Training for war was kind of like a game. The trick was to learn what you could and escape harassment from the cadre. But, you couldn't escape the harassment because it was also part of the training. The sooner trainees catch on to that, the easier things go. Those who take the harassment personally really have a tough time of it.

Training to kill was kind of like a game also. They told us over and over that we would have to use these skills to complete our missions and to stay alive. The training was realistic. One soldier was killed accidentally in our training, not unusual. Sometimes as many as 2 or 3 per class died.

In the front of our minds we could absorb the training, but in the back of our minds, it seemed unrealistic to expect that we would actually take a life with any of these techniques.

As it turned out, we were capable of all they taught us and many more things we improvised as the situation called for it. I didn't have to do these things.

It only took a short time for a kid off the streets to become an animal of the jungle.

And now, all these years later, what am I capable of? A couple of years ago, I would have criticized anyone for doing some of the things that I finally wound up doing. Who would have thought I was even capable of doing it. (I'm not critical anymore, just sympathetic or empathetic).

One of the things I've learned of in survivor sites is SI. And at first thought, ugh, how could that happen. What could lead a person to doing that? And today, for the first time, I thought, maybe, just maybe ...

I even thought, how could i do this so it leaves a scar, a really good scar, a disfigurement. And it made me wonder "what am i capable of" ... Just like the young soldiers off the street who were capable of so much more than they ever imagined. Within weeks, they were doing things they'd never even heard of before.

kind of scary
T.