Collateral damage

I'm an avid watcher of war documentaries. I remember my dad downloading world war 1 and 2 in color for me on a tablet I had in my tween years. I learned so much about the equipment and tactics from them. From there a niche interest developed, one I have in common with very few people. Recently I was watching a video on YouTube on the Vietnam war, a man was describing how he had made a friend in the middle of what he called hell. He spoke very highly of his friend whom he called a funny and intelligent young man. The Viet Cong (America's enemies) were notorious for using guerilla tactics while fighting in the dense tropical jungle. Among the most used weapons in their arsenal were booby traps (hehe boobies). So the aforementioned man and his friend were on one of the jungle trails when tragedy struck. His friend stepped on a mine and met a gory instant death.

The man telling the story described how he flew into a rage, grabbed his weapon and without thinking headed down the trail. He emphasized how an almost demonic bloodlust came over him and he began baying for a victim to exert his revenge on. He was praying to God for any Vietnamese person to come his way, in his own words " I was waiting for anyone, man, woman or child.". Such is the nature of war, no victors no spoils just hurt victims. You hit me I hit you harder and we'll see who falls first. I wonder if revenge is inherent to our nature. The need to retaliate with more brutality than we are struck with. It's in the plotlines of so many stories and we celebrate it. My question is who gets to determine the victim?

There's a term used by the military while describing civilian casualties, collateral damage. I often ask myself if the jargon hides the cynic deplorable nature of the act. Whether they factor in this 'collateral damage' when they plan their bombings and mass murder. I wonder if putting a title on it makes it any less horrific. I bring you back to the story of the American G.I in Vietnam. How he angrily walked down the trail looking for anyone to exact vengeance on. I ask myself if this would still be called collateral. How many victims have I claimed in my bid to exact on the universe what has been exacted onto me. I wonder if a lack of justice of what was perpetrated onto me turned me into a perpetrator as is so often the case.

There is well documented evidence suggesting that traumatic events during our lives, especially in its onset shape our personas. An example is how people who have been sexually abused may develop hard kinks as a means of reclamation of power. In order to feel in control, we find ourselves exerting the same cycles. Knowing this should make us more empathetic. Of course there are no excuses for the extremities and for exerting pain unto others, but again if you look at it from a wider perspective you learn that the perpetrators are also victims in their own right. Often victims of feelings of inadequacy or lack of control that pushes them towards extremities. I'll use another war analogy: 

After the end of the second world war, some of Hitler's generals were captured and set to face trials in the town of Nuremberg Germany. Among them was Hitler's second in command Hermann Goring. The United States sent a 'shrink', Douglas Kelley to try and pick Goring's brain. Kelley ended up being friends with his subject as he was a very intelligent and confident man, noble traits for a man associated with Nazi atrocities, perhaps the worst of all time. Kelley found his subjects so interesting that he wrote a book about his experiences with them called '22 cells in Nuremberg.' where he argued that his subjects were not pathologically evil but just victims of their environment. We're all just collateral damage