those that have never been to war, would you be scared?

[raidsguy]

Fear under Fire

To those of you that think you would faulter under fire....read.
I have been in combat twice. Two times too many. I am one of those guys that has an unlucky streak and when things have the potential to go bad they will. Murphy was an optomist.(Pat Rogers,often)
I picked up 30 young leathernecks on thanksgiving 2002, 2 weeks later we were in Northern Kuwait preping to breach Iraq. I was concerned about the young men and thier inexperience. My concern was quickly lost. The young men that i took to war were more valliant than words can explain. They will never recieve lavish medals, nor will they ask for one. They simply wanted to stay alive and kill the enemy. It's very simple....regardless of what you think you will do, everyone has a primitive instinct, only some of us have seen it surface.

 

[TheBluesMan]

I thank you for your service, Raidsguy.

 

[XavierBreath]

As one who has been there, I don't think I would be out of line by saying that every man who goes to war is scared, very scared. They are scared that they might die, but they are even more scared that they might fail and let their buddies down. For many this is a conflict, and a source of mental anguish after the fact. Every family who must send a father or son is scared. If a person is not scared, then they have simply not faced the reality yet. The reality is not what many think it is. Some come back with their lives, but they never come back to life as they knew it.

What is amazing is that in the face of this fear, people still go, if for no other reason, a love of country and a feeling of obligation to the same. As an old man with a young warrior's heart, I salute and honor those men who go where I can no longer go, so that I might live in peace. There is no greater gift that can be given.

 

[2002gti]

actually i work with a guy that wasn't scared. he served 3 tours in vietnam and was a tunnel rat. he said when he came back from the first tour he had to go back. he's probabaly in his 50's and still talks about wanting to be in the thick of it.,,,,,,,that might be insanity. one time i went into a dark office to use the phone, taLKING FOR ABOUT 5-10 MINUTES AND I LOOK IN THE CORNER AND HE'S JUST SITTING THERE LISTENING TO ME, SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME......

 

[Dwight55]

moa said it in this: "I have often heard guys "who have seen the elephant" say they were truly scared, but then that is often when their training kicks in and takes over. Good training seems to be key in controlling your fear."

Without the training, you have no idea what to do, . . . so you either improvise (usually with less than optimal results because the bad guy is betting on your reaction without training), . . . or you are reduced to a sniviling, bawling, bundle of worthlessness.

That is why so many of us stress training: training: training. In the heat of the battle/incident, your training will kick in, . . . you will react, . . . and in most cases it will have positive results.

Knowing you can stand up to a known threat through having survived training is what makes the difference from being just plain scared, . . . to falling apart. Plain fear kicks in the adrenalin, . . . gives you a oomph to go, . . . where the overwhelming fear causes you to acquiese to the enemy.

May God bless,
Dwight

 

[croyance]

he's probabaly in his 50's and still talks about wanting to be in the thick of it.,,,,,,,that might be insanity

I've heard of this sort of thing. Appartently some found that they were very competent at war, which gave them some feeling of control of their environment. In day to day life they don't have that feeling.

 

[Phil Ca]

Any one that did not exhibit a bit of fear when under fire in Vietnam was to be avoided at all costs! There were times that I would awaken in the night and find myself in a cold sweat. Sometimes it was the lack of outgoing artillery fire that would cause me to awake. Other times it was distant gunfire or just the desire to go home to my family and see my wife and kids again. I did not do anything spectacular while there. I just got up each day and went to work and spent many hours each week on guard duty either in a bunker or in a tree house behind a .50 caliber MG.

I want to think those of you that were involved more than I in any conflict. I volunteered to go in my Ordnance MOS because that was where I felt I would be best suited to serve. I friend who was in the infantry volunteered at the same time and became a RTO. He was killed by a sniper just 33 days before he was to go home. He was the only son of a widow in Overland Park, Kansas. He was just about 90 days short of his 20th BD when he was taken. His name was Allan Herbert MacDonald. the last time I saw him alive he had aged with streaks of grey in his otherwise dark hair. He had furrows in his face like that of a person in their 40's might have.

I have always felt some survivor's guilt because of his untimely death.

 

[.45 Vet]

If the thought of going into combat doesn't frighten you, you're either insane or lying to yourself. On the other hand, very few people are aware of their abilities until they're forced to use them.

On the lighter side, I've got this reminder posted at my computer desk; "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"...

 

[buy guns]

i have never been in any type of combat situation but would like to experience it mainly for the rush you must feel because i am bored as hell with normal life. i would have joined the army if i didnt have to get up so early and get yelled at all of the time.

 

[DorGunR]

As one who has been there, I don't think I would be out of line by saying that every man who goes to war is scared, very scared. They are scared that they might die, but they are even more scared that they might fail and let their buddies down.

Yep.......the man got it right.

 

[FF1090]

I was too young for Vietnam, but I remember how even as late as '75 when I gaduated, it still scared the guys who had to register for the draft. A few years later, on board my Navy frigate, we crossed Kadaffy's "line of death". You bloody well bet we had tight sphincters! But, we never fired a shot in anger. Doing Naval Gunfire Support missions off Lebanon, we heard the shooting in the hills - but never fired a shot in anger.

The closest we came to this kind of experience was late one night at sea, the fire alarm sounded - "Fire in the JP5 Pump Room! - This is NOT a drill!"
Oh crap! If the Helo fuel blew, this ship goes down! We went to General Quarters, and made it in half the time we ever did in training. Those young men who had been so inexperienced and contentious in normal duty - they got it under control quickly, while the rest of us at our stations (me as phone-talker in the Transmitter Room) sat it out sweating buckets.
In that early hour, those scared young men truly came together as a fighting crew for the first time, doing as they were trained and performing admirably. I was mighty proud of them. They'd do to "ride the river with!" I have no doubt they'd acquit themselves well in wartime too.

 

[Hal]

those that have never been to war, would you be scared?

LOL!
Nope - time for being scared would have long past by the time my tired out of shape big fat hairy 52 year old butt would be called up for combat. Think about the situation in WWII Germany at the very end where only young kids and old men were left to guard the Fatherland.

20/30 years ago heck yeah! I'da been as scared as everyone else.

 

[TexasVet]

i cant imagine walking through the jungles of vietnam, that is suicide fer sure.

No, it isn't, actually. There were around 1 million US troops in Viet Nam during the war, from beginning to end. There are around 58,000 names on the Wall. The odds for survival in ANY war are very high.
But, yes, fear is always there. And, yes, 58K is too many of my comtemporaries, classmates, friends, brothers.

 

[Avizpls]

Though Im not chomping at the bit, if it ever came to it....I'd go. and I'd try to make the best of it. Right now, my job is on the civilian side of the military. Toying with and developing the tools that the guys in the camo will be relying on in the coming years. Thats my part for now.

Afriad dont enter into it. More nervous to take the first step. I think onece I was in, I'd be ok.

until then, dont press the red button

 

[MeekAndMild]

Never went to war, but peacetime service was scary enough so that I never fly now.

I think I'd have been terrified if I'd had to go under enemy fire. Nothing like adding combat to the already scary experiance of military aviation (and I was just an auxillary crewman, not even a pilot!) Guys at our base had engine failures, wing root failures, control failures, mid air collisions, inadvertant ejections, electrical power line collisions, fires, lightning strikes and sometimes they just misjudged landings and crashed. Worst that ever happened to me was one near (really, really near) miss with a DC-9, one boost pump failure in a jet and blew an engine head in a piston plane.

 

[2400]

As one who has been there, I don't think I would be out of line by saying that every man who goes to war is scared, very scared. They are scared that they might die, but they are even more scared that they might fail and let their buddies down.
As an old man with a young warrior's heart, I salute and honor those men who go where I can no longer go, so that I might live in peace. There is no greater gift that can be given.

Well put.

I was told combat is 90% sheer boredom and 10% sheer terror, there is a lot of truth to that. In my experience, I was the most scared just before and as it hit the fan. Once the action started I was too busy to think or worry about being scared.

 

[IZinterrogator]

My $.02

Since I'm over here in Iraq, I thought I'd add a point. The only thing I am scared of is my troops being maimed or killed. If it is my time, then it's my time, but I would be forever questioning what I could have done different if one of my guys took the hit instead of me. That has been my only fear so far in the eight months I've been in Iraq.

 

[progunner1957]

Well said, IZinterregator! Here's hoping the Almighty will bring you and your fellow shooters back home in one piece.

Someone once said on the eve of WWII, "There are several things worse than war - they all come with losing."

There are too many civilians in our nation that don't grasp this concept. We cannot afford to back down from al-Queda or any other enemy. We have no choice but to fight on until every last terrorist is dead or has been "scared straight." The enemy will do no less themselves.

 

[Gonzo_308]

well, you gotta look at it logically (as strange as it sounds).

You're going to go someplace intentionally that you know someone is going to try to kill you. You're either scared or committed to committing suicide.

I'd much rather be in a jungle than in an alley trying to secure a city like our boys are doing right this very second.

The thing that always motivated me to keep from curling up into a little ball and wetting myself was the fact that my friends needed me. The thought of asking somebody to go there and do that in my place sickens me, always has. If I could go now I would. That was drilled, and etched deep into me that you never ask anybody to do what you would not do yourself.