Did it work? Who the hell knows? Pulling that trigger didn't make me any more sure of myself, I know that much. I was still the same scared kid, except now I had every reason to hate myself.
So: what did it feel like? The truth is, it felt good. After days of terror and fear, after chaos and violence on a scale I'd never imagined, when I pulled the trigger and shot that burning man as he ran, all of the sudden I had control, I had all the control. When I pulled that trigger, just for a moment, I was as powerful as God, and for just a second I said "Yes!" and knew that no one could ever f*ck with me again.
It may be that isn't what you want to hear. There I was, making a noble sacrifice for my country, putting myself in harm's way to protect your freedom. Forget about it -- once the shooting starts, all that bullshit evaporates. All that's left is 'Get me the hell home.' You wonder how it is civilians get killed in war? It’s because we take a bunch of scared kids, hand them guns, stick them in a shooting gallery, and they do what comes naturally.
After my initial exhilaration, however, what came next was horror and shame. Not because I'd killed -- after all, that's what you do in war. Shame at myself, for my reaction, for that instant of bloodlust and elation at killing another man. It was all over that quick, but as I said before, it never really ended. I can return to that moment any time I want, simply by closing my eyes.
For me, the rest of the Gulf War was merely aftermath, including the battle at Rumayla, where second platoon lost a tank and where I pointed my machine gun at a wounded man who was missing the bottom half of his legs. I was so scared I screamed at him to stay still, spittle flying from my lips as I threatened to kill a man who was already dead anyway.
Sixteen years later, I can see his face. I wonder if his family knows what happened to him? I wonder about the family of the man I killed along Highway 8, who I never saw except as a black silhouette. Somewhere, his mother grieves. Somewhere, his wife or his children learned of his death (or maybe they didn't, maybe they never got any word at all) and wonder who was the person who killed him.
Not long before we invaded Iraq in 2003, some guy who was a REMF during the war wrote to one of the Gulf War veterans email lists, wondering why I had "turned against America." Idiot. It's the people who lie to drive us into war who turned against America. It's the Americans who let us do it without question who have turned against America.
I catch myself sometimes thinking about the soldiers of 4-64 Armor (my old unit) and what they must be going through today, preparing for their third tour in the current incarnation of the war. What will happen to the gunner who shot and killed Captain Korn a during the ground invasion in a friendly fire incident? Or the other gunner, who fired a high explosive round into the Palestine Hotel, killing a Spanish journalist. Will they, like me, be haunted by those they killed?
You should be, too. They are our collective victims, our collective responsibility.
And so it goes on. Another war, another tragedy. Do you feel safer today?
You notice I still haven't answered the question? What does it feel like to kill someone? It's like asking what it feels to breathe. If you didn't vote, well, you should know what it feels like to kill, because you pulled the trigger just as sure as I did. The scariest thing about it wasn't how shocking or gory or frightening or terrible it was. The real horror is in how easy it was. One two three. Pull the trigger, track the tracers on to what was, after all, a brightly lit target (don't forget he was on fire) and poof, he's dead. So easy I was afraid of myself. So easy I worried for years it might happen again, in less socially acceptable circumstances. So easy I can still smell the blowing wind and the burning gunpowder today, I can still see him when I close my eyes.
It occurred to me a couple years ago that now that we've "liberated" Baghdad (you still believe that, right?) maybe I could go back there and seek out that spot, somewhere along the highway where part of me died along with the man I killed. Would I be able to find it? For some reason, I think I could. What would I do there, other than go insane?
The defining fact of my life: when it came time to shoot, I did. I had a choice. It wasn't in the heat of battle. By that time I'd gotten my machine gun off safe and back from Sergeant Lino and I'd awakened. When that man ran out, on fire, I calmly, thoughtfully, murdered him. Not in the heat of battle, while I was wildly terrified, but calmly and in cold blood.
And that, I think, is what it felt like to kill someone.
Next time, just don't ask.
Charles Sheehan-Miles is a former executive director of Veterans for Common Sense and author of Republic: A Novel of America's Future.
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