Maybe that marine who broke down over the little girl cried because shooting his M16 at a car full of civilians is the best thing he's ever done. One of the marines called me the other day and said, "I did all of these things my soul recoils from, but going to war was the best thing I've ever done." Killing, being able to murder-it's empowering.
It's the unresolved moral confusion that lingers. I thought it was fascinating that the most skilled observers in the Marine Corps couldn't agree on the direction of enemy fire, and then disagreed about the effects of our response to that fire-the Cobra lit up a truck with completely different people in it. It's a historiography question: If a car accident happens outside our window, witnesses will say different things. Everyone thought the fire was coming from this one location, but Sgt. One night we were taking fire from a ZEUS gun. I'd approach an artillery guy and say, "Hey, on March 25, I was here at noon and saw a bunch of rounds blow shit up," and he'd refer to his notebook and say, "Yeah, we had a call from 1st Recon at 12:08 and sent 10 HE rounds and 12 DPICMs to these coordinates."īy balancing my observations with the marines' perspectives, events came together through different POVs, in Rashomon form. What made my journalism so lucky was that I could match my initial notes with their accounts. I kept a minute-by-minute log of my observations and conducted interviews with the men in my unit. I think I was one of the only reporters who took notes exclusively by hand.
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