As a veteran of two fronts of a war (or of two wars, take your pick), I am often asked a startlingly insensitive question: "Did you ever kill anyone?" In the first place, this betrays a shocking ignorance of the structure of the military: only about 1 in 10 military jobs carry a person into direct combat. So most of us never even fire our rifles. Some didn't even carry one. Yet all of us put ourselves in harm's way, and all of us served in important capacities. Asking this question implies that the only *real* military job is a direct-combat job, which is demeaning to the 90% of us who were not in such roles. So before you even consider asking the question, "Did you kill anyone?" think to ask, "What did you do in the service?"
But the more important issue is this: killing, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how justified it may be, is intensely personal, and intensely distressing. No one *wants* to kill--no one sane, anyway. And doing so is one of the most psychologically damaging things that a person can do. Asking a member of the combat arms if he's ever killed anyone would be something like asking a grieving widow, "What was it like the first time you saw your husband's dead body?" That's a grossly inappropriate question that we would never dare to utter. Yet many, many people have asked me if I've killed. It is only because I have not that I have been able to answer without deep distress. If I had, I imagine it would be a extraordinarily distressing experience--killing ought never, never to be reduced to the level of casual conversation.
I don't know if you will be tempted to ask that question of a veteran. But if you are--or if you know someone who would--you might consider reflecting on the poem "Sadiq," by Iraq war veteran Brian Turner:
It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient
because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.
~Sa’di
It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, strand you in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.
~Sa’di
It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, strand you in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.
