Watching him die gave therapeutic release.

[unhappycamper]

Battalion among hardest hit in Afghan war
By Christopher Torchia - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday May 31, 2010 11:25:46 EDT

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan — It was Aug. 10, 2009, in the Arghandab River Valley, a hot and dusty day full of unknowns.

An American battalion was swapping in with a Canadian garrison. As the Stryker troop carrier rumbled toward the riverside orchards, a Canadian soldier warned 1st Lt. Vic Cortese, 24, of East Quogue, N.Y.: “We don’t go in there.”

The American troops clambered out of the Stryker’s cramped confines into the raw sunlight. The soldiers spread out, started walking.

~snip~

“We aren’t civilians. It’s not like some dude that you work with. We live together, eat together. You get pretty close and emotionally attached,” said Burrow, 36, of Harker Heights, Texas. Of the attacks, he said: “It shakes your confidence. All of these came like, ‘bang, bang, bang.’... Anytime there’s an event like that, you re-examine: ‘Why am I here?’ ”

In one firefight, soldiers pumped bullets into an insurgent who sprinted into the open to drag away a wounded comrade. Watching him die gave therapeutic release.

[Delphinus]

1. They will never be the same.

You cannot kill another human being without killing a part of yourself. Justified or not.

[MrScorpio]

2. I'm glad that I was never cursed to find out first hand, n/t