tape, no branch identifier, and no rank. The men of Stephen’s infantry battalion assumed that the Interrogator was CIA. Despite the fact that the Interrogator had no official place in the Chain of Command, every soldier who pulled a guard shift at the makeshift prison on post was expected to follow the Interrogator’s instructions in regards to the detainees whom the soldiers brought back for questioning from their various missions and raids.

When Stephen arrived with his team members and Staff Sergeant Fuller to relieve the soldiers who were on shift before them, the Interrogator pulled them aside. “Alright, guys. I’m gonna’ show you three prisoners who were brought in together the other night. These shitbags were caught with a bomb in the trunk of their car, and none of them are talking. I want you to make their lives hell tonight. No broken arms or legs or anything like that. Ribs are fine. But make ‘em suffer.”

Their eight-hour shift was only beginning that night when the first punch was thrown. One by one, Stephen and his fellow soldiers took turns on the three prisoners. Left to their own devices, the soldiers came up with different ways to torture the men. Aside from the obligatory beatings, lighters were used to burn them, and their clothing was ripped off of them. Their naked bodies were doused with water to increase the effects of the near-freezing winter temperatures of the Iraqi desert, and they were dragged with their hands and feet bound, wet, bloodied, and wailing, across the floor. In the midst of this, Stephen found himself stepping back. Sergeant Fuller and Stephen’s team were laughing and joyously celebrating one another’s achievements based on the degree of damage they caused as they scarred, bruised and bled the prisoners. Stephen scanned the cages surrounding them, some empty, others occupied by other prisoners. The spectacle was in full view of them all, though none of them would allow themselves to watch.

Something tugged again at Stephen’s mind as he wiped a wet smattering of crimson blood from his knuckles, but the feeling was interrupted when Liu called out to him: “Hey, Sarn’t Johnson, it’s your turn!” Stephen looked up to see Liu gripping onto the ankle restraints of the naked man he had just dragged across the floor. The man was weeping through purple, swollen eyelids.

“Pass. I’m takin’ a break.” Stephen stepped outside into the chill night air. He was sweating from exertion, and the cold was inviting. The muffled cheers of his teammates could be heard through the walls as Stephen lit a cigarette and checked his watch. There were still four hours left in their shift, and Stephen began to question how much of this torture they would be able to administer in the time remaining. As he mused over this, the tugging of his conscience returned. He realized that he had no idea whether the Interrogator’s claim was true. Stephen and his squad mates were operating solely on the Interrogator’s word, and essentially doing the Interrogator’s dirty work for him. Why was he taking part in the torture of men who had never wronged him personally, and whom he had never met before in his life? Perhaps they were unaware of the bomb in the trunk. Perhaps they were innocent.

Stephen shook his head in an attempt to clear such doubts from his mind, and steeled himself with the training he was given throughout his military career. These prisoners were here for a reason. They were his enemies, and the enemy was not to be granted sympathy. There was no room for such things in war. Remorse and apprehension had no place on the front lines; they distracted from achieving the objective and reduced efficiency. He was a United States Infantryman, a relentless soldier who was trained for one thing only: To kill the enemy. Recalling the ruthless mindset that was encouraged and rewarded in the Infantry, his heart began to harden once more.

He remembered being forced to scream “Kill!” as loud as he could as he stabbed a humanoid dummy with his rifle-attached bayonet during training. As he grit his teeth, stabbing and slashing at the dummy, his Drill Sergeant screamed into his ear about how he should rejoice in spilling the enemy’s blood, and how the enemy would love to spill Stephen’s blood if he allowed it.  

He remembered standing in formation on many occasions, when one Drill Sergeant or another would yell over the multitude of recruits, “Men! What makes the green grass grow?” to which they would deafeningly respond as loud as they could, voices booming in unison and hoarse with unquestioning motivation: “Blood, Blood! Bright red blood!” This was one of the most popular mantras Stephen had learned during his training. Sometimes, religion was invoked in these mantras, perhaps to deepen the level of fanaticism among religious recruits. When a Drill Sergeant would ask, “Men! Why’s the sky blue?” Once again, in unison, all recruits within earshot would scream, “Because God loves the infantry!” The official color of the Infantry is Sky Blue, the same color as the braided cord that only Infantrymen are authorized to wear around their shoulders while donning the Army dress uniform.

He remembered the double-tap rule. “Make sure he’s dead,” Stephen was instructed as he stood over a supine soldier in training, “If you put an enemy down, it doesn’t mean he’s dead. Double-tap. Make fuckin’ sure he’s dead. Remember, Private: Two in the chest, one in the head.” He implemented this rule a number of times since he arrived with his battalion in Iraq.

These were only some of the training examples which came to mind as Stephen stood alone outside the prison. Stephen recognized the advantages of such training, with its unrelenting encouragement for merciless bloodlust, and that it resulted in a more efficient killing force, and was quite effective in creating a well-functioning Infantry. All of the training was readily absorbed and finally put into action by Stephen and the majority of his fellow soldiers while engaged in real-world combat operations in Iraq.  

Rage, hatred, and anger were picked up along the way, but so long as these destructive emotions were directed in the right direction, the leadership wholly encouraged their cultivation. It was all too easy for the Chain of Command to utilize the fear and hatred generated by war as fuel to keep the warrior spirit burning in their soldiers. There were soldiers in Stephen’s battalion who completely embraced their hatred, while others were hesitant, and still others outright refused to take part. The latter group, though they numbered very few, were removed from the line immediately, and sent back stateside to be removed from the military. Stephen fell somewhere between full embrace and hesitance, but more often than not, he would succumb to the fires of hate and the discipline of his training.  Whoever Stephen was before he enlisted, whatever values he held dear, whatever morals his parents had instilled into him as a child -- it was all useless to him, now; he had been morphed into something else entirely, something his parents and siblings, even his friends back home would shrink away from.

It was just the way it was. Many civilian values held no merit in the life of a soldier, especially that of a combat Infantryman, whose focus in war was so foreign to the modern American mind that, if they knew the truth of it, they would never allow, without close supervision, a combat Infantryman's re-integration into their comfortable civilian society back home. Nevertheless, Stephen had made his choice, at nineteen years of age, to join the Infantry. He was now twenty-three years old, and had made himself comfortable with military life. The truth was, he excelled at his job, and felt that he had finally found a profession in which he performed well, justifying his choice of profession to himself, despite any moral or ethical doubts, with the idea: So long as war exists, the world will need warriors to fight in them. This gave reinforcement to his justification for hatred and murder.

Perhaps there were soldiers, somewhere, who could carry on with their duties while strapped with the guilt that their former civilian morality might force them to shoulder. Stephen was not one of them. Only by abandoning one could he embrace the other. Given the current circumstances of his life, his only option was to concede to the cruelty and bloodshed which made up the life of the warrior. However, he did not plan to stay in the military for the rest of his life. Of course, without the power of retrospect, he could not realize then the way his decisions as a warrior now would trickle insidiously into his attempt at reintegration as a civilian in the future.

For now, Stephen found a sense of comfort and worth in that he was a good soldier, and a valuable member of his Squad. His actions and ability to complete the mission, whatever that mission may be on any given day, helped secure the lives of his fellow soldiers and suppress the enemy’s ability to take them.

Little else mattered, at this point.

Stephen took a final drag of his cigarette and dropped it onto the ground at his feet, crushing it out with the toe of his boot. He stamped out his doubt in the same fashion. Now was not the time for doubt. Doubt killed motivation, which killed purpose, which killed the mission, which could kill his fellow soldiers, and possibly himself. As a Team Leader, he could not allow that. He rolled his neck over his shoulders and stretched his arms before opening the door to the prison, rejoining his brothers inside to help carry out the order given to them for the remainder of their shift.