I do not like the military. If I can, I try to avoid them, and try not to talk about it.
It was not always so. Two brothers were military and my mother as a child, I liked their uniforms, I was proud to see them marching in Indian Republic Day parade, even though I was not attracted by guns and war games.
The closest that I went to the weapons were bows and arrows, made with cane rods, brushes used to clean the floor. The story of King Dashrath and young Shravan Kumar carrying his blind parents on the pilgrimage, I liked a lot. Dashrath was proud of his ability to archer, he blindfolds him and shoot arrows just listening to the sound of its prey. So Shravan Kumar was killed while hunting deer, Shravan while collecting water from a pond. As the king Dashrath, blindfolded me and threw the my arrows, and I get angry if the person affected by my arrow refused to pretend to die.
Maybe they were the family discussions about Mahatma Gandhi and his lectures on non-violence that had influenced me. However, the thing that I had marked the decision of my childhood friend to join as an officer in the Air Force. We grew up together, lived nearby and studied in the same class. We were very close and not a day passed that we meet to talk for hours. After becoming an officer, something has changed between us. Every time I came home, I felt different. It seemed that only gave orders and demanded obedience, which mi faceva andare in bestia. Non riuscivamo più a parlare con lui e litigavamo spesso. Lui diceva che ero cambiato, che ero diventato molto suscettibile. Io pensavo che lui si era montato la testa, non voleva più sentire le opinioni diverse dalle sue e pensava di essere un'ufficiale anche con gli amici. Poco alla volta ci siamo allontanati. Forse questo fatto ha creato in me, una diffidenza verso i militari.
Poi, negli ultimi decenni, sono diventato un pacifista più consapevole, mi sento contro le guerre e contro ogni tipo di violenza. Penso che niente giustifica una guerra. Quando sento che militari sono morti in Iraq o in Afghanistan, penso che sia parte del loro lavoro, mentre le notizie della morte dei civili mi colpiscono molto di più.
I understand that this reasoning does not explain what to do to fight the terrorists or fundamentalists. I think most of these wars have further fueled terrorism, but I know that even without the wars, violence and terrorism, are now part of life. If I were a woman who knows who will return to Kabul to the Taliban, and I can not work or study, maybe I would feel differently about the soldiers? I do not have an answer for this.
Some time ago I knew a guy who is on military service in Afghanistan. His name is Rajeev Srinivasan , is an American officer of 24 years and is of Indian origin. A friend of mine had written about him and had advised her to read the blog . Ero molto diffidente e quando sono andato sul suo blog , ero sicuro che l'avrei guardato per qualche secondo ma che non poteva veramente interessarmi. Invece sono rimasto affascinato dalla storia che lui raccontava - Era stato in India da ragazzo per le ferie estive e aveva aiutato il suo nonno nei campi. Poi, in Afghanistan, il suo comandante gli ha detto una notte che vi erano due uomini che facevano qualcosa di sospettoso nei campi, forse erano terroristi e bisognava eliminarli. Lui si è ricordato della propria esperienza con il nonno nei campi e ha spiegato al comandante, che quelli due uomini probabilmente costruivano i canali per portare acqua ai loro campi.
La sua storia mi intrigued. I have written to ask if by chance, his captain is not convinced of his explanation and ordered him to "eliminate" those people, what would he do? He would have killed even though he knew he did nothing wrong?
Sometimes I go back to her blog to read his stories of war. Now I feel an uneasiness in me, a waste. I would not understand and know what it feels like inside a military man. I think it is wrong to think so, close human beings into groups of stereotypes and refuse to acknowledge their diversity and complexity. And his stories, his dilemmas of the war, they fascinate me. Today I read his post about the transport of a Taliban who was injured while building a bomb that exploded. As he delivers this young Taliban, reflects the fact that it is a 24 year old boy like him, you probably have a similar gene, both come from the same geographical area, so why have so many choices in life? His conclusion is that maybe the Taliban did not have good relationship with their fathers and seek him in other respects.
the end when I think about it, I feel confused. I am not sure of my mental categories, the good and bad, everything is mixed together!
