Tag Archives: army
Sniper-Think, Killer Narratives, and The Loss of Presence
No cultural phenomenon could better support the U.S. government's interminable "War on Terror" than the current wave of sniper hagiographies on screens and in bookstores in 2015. It's not surprising, given a public forced to accept drone strikes as some kind of moral and even righteous activity. But I say, hey, let some of those shooter-turned-writers cash in on their experiences–they earned it better than the guys who sent them into harm's way. But it's all killing from a distance, isn't it–presidents have been doing it since long before the Mexican and Indian Wars of the 19th century. And now the average guy can do it vicariously from his armchair, raising a glass to "Reaper" or the next one, as he flips the page on yet another patriot claiming to be "the one" who got Bin Laden.
Partially because I was a Marine long ago, and knew several snipers, and received a fair amount of long-distance weapons training myself, I devoted a good portion of my novel Clotho's Loom to a sniper narrative, in order to show its dehumanizing effect on the shooter. Hey, these guys have red blood like the rest of us: some are as decent as anyone you'll ever meet, some are relentless fools. But let's not kid each other–what they do is not heroic, and not anything a mother or father should want sons and daughters to aspire to. Thirty-three confirmed kills may sound cool on your video game board at 17 years old. If you're older than that, it should start to bother you. At best, it's a necessary battle tactic; at worst, murder. It sure ain't fighting fires.
But I'm not really here to talk politics. Like a submarine story, there's no denying the inherent suspense in writing about military adventurism on the ground. And a novel ought to present the story, and let the reader judge. The problem is, biographies and pseudo-biographies and autobiographies like the present ones aren't confined by that limitation. So by definition, the "pro" position gets articulated, while the rest of us with hesitations stand mute.
No, then, I'm really here to point out the underlying lack-of-thought process that is echoes in our everyday lives by the sniper mentality, which is: Get More Distance. And how to do that? Simple: Better Technology.
Wait! you might say, what about skill, discipline, commitment? True, but the rest of us are living a diluted version. We have the distance, in spades. The rest?
Think about it. We have: headphones with artificial rhythms insulating us from the natural rhythms of our respiration, LCD screens blocking us from our views of the world and each other, mirrors distorting our sense of self-worth, drugs and alcohol deflecting the pain, noise between us and the silence or our own thoughts, texts saving us from lengthy telephone conversations, telephones saving us from inconvenient visits to friends and family, two tons of steel, glass and airbags between us and the next driver, navigation systems telling us which way to steer, calculators doing the math for us, Google searching for us, virtual dating and break-up by text, contact lists remembering numbers and even names for us, long-distance college classrooms taught by God-knows-who, kevlar and rubber cushioning our feet from the grass, an average 38-minute commute between home and job. Cameras digitize our faces to keep our loved ones apprised of our appearances. Tattoos and piercings take the place of scars. We do our best trash-talking online [ahem].
And 7000 miles between us and the wars. So many that we don't think about them for days at a time.
From my list above, half of the items did not exist a generation ago. A century ago, almost none. In 1915, you visited with your people if you could, wrote them letters if you couldn't. And you wrote "I miss you," because you really did–no technology dulled the pain for you, because that kind of pain is normal, it's healthy, and it's designed into us at the genetic level in order to help us keep our priorities straight. And in those days, if you wanted the land or the resources or the lives of another country, you had to send tens of thousands of your own husbands and fathers and sons, with a very real probability you'd never see them again, over there to either take those things, OR decide they weren't worth the risk and violence after all, and come home or stay in the first place.
We're all snipers now. Most, risk-free. Are we heroic?
You'll be a better hero to your kids if you hug them when they need it, and scold them or grab them by the shirt-collar when they deserve it, and put up with the discomfort-level, either way. A text and emoticon just keeps you too far away.
Tagged america, army, bin laden, clotho's loom, cultural criticism, led zeppelin, marines, military, politics, shawn stjean, sniper, technology, USA, war on terror