2-57

 

57.

Every kill was on video.

The Apache saw all. The camera in its nose recorded all. So, after every mission, there wouldbe a careful review of that video.

Returning to Bastion, we’d walk into the gun tape room, slide the video into a machine, whichwould project the kill onto wall-mounted plasma¹ TVs. Our squadron commander would press hisface against the screens, examining, murmuring—wrinkling his nose. He wasn’t merely lookingfor errors, this chap, he was hungry for them. He wanted to catch us in a mistake.

We called him awful names when he wasn’t around. We came close to calling him thosenames to his face. Look, whose side are you on?

But that was what he wanted. He was trying to provoke us, to get us to say the unspeakable.

Why?

Jealousy², we decided³.

It ate him up inside that he’d never pulled a trigger in battle. He’d never attacked the enemy.

So he attacked us.

Despite his best efforts, he never found anything irregular in any of our kills. I was part of sixmissions that ended in the taking of human life, and they were all deemed justified⁴ by a man whowanted to crucify us. I deemed them the same.

What made the squadron commander’s attitude so execrable was this: He was exploiting a realand legitimate⁵ fear. A fear we all shared. Afghanistan was a war of mistakes, a war of enormouscollateral damage—thousands of innocents killed and maimed, and that always haunted us. So mygoal from the day I arrived was never to go to bed doubting that I’d done the right thing, that mytargets had been correct, that I was firing on Taliban and only Taliban, no civilians⁶ nearby. Iwanted to return to Britain with all my limbs, but more, I wanted to go home with my conscienceintact. Which meant being aware of what I was doing, and why I was doing it, at all times.

Most soldiers can’t tell you precisely⁷ how much death is on their ledger⁸. In battle conditions,there’s often a great deal of indiscriminate firing. But in the age of Apaches and laptops,everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped. I could always sayprecisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital never to shy away from thatnumber. Among the many things I learned in the Army, accountability was near the top of the list.

So, my number: Twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neitherwas it a number that made me feel ashamed. Naturally, I’d have preferred not to have that numberon my military CV, on my mind, but by the same token I’d have preferred to live in a world inwhich there was no Taliban, a world without war. Even for an occasional practitioner⁹ of magicalthinking like me, however, some realities just can’t be changed.

While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn’t think of those twenty-five as people. You can’tkill people if you think of them as people. You can’t really harm people if you think of them aspeople. They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could killGoods. I’d been trained to “other-ize” them, trained well. On some level I recognized this learneddetachment as problematic. But I also saw it as an unavoidable part of soldiering.

Another reality that couldn’t be changed.

Not to say that I was some kind of automaton¹⁰. I never forgot being in that TV room at Eton,the one with the blue doors, watching the Twin Towers melt as people leaped from the roofs andhigh windows. I never forgot the parents and spouses¹¹ and children I met in New York, clutchingphotos of the moms and dads who’d been crushed or vaporized or burned alive. September 11 wasvile, indelible, and all those responsible, along with their sympathizers and enablers, their alliesand successors, were not just our enemies, but enemies of humanity. Fighting them meantavenging one of the most heinous¹² crimes in world history, and preventing it from happening again.

As my tour neared its end, around Christmas 2012, I had questions and qualms¹³ about the war,but none of these was moral. I still believed in the Mission, and the only shots I thought twiceabout were the ones I hadn’t taken. For instance, the night we were called in to help someGurkhas. They were pinned down by a nest of Taliban fighters, and when we arrived there was abreakdown in communications, so we simply weren’t able to help. It haunts me still: hearing myGurkha brothers calling out on the radio, remembering every Gurkha I’d known and loved, beingprevented from doing anything.

As I fastened my bags and said my goodbyes I was honest with myself: I acknowledged plentyof regrets. But they were the healthy kind. I regretted the things I hadn’t done, the Brits and YanksI hadn’t been able to help.

I regretted the job not being finished.

Most of all, I regretted that it was time to leave.

 

1 plasma   

n.血浆，细胞质，乳清

参考例句：

• Keep some blood plasma back for the serious cases.留一些血浆给重病号。
• The plasma is the liquid portion of blood that is free of cells .血浆是血液的液体部分，不包含各种细胞。

2 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

5 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

6 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

7 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

8 ledger   

n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿

参考例句：

• The young man bowed his head and bent over his ledger again.那个年轻人点头应诺，然后又埋头写起分类帐。
• She is a real accountant who even keeps a detailed household ledger.她不愧是搞财务的，家庭分类账记得清楚详细。

9 practitioner   

n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者

参考例句：

• He is an unqualified practitioner of law.他是个无资格的律师。
• She was a medical practitioner before she entered politics.从政前她是个开业医生。

10 automaton   

n.自动机器，机器人

参考例句：

• This is a fully functional automaton.这是一个有全自动功能的机器人。
• I get sick of being thought of as a political automaton.我讨厌被看作政治机器。

11 spouses   

n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jobs are available for spouses on campus and in the community. 校园里和社区里有配偶可做的工作。 来自辞典例句
• An astonishing number of spouses-most particularly in the upper-income brackets-have no close notion of their husbands'paychecks. 相当大一部分妇女——特别在高收入阶层——并不很了解他们丈夫的薪金。 来自辞典例句

12 heinous   

adj.可憎的，十恶不赦的

参考例句：

• They admitted to the most heinous crimes.他们承认了极其恶劣的罪行。
• I do not want to meet that heinous person.我不想见那个十恶不赦的人。

13 qualms   

n.不安；内疚

参考例句：

• He felt no qualms about borrowing money from friends.他没有对于从朋友那里借钱感到不安。
• He has no qualms about lying.他撒谎毫不内疚。