Soldier pursuing justice, PS draft
Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:07 am
Be harsh. I literally just finished typing this after a moment of inspiration, and need all the help I can get. As follows:
I never meant to kill someone.
It was only after the smoke dissolved into the cold Middle Eastern air that I realized my finger had been responsible for bringing 26 years of eating, loving, hating and pooping to an end for someone who, although aggressive and undeniably dangerous, was a person all the same. Questions over the legitimacy of my actions raced through my mind. Despite the clear evidence that the man had pushed forward with malicious intent into territory I was charged to defend, his life was gone. There would be a mother, and probably a girlfriend, missing him tonight. He could not take back his actions or decision to become a violent extremist, and I could not take back mine.
The incident brought an immediate swell of self-examination over my mind. For some reason, I remembered most my childhood – in Indiana of all places – and how I had been the kid who never got into fights. Instead, you could have found me reading a book or playing school with the girl who lived down the street. Other kids called me ‘f****t’ since I had a hard time pronouncing ‘s’ and walked with a limp wrist. It failed to matter now that they were right in my being gay; just an unlikely caveat to my newfound persona as a killer.
Never did a question exist, in official eyes at least, over the correctness of my pulling the trigger. I had moved to Israel a year before, and as part of being a citizen, I, too, needed to carry my weight by serving in our military. Israel’s neighbors, even those with which it holds an official peace, have no interest in allowing it to exist without a fight. Certain realities and contingent rules of engagement exist, and as a soldier, I understood that I first needed to yell in Arabic at the trespasser to halt and turn away, and second, to wait until the trespasser ignored my words and chose to proceed with gunfire or the equivalent aimed at me. After those two options had been exhausted respectively, the burden lied with me to make the ultimate call.
Something closely following that moment changed. I looked in the mirror and saw the face of a man enlisted to a life of discipline, process, and fearlessness. I had always been bold, but never unstoppable. It seemed nothing else mattered, that the rest of the world could wait for me to make my point, highlight an error, or take on a task that would cause most people to experience heightened blood pressure and a brow covered in sweat. I had experienced the deepest depths of self-introspection, and survived.
That confrontation led me to push further into life than I had ever imagined. It could have stemmed from a desire to live for the man I killed, regardless of his hate for me, that I fought for truth, justice, and the powers of the limelight. In that vein, I became a TV news anchor and correspondent on Israeli TV, in part to fulfill my desire to expose the grim realities of life in our country, but also to change the future for Israel. But instead, I found myself retelling what had happened in ‘just the facts, sir’ mode rather than offering real solutions for a better future. I reported the height of violence during the Second Gaza War, but no one really cared. Israelis are already well aware of the harshness that accompanies life in the Middle East: My voice added nothing not already existent. I was not the policy-maker, but instead the nag following policy-makers asking annoying questions likely to be ignored.
Yet, I cared too much about Israel to ignore my irrelevant position vis-à-vis those making decisions: I knew I needed to join decision-makers rather than trumpet their actions. Georgetown, through its International and National Security Law Program, offers the most comprehensive tools available to students and the legal profession as a whole to participate in matters of international law. Faculty offer the highest expertise in areas relevant to my sphere of interest, such as international dispute resolution, civil procedure and human rights law. It is in that context that I hope to continue my journey by developing a powerful legal mind with the guidance of Georgetown’s unique offerings.
I never meant to kill someone.
It was only after the smoke dissolved into the cold Middle Eastern air that I realized my finger had been responsible for bringing 26 years of eating, loving, hating and pooping to an end for someone who, although aggressive and undeniably dangerous, was a person all the same. Questions over the legitimacy of my actions raced through my mind. Despite the clear evidence that the man had pushed forward with malicious intent into territory I was charged to defend, his life was gone. There would be a mother, and probably a girlfriend, missing him tonight. He could not take back his actions or decision to become a violent extremist, and I could not take back mine.
The incident brought an immediate swell of self-examination over my mind. For some reason, I remembered most my childhood – in Indiana of all places – and how I had been the kid who never got into fights. Instead, you could have found me reading a book or playing school with the girl who lived down the street. Other kids called me ‘f****t’ since I had a hard time pronouncing ‘s’ and walked with a limp wrist. It failed to matter now that they were right in my being gay; just an unlikely caveat to my newfound persona as a killer.
Never did a question exist, in official eyes at least, over the correctness of my pulling the trigger. I had moved to Israel a year before, and as part of being a citizen, I, too, needed to carry my weight by serving in our military. Israel’s neighbors, even those with which it holds an official peace, have no interest in allowing it to exist without a fight. Certain realities and contingent rules of engagement exist, and as a soldier, I understood that I first needed to yell in Arabic at the trespasser to halt and turn away, and second, to wait until the trespasser ignored my words and chose to proceed with gunfire or the equivalent aimed at me. After those two options had been exhausted respectively, the burden lied with me to make the ultimate call.
Something closely following that moment changed. I looked in the mirror and saw the face of a man enlisted to a life of discipline, process, and fearlessness. I had always been bold, but never unstoppable. It seemed nothing else mattered, that the rest of the world could wait for me to make my point, highlight an error, or take on a task that would cause most people to experience heightened blood pressure and a brow covered in sweat. I had experienced the deepest depths of self-introspection, and survived.
That confrontation led me to push further into life than I had ever imagined. It could have stemmed from a desire to live for the man I killed, regardless of his hate for me, that I fought for truth, justice, and the powers of the limelight. In that vein, I became a TV news anchor and correspondent on Israeli TV, in part to fulfill my desire to expose the grim realities of life in our country, but also to change the future for Israel. But instead, I found myself retelling what had happened in ‘just the facts, sir’ mode rather than offering real solutions for a better future. I reported the height of violence during the Second Gaza War, but no one really cared. Israelis are already well aware of the harshness that accompanies life in the Middle East: My voice added nothing not already existent. I was not the policy-maker, but instead the nag following policy-makers asking annoying questions likely to be ignored.
Yet, I cared too much about Israel to ignore my irrelevant position vis-à-vis those making decisions: I knew I needed to join decision-makers rather than trumpet their actions. Georgetown, through its International and National Security Law Program, offers the most comprehensive tools available to students and the legal profession as a whole to participate in matters of international law. Faculty offer the highest expertise in areas relevant to my sphere of interest, such as international dispute resolution, civil procedure and human rights law. It is in that context that I hope to continue my journey by developing a powerful legal mind with the guidance of Georgetown’s unique offerings.