"To those who hunt monsters, beware that you do not become a monster yourself."
-Nietzsche
Philosophy is an interesting thing because there are so many different ones out there that I believe it cannot be objective. That's the job of the scientific method, to give us the rules that govern our universe that brook no argument outside of "can it be repeated and observed."
That being said, philosophy's exploration cannot happen without objective science to give us a foundation with which we can launch into the unknown. The questions of why we are here and what does existence mean still matter to us even though science confirms that we are animals who have developed our critical thinking skills to give us a survivalist edge. We build tools to build more tools in order to accomplish tasks that would otherwise be impossible.
In the last 100 years we have seen humanity fight the war to end all wars, harness the power of flight, create a worldwide network of communication, go to war again with those that believe themselves to be superior, send people to the moon, send probes into deep space, world powers competing over limited resources, the military-industrial complex controlling our technological direction, the unification of nations to prevent another world war, the development of technology for governments to kill anyone anywhere in the world with almost no effort... and so many more things that it would take quite a bit of time to list all our accomplishments. We'd still be forgetting many more.
And today it almost seems like we've forgotten all of it or glossed over the details of the lessons we've learned. Sometimes it seems to me that we need a hard slap in the brain matter to get us to focus on what is important. I know for myself it took almost dying and then being left alone to question what the fuck I had been doing with my life and the knowledge of my impending death is what got me to do the right thing no matter what the cost was to myself. In that time since, I've spent it all delving into the whats, wheres, hows, whys, whens, and wherefores. They became my obsession.
The more I learned the more I realized the less I know and could know. How I realized my belief system was wholly inadequate for reality. The bounds of what was comfortable disappeared entirely when recognizing the state I had gotten myself into. Where does one go from there?
My actions in "whistleblowing" were my challenge to my known universe. My upbringing taught me that love conquers all, and I would say that if I had not had that I might have given up a lot sooner. But that foundation didn't give me the tools that I needed to build something solid on it. The materials of my religion and patriotism were flimsy and lacked substance. When challenged they fell apart in shame and guilt. The most difficult part of the whole thing came not from the critics who didn't know me, but from the abandonment by those who did.
I nearly drove myself insane (my current state of sanity debatable) in confronting them. Arguing with them in online forums and social media. I had made sure to read EVERY comment and reply. It is amazing how many people are willing to voice a faceless opinion about something that they know nothing about, and how vile they can be when they don't have to look at you in the eye. Logical fallacies exist everywhere, mostly in their assumption that they know you after reading a small tale. The carelessness of most media outlets didn't help, but I had been prepared for that. I did such a good job of confronting everything that the US media conglomerate went silent in 2015.
And then came the voices of angry veterans. The ones who should have understood where I was coming from. To them, I say, I spent way too much time delving into how you could have treated me the way that you did and say thing things that you've said to me. You were supposed to be my brothers and sisters. I would think that us being used for dishonorable reasons by people who didn't care about your service or sacrifices would merit some sort of outcry. We all know that military leadership is mostly made up of incapable yesmen and there is gross fraud, waste, and abuse of military resources (to include people) happening every day.
I have seen men killed on all sides of the conflict for no reason. I watched helplessly as convoys hit IEDs, when generals order men to get out of their vehicles to instigate fights, compound raids gone wrong, troops in contact situations where we had the capacity to intervene and were ordered to stand down. In my squadrons there were drama and bullshit in abundance. We were disconnected from the war because we were disconnected from ourselves. We developed lazy technology and thought of ourselves as superior. There was no discipline or care among the ranks.
We were told the SOF truths, the Code of Conduct, Core Values. I BELIEVED in them. But in application they failed so thoroughly that I could not sit by and watch our leadership and politicians continue to destroy people's lives for their own greed and selfishness. I applied, and still apply, those in my every day life. And to my military, I do not hate you, I love you. I love you for what you have the capability to be. I love you because I know in my heart that the reason we tell ourselves we fight is so that others don't have to. That we might be the last to have to pick up a weapon but until that point we are going to be the ones that sacrifice heart, mind, body, and soul.
And if you need me to promise you something I can promise you that I never spoke a word that was untrue and that I only want the best for those who are willing to fight when others will not. I want your sacrifices to be for worthy causes. I want your discipline to be a solid foundation beneath your feet. I swear upon the Light and the Dark, the cycle of creation and destruction, my hope that there is a life after this that everything I have done I have done out of love and there cannot be any deceit in love.
This last year my heart has been extremely heavy. I took it very personally, though I probably shouldn't have, that I had not the ability to properly communicate any of this to you. I'm only human after all, and woefully incapable for many of the tasks that I have set before myself. I think in the end I was most frustrated with myself. I have the deepest respect for those that are a part of the military for the right reasons. I know that those who are on the ground see the worst of everything humanity is capable of, including themselves. But I've seen it all. I know what you go through and how the system works from top to bottom. How broken it is.
I have been the victim of many things these last 13 years, but I will not allow them to diminish my fight. In everything, I have been validated on a scientific and philosophical level. We may argue about my faults, but who doesn't have them? We may argue my reasons, but my reasons have been right. I've put them under a microscope, smashed them, threw them across the room. Tested the validity of them. I've confronted the monsters that make up the world and discovered that they are only human like myself, twisted yes, but still human. I, myself, have twisted my being trying to fight them and it nearly did me in.
To those that are reading this my message is harsh, but simple: Be aware that you might be doing it all wrong. For the better part of my life I had been and it took an extreme situation to get me to do otherwise. What I have experienced, the world seems on the verge of experiencing. Do not let it get that far. We need our educators and our scientists to lead us forward in this. We need those that have explored their humanity and have been humbled to be lights along our path. We need to take in what is necessary and discard what is not while not losing who we are in the process.
And we need to beware that we don't become that which we fight against.
