“Leave no man behind.”

Just watched Black Hawk Down yesterday, a movie about war in Somalia. It just goes to show that war, no matter for whichever and whatever ideals, always end in greater loss of lives; how men needlessly throw their lives away, dying in the most horrifyingly grotesque manners, wounded at all sorts of odd places. War is ugly.

“This is civil war,” said a Somalian, “and this is our war.”

Why do people have to interfere in other people’s war? Why does former US President Clinton have to send his men out to do his dirty job? It’s easy to command soldiers to fight, it’s easy to place his ass onto some chair, and counting casualties “19 died, 56 wounded” like they’re simple maths, when the soldiers who fought bravely out there yelled “Man down! Man down!” signifying the importance of lives. They’re more than just numbers, they?re lives.

Seeing a man’s torso got completely destroyed; your driving comrade blasted in the face by pieces of mirror and got blinded, with you yelling, “Step on the gas pedal! Keep stepping on it!” while you semi-calmly take control of the wheel; your teammate got deafened by sudden firing of the weapon you’re using; and a man whose pelvis got wounded badly by shots, and your mates and yourself had to perform a primitive operation using whatever knowledge they have and equipments at hand, watching your men trying to restrain a screaming friend in utter extreme pain of the highest degree as he fainted, your hand digging through the pelvis trying to clamp the arteries together, trying to do everything you and your men could do but in the end, all fails.

As he slowly wakes up, he asked weakly, “Fixed it?” and you had to give him hope, and you smiled encouragingly saying “Yeah we did.” In the end, he died. Died saying, “Tell my parents that I fought really well today, that I fought really, really well?”

In war, whatever you speak might be your last words, ranging from “RPG!” to “Fuck!”. In war, your very mind is split into several decaying matters trying to survive the onslaught of upcoming attacks. Men, women, children of Somalia are all against you. War? why must there be a fucking war upheld by bastards of politicians who had the worst and most unreliable intel that results in unnecessary deaths?

Seeing them encouraging each other, patting each other on their backs, giving them hope when there’s minimal chance of surviving… I could’ve broke down.

In SFC “Hoot” Gibson’s words, war is about looking after men next to you. Sgt. Matt Eversmann: In war, there are no heroes.