Conv-Torching

Torching

September 2012

From: Bob Nelson

Dated: September 30, 2012

Subject: Torching

Ken,

I have images that will never go away… they started in Vietnam and haven’t ended. I now work with APD [Anchorage Police Department?] and go on their officer shootings, suicides, etc. It never gets any easier and it never gets any better. Every organization/group I belong to has their own language to ease the communication/reality burden. Laugh, not--level the playing field and let me get back into the game--yes. I wouldn’t offer a tour of my head--not even on Halloween. Reality bites, but then again, so do the vampires. As I get older and spend more and more time with the kind folks in the ICU the thoughts of my life have too much time to replay themselves in my head. I don’t share them--not even with my friends. We, especially the military, have our own descriptive terms to dehumanize the human side of us--it’s necessary--it’s called survival.
ow I’m going to go outside and throw a snowball--why--Why not and cause I can!

From: Bob Nelson

Dated: September 30, 2012

Subject: Torching

Ken I have images that will never go away… they started in Vietnam and haven’t ended. I now work with APD [Anchorage Police Department?] and go on their officer shootings, suicides, etc. It never gets any easier and it never gets any better. Every organization/group I belong to has their own language to ease the communication/reality burden. Laugh, not--level the playing field and let me get back into the game--yes. I wouldn’t offer a tour of my head--not even on Halloween. Reality bites, but then again, so do the vampires. As I get older and spend more and more time with the kind folks in the ICU the thoughts of my life have too much time to replay themselves in my head. I don’t share them--not even with my friends. We, especially the military, have our own descriptive terms to dehumanize the human side of us--it’s necessary--it’s called survival.
ow I’m going to go outside and throw a snowball--why--Why not and cause I can!

From: Jean LeRoy

Dated: September 29, 2012

Subject: Torching

Thanks Joe, great story....

Group Conversations
H to M

From: Forrest Brandt

Dated: September 29, 2012

Subject: Torching

....She says “Now I’m saving lives instead of taking them.”
I got the exact same phrase, damn near word for word, from a pilot I interviewed, "I flew gunships my first tour, I came back and they asked me what I wanted to do and I chose Medevac. I wanted to save lives this time, not take them."
In the end, we are all Paul and Ken. Our mission was to support so that others could kill. It didn't matter if you sat in the supply shed and counted out towels, cotton, OD, 1 each, drove a truck, typed orders, hooked ordinance to aircraft, cooked cream chipped beef on toast, or lined up 10 songs to play in thirty minutes of air time, you were inextricably tied to the mission--to close with, and kill or destroy the enemy -
The tip of the spear may do the final cutting, but it's the whole spear, down to the end of the shaft, that makes the weapon. God bless us all and grant us peace despite our having been in war.
Forrest

Group Conversations
U to Z

From: Joe Ciokon

Dated: September 29, 2012

Subject: Torching

Time wounds all heals. We need to forgive ourselves and live for our loved ones and good friends. I like the example of a female Navy LT F/A-18 pilot who flew into combat for the first time during STENNIS’ first deployment after commissioning. After working her way deep into Afghanistan by flying up to 36,000 ft to two Air Force tankers and a third near the target zone flown by the UK out of Pakistan, she was called down to 20,000 ft and 16 miles from a target that was being lased by a Navy SEAL buried in the sand near Tora Bora. He told her his laser was on a truck loaded with Taliban about to cross a bridge and could she please take them out without harming the bridge which our forces also needed to move supplies. She launched a Maverick missile then turned back on track to the UK tanker and start working her way back to the carrier about 100 miles off the far coast in the dark. Any carrier pilot will tell you that no matter the stress in combat, it doesn’t compare with putting that hook down on the target wire at night to get safely aboard. So, she gets another call from the SEAL alerting her that the Taliban saw the laser, jumped out of the truck and were hiding under the bridge. Without turning around, she checks the missile monitor screen and steers the weapon to skip under the bridge and kill the bad guys. The SEAL tells her “you got a little dust on the bridge, but you killed all the Taliban. Thanks and goodnight.” After completing their maiden cruise, STENNIS and the LT came home to San Diego. The admiral told us she went back to school to finish her medical degree and is now serving as a Flight Surgeon. She says “Now I’m saving lives instead of taking them.” Much of my healing therapy comes from serving the residents and active duty combat Vets who come to Veterans Village of San Diego for help in dealing with their demons. That and the annual STAND DOWN for Homeless Veterans here which is duplicated in many cities across the country. I know it can never replace the pain of our losses in the three combat zones in which I served, but it gets better for each one we save here and now.
My Best Wishes goes out to you all,
Joe

AFVN Group Conversations

From: Paul Kasper

Dated: September 29, 2012

Subject: Torching

When they find out I was a grunt-- Your right civilians ask how many did you kill, Vets or active duty won't ask that! I came up with an answer for them: I tell them I killed one too many, and one not enough! then they go Huh--hen I tell them that I had to kill one too many, but I should have done one more because friends died after I left. Nuff said. And yes, I had the duty of burning corpse and some live enemy, as with my brother Ken. I tell them the days are mine, but Charlie has the nights. I can't describe the nightmares when they come, I have done some harm to my wife. But very slight, she is more scared when they occur. When I came home I had to tell people not to touch me to wake up, stand back and call my name. You see not only did I do the flame thrower, I also went with units to do explosives and EOD, which meant several nights in the bush.
Paul

From: Ken Kalish

Dated: September 29, 2012

Subject: Torching

Paul did not “torch” people. He hit targets. He suppressed fire. He protected his own. He got out of there before seeing the results of his work.
Kids ask “How many people did you kill?” There is no good answer. I really remember the details of only two, the one during Tet and the last. They still haunt me on occasion. An old man dressed in white who wanted to protect his family, and a child who was rigged and left as bait. The guys told me I shot one about 30 yards from the wall once. We drove around him every day until the Army came through with flame throwers and burned the rotting corpses.
I know that I killed some, a few close enough to share sweat and a few so far off as to be caricatures. 10,000 rounds in one fight alone. 114 firefights. How many is that? Enough to pave my road to hell, for sure.
And now I remember the first. A boy in a tree with an old French 7mm. I was looking at him when he fired and put a bullet through the head of the man standing next to me. My first day on the river, my first day of combat, my first round fired in anger. Center mass. Gravity took over.
You tell us, Bob. How would you feel? How long would it take to erase that from your memory?

Ken

AFVN Home

From: Jean LeRoy

Dated: September 29, 2012

Subject: Torching

That's what makes us a "Force or Forces"!