by Derek Farwell
Columnist

I’ve been asked a lot of questions about my deployment and life in the Army in general since I was discharged a few years ago. I’ve mentioned before that some of the questions I’ve heard are pretty dumb, but there are some that come up pretty consistently. I guess that it would be fair to say that historically, my willingness to answer questions about my deployment were highly dependent on my mood at the time, which mostly could be described as not very good. It also had a lot to do with who would ask me, and what I perceived their motivations for asking me to be.

One question that seems to be almost unavoidable is the old, “Did you ever kill anyone?” question. I suppose I can understand why so many people ask that, and then seem to be fascinated when someone says yes. This is something that I guess I haven’t given a lot of thought since my time in the Army. I understand why people are curious and ask that question, and in my younger days I probably asked a veteran the same thing. Then, when the day came where I shot and killed a person for the first time, I didn’t even pause to think about it. I suppose this is partially because we were being ambushed and after I shot him I started looking for the next person, so it wasn’t really an ideal time for some in-depth self-reflection time. But afterwards it didn’t bother me at all. I wasn’t happy about it, but I wasn’t upset about it either. In fact, I didn’t feel any different than before. Of all the things that I’ve carried with me from my time in the Army, that is not something that’s really bothered me at all.

One of the questions that I’ve been asked, and I’ve heard other people get asked before that didn’t make much sense to me was whether or not my friends had killed the person or persons that had blown me up. The bomb that blew up my vehicle was a deep buried IED that was remotely detonated from some sort of electronic device, which means that the person or group of people that blew us up were hiding somewhere not very far away and watching, and trying to get the timing right to push the button as we drove over the bomb they had buried in the road. Anyways, the question didn’t make sense to me because I didn’t really see what the difference would be whether they did or not. The damage had already been done. I wouldn’t have suddenly felt better had I heard that the guy who pushed the button was shot and killed after we left. He then asked me if presented with the opportunity today, would I kill that person and would I take it. I had to stop and think about it for a moment. Of course the answer is no because I don’t want to get in trouble and it would be wrong, but then I thought about a hypothetical situation in which I could possibly get away with it. Well, the answer is still no. At first I didn’t think much about it because I thought it was a dumb question, but I thought about it later as a broader issue. That being, do I hold a grudge or would I seek revenge against the people that tried to kill me only a few years ago. I know many of my friends would disagree with me, but I’ve moved on, and I have good things in my life that I’d rather spend time looking forward to than being angry and stuck on the past.

I’ve had much time since the Army to think about every aspect of my service. Sometimes there are just things on my mind that I’ve thought a lot about but can’t seem to make any sense of, I think that these thoughts are some of that kind. 

drfarwell@hotmail.com