Remember my favourite series called Generation Kill about this elite recon marine unit that had a reporter embedded with them during the invasion of Iraq?
Anyway, one of the officers that I liked was Lt. Nate Fick. He's a Dartmouth graduate (which is supposedly some well-known and prestigious school in America) and he went join the Marines for experience and etc.
The thing is, he wrote a book called One Bullet Away, which tells the story of 5 years from studying in Dartmouth to being a Marine.
I've just watched interviews being done with him.
He seems very humble and very intelligent. In this interview where this old guy (I think he's some professor or something) asks him about his experience, the way he spoke, it just shows how intelligent he is!
And he was one of the characters I really admired when I watched Generation Kill.
And even more now after 'getting to know' him through his point of view in different things through watching interviews.
It gets more interesting, in the second half of the interview.
And the song really sucks. So you should fast forward it.
I want to get his book!
I must admit before watching Generation Kill, I was very ignorant about the Iraq War. Or any wars that was happening, besides World War one and two that I learned in history lessons.
Singapore's too safe.
When 9/11 happened, and there was such a big media coverage on it, I remember sitting in the living room thinking, "Okay, terrorist attack. Many people died."
And I focused on other stupid teenager concerns that I had straight after that. I was 12 at that time when 9/11 happened.
I didn't know anything about warfare, any type of trauma soldiers have when going into war, whether emotional, psychological, besides physical traumas.
Or how they had as Nate Fick said, a 'dead-man-walking' kind of mentality, where they knew that anytime they could die.
Or how they had as Nate Fick said, a 'dead-man-walking' kind of mentality, where they knew that anytime they could die.
I've never had to be in this kind of situation, where any minute I could get shot or bombed to death. I've never had anyone around me dying suddenly by a 'violent' or intentional death.
I've never had to shoot a stranger in another different country and had to get integrated back into 'normal' society and live life the way others/I used to do, even with the knowledge/experience of what I did during a war.
Or have my life put in an officer's hands when orders are passed down to pass through a hostile city.
It's just I've realised that there are so many things about Singapore that makes us take advantage of and that it's somehow not realistic.
I mean, I feel lucky I was not born in a country experiencing war, famine, drought or under the rule of a tyrant.
But when I see people around me now, being in the same state of mind I was in until a few years ago, of ignorance, naivety and consequently, 'bliss', it just makes me question the society that I grew up with.
I mean, I didn't undergo any NS training or whatever. What if someone bombed the Istana one fine day?
What will I do?
What can I do for my country?
Will I even want to do anything?
Will others even want to do anything?
Of course the men who are still in the NS or whatever will do it, for the rest of us.
I just feel it's strange, growing up in a society where everything is provided for us that it makes me feel unprepared.
And you know I don't like to be unprepared.
I want to get to know people like Nathaniel Fick.
Or Prof P.
Who's experienced who-knows-what in his studies of monkeys in rural areas of Indonesia and how he learned Greek and etc.
Or get to know the point of views of the Iraqi people on the war.
How they had to live everyday without knowing if suddenly their houses will be bombed and how their lives were disrupted by it.
It's just scary how many things have been going on around the world like natural disasters and wars when I've been living in this safe cocoon being clueless.
Doing something bad may be a sin, but isn't indifference a form of sin too?
