I have been hesitant to comment about the current topic because it is a very emotional issue and I don’t know the answer. I do believe that killing is very wrong - for whatever reason. Even the wording of the 5th Commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, was changed in a large proportion of Bibles during WW2 and Korea, to “Thou Shalt Not Murder”, but remembering my catechism days as a young Lutheran, and later when I studied the Seventh Day Adventist and Roman Catholic Doctrines, “kill” was taught and very clearly defined as not just the act of ending a person’s life, but the wish to harm any person by thought, word or deed; each was considered equally to be a breach of that Commandment.

To a soldier, the word “murder” has a different connotation than “kill” - a difference that my eyes have seen and, even thirty years later, a memory at which my mind and senses reel. As a believer in a Supreme Being, it is my faith in Him and my desire to believe in the power of good over evil that keeps me from becoming cynical, irrational and even mad. To believe the concept of “being made in His likeness” takes more than a little faith, particularly when I consider the evil that I have witnessed in my life alone.

The evil of being raped by my father, of having my left arm broken so that I would have to use my right hand to write, of having my leg broken because I became distracted and let my mind and the torchlight wander off when it was “supposed to be”, of having my mother leave me (when I was 4 years of age) with a younger brother and two younger sisters, of having our next-door neighbour’s son sodomise me when I was thirteen, of being witness to the rape and murder of a woman and her child in Vietnam, of having a young bloke, “Bill”, die in my arms on the way to hospital, of being beaten senseless by fellow Vets in an equivalent of a VA hospital when I told my story, of being hounded and threatened by fellow vets and the media just recently as I try to reconcile my experiences with who I am. These are events that come readily to mind - but there are others.

Mark, what I am saying is that we may become are who are either “because of” or “in spite of” what we have experienced. Timothy McVeigh became who he became “because of” his life’s experiences. He showed no remorse for his actions. He never publicly (or, to my knowledge, privately) asked for forgiveness. And he died because of his actions. I do not intend to debate the right or wrong of his death, that is for powers beyond my ability to consider; I know very clearly though, that he was evil because that is what he allowed himself become.

I have killed! From your poem I deduce that you also have killed - at first, second or even third hand. But I put it to you that the love you have allowed into your life, and the loving you have given is a decision made by you “in spite of” the horrors in which you actually and emotionally participated.

It is said that the only a person who does not consider themself to be a hero is a hero. Could not that be extrapolated to the fact that the only person who has killed and does not consider himself or herself a killer is a murderer? Likewise - I ask you, does someone, who is mad, know that they are mad?

The agony of the quandary that good people, like you and me, live every day of our lives is the knowledge and thought that we “could have” or “should have” done something in a different manner which would have effected the outcome of our experiences. But the difficulty there is very plain to see! What is done cannot be undone.

Where does that leave people such as you and I? It can leave us dead in spirit and worth, useless to ourselves and to others; or it can motivate us to lead by example and experience to show that the “givens” of nurture over nature are not as clean cut and decisive as the “professionals” would have society believe – “professionals” who make their living by conjuring excuses for an individual’s failings, so that those who find difficulty in conforming to the accepted standards of society have someone to blame. People like you and me are living proof that mankind does indeed have a choice as to whether they will live in harmony with their fellow humans - or not. And I truly believe that it matters not, your lot in life. A lowly beggar in Saigon invited me to share his rice - a multi-millionaire in the USA turned his back on me because I had a hole in my T-Shirt.

Peace be unto you Mark,

Your friend,
Tony

Each moment since my spirit died
I questioned how I could survive.
No liberation would be known;
compassion could be rarely shown.
Chains cast by the Devil’s forge
were tempered with no righteous cause.
Though I have killed with thought and sword
I’ve never murdered by my word

I am no Cain, though I have killed -
I am Abel and victim still.
I’ve been to earthly hell and back;
in front of death’s dark door I’ve sat.
Chains of despair, those links of pain
are weakened as love’s strength I gain.
Though Satan may re-forge those links
their substance still retains their chinks.

Truth in war is the will to live;
morals drain as if through a sieve.
All senses die as horror numbs.
Mans antithesis I have become.
Though pains of war always survive
for aeons after peace arrives.
Deaths lure with its promise filled
is tempting compared to life in hell.

I can and do write; reasons unclear
to all but myself - mind numb with fear.
To defend reality within my mind,
to continue living while I define
what and where and why I’m me.
The answer’s nowhere if I choose not to see.
And if deaths promise is truer than life’s
why should I bother to bear this strife?

I know! I know! What I know is
that my life’s not mine; it’s not mine to give.
To Him I belong, and to those I love.
When my turn comes to be with Him above
I will gladly feel the chains of despair
disintegrate softly with His breath of air.
And I will look at Cain’s Master below
as he writhes in agony at my God’s blows.