Slim

this was a post I originally wrote in March of 2005. The actual encounter I describe is from New Years Eve just over three months previous.

Re-rereading it, and given the time of year, I decided that this would be the first of the flashback posts. In retrospect, I don't think the original post did enough to honour the sacrifice of life, limb and self gifted to us by the men and women of the armed forces of all countries. It was, however, a very real conversation. I will never forget the anger and pain of the moment. I think of slim every so often. I have never run into him again. I do hope that he is well, his family safe and growing.

March 25, 2005

His name was Slim, or at least that's what I'll call him. He was anything but slim, built more like a cargo truck.

I met Slim on New Years Eve in a back water town in South Korea. We were both travelling through, and had no real connections. I was there to visit friends for the occasion, he was being recycled out of one of this years war zones. Slim was drunk out of his mind and said far more than he should have. Slim was a sniper in the US army. Slim had lost his entire team on his last mission before he came into Korea. They were reduced to names that he kept repeating, over and over again in between bouts of rage and anger. Slim had trained every member of his squad. Although he wasn't in command, he had led them into combat for more than a year. Slim has a wife and daughter back home in one of the dirtier parts of the United States. He showed me their pics, and they're both beautiful. Slim told me about the conditions they were living in, and how his salary barely kept them afloat.

Slim showed me where the army had pulled a chunk of shrapnel out of his arm that left about twenty inches of scar and twisted the muscle all around the bone. He got that at the same time as he'd lost the last kid he'd trained. He told me what the kid said as he bled out in his arms. That's pretty fucked up. Slim had pulled the trigger on a young girl. He couldn't tell me her age, but he figured she was just about to turn into a teen. He'd counted her missing teeth through the scope on his rifle. Believe it or not, she was considered a combatant in that place she had lived in. Slim was ordered to do his job, and could not lawfully disobey. Could not lawfully disobey.

Slim kept telling me that in every real sense, the best thing he could do for his family back home was to die in combat. He said it again and again. He had worked out all the math of how much they would benefit financialy from his death. I think that's the most messed up part of all. Slim was not a bad guy. I hope he makes it home, and I hope he remembered what I said to him. He was damn drunk. I'm sure he'll remember not to drink soju again.

As you read this, hundreds of GI's are being cycled out of combat zones and into bases across Korea, Japan, and the Philipines. They get a month, maybe two, and then they get sent back. Some lucky ones get to go home. For the most part, the locals get to enjoy the company of these strung out, stressed out time bombs as they do whatever they can, wherever they are, to try and relax, forget, have a slice of normal, before training up and shipping out for the next tour. For the ones I've met, they're not stupid, barbarous idiots. They are conditioned, killing machines. They are far from home, they don't understand where they are, and they are frightened. They are too young to be doing this, and I understand now what the older soldiers mean when they say they always are. Even though they are starting to understand the breadth and scope of the propaganda they've had layered on their heads since they first memorized the pledge of allegiance, they've got nothing else yet, and easily fall back on the familiar patterns of their lives before they left America.



that was all I wrote then. It was a little close to the heart, even three months later. Here we are, four years later, we're still at war, the young ones are still heading in, the wheel keeps on turning. I pray you and your family are well Slim.