I'm going to ask and try to answer, in some ways, kind of an uncomfortable question. Both civilians, obviously, and soldiers suffer in war; I don't think any civilian has ever missed the war that they were subjected to. I've been covering wars for almost 20 years, and one of the remarkable things for me is how many soldiers find themselves missing it. How is it someone can go through the worst experience imaginable, and come home, back to their home, and their family, their country, and miss the war? How does that work? What does it mean? We have to answer that question, because if we don't, it'll be impossible to bring soldiers back to a place in society where they belong, and I think it'll also be impossible to stop war, if we don't understand how that mechanism works.
Pitat ću i pokušati odgovoriti na neki način neugodno pitanje. Jednako civili, očito, i vojnici trpe u ratu; ne mislim da je nekom civilu ikada nedostajao rat kojem je bio izložen. Pokrivam ratove već gotovo 20 godina, i jedna osobita stvar za mene je kako brojni vojnici otkriju da im nedostaje. Kako to da netko može proći kroz najgore iskustvo koje se može zamisliti, te doći kući, natrag u svoj dom, svojoj obitelji, svojoj zemlji, i da mu nedostaje rat? Kako to radi? Što to znači? Moramo odgovoriti na to pitanje, jer ako ne odgovorimo, biti će nemoguće vratiti vojnike natrag na mjesto u društvo gdje pripadaju, i mislim da će također biti nemoguće zaustaviti rat, ako ne razumijemo kako taj mehanizam radi.
The problem is that war does not have a simple, neat truth, one simple, neat truth.
Problem je što rat nema jednostavnu, urednu istinu, jednu jednostavnu, urednu istinu.
Any sane person hates war, hates the idea of war, wouldn't want to have anything to do with it, doesn't want to be near it, doesn't want to know about it. That's a sane response to war. But if I asked all of you in this room, who here has paid money to go to a cinema and be entertained by a Hollywood war movie, most of you would probably raise your hands. That's what's so complicated about war. And trust me, if a room full of peace-loving people finds something compelling about war, so do 20-year-old soldiers who have been trained in it, I promise you. That's the thing that has to be understood.
Svaka razumna osoba mrzi rat, mrzi ideju rata, ne bi htjela imati nikakve veze s njim, ne želi mu biti blizu, ne želi znati za njega. To je razuman odgovor na rat. Ali ako pitam sve vas u ovoj prostoriji, tko je odavde platio kako bi otišao u kino i bio zabavljen holivudskim ratnim filmom, većina bi vas vjerojatno podigla ruke. To je ono što je tako zamršeno kod rata. A vjerujte mi, ako prostorija puna miroljubivog svijeta nalazi nešto neodoljivo u ratu, nalaze i dvadesetogodišnji vojnici koji su uvježbani za njega, obećajem vam. To je stvar koju treba razumjeti.
I've covered war for about 20 years, as I said, but my most intense experiences in combat were with American soldiers in Afghanistan. I've been in Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan in the '90s, but it was with American soldiers in 2007, 2008, that I was confronted with very intense combat. I was in a small valley called the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. It was six miles long. There were 150 men of Battle Company in that valley, and for a while, while I was there, almost 20 percent of all the combat in all of Afghanistan was happening in those six miles. A hundred and fifty men were absorbing almost a fifth of the combat for all of NATO forces in the country, for a couple months. It was very intense. I spent most of my time at a small outpost called Restrepo. It was named after the platoon medic that had been killed about two months into the deployment. It was a few plywood B-huts clinging to a side of a ridge, and sandbags, bunkers, gun positions, and there were 20 men up there of Second Platoon, Battle Company. I spent most of my time up there. There was no running water. There was no way to bathe. The guys were up there for a month at a time. They never even got out of their clothes. They fought. The worked. They slept in the same clothes. They never took them off, and at the end of the month, they went back down to the company headquarters, and by then, their clothes were unwearable. They burned them and got a new set. There was no Internet. There was no phone. There was no communication with the outside world up there. There was no cooked food. There was nothing up there that young men typically like: no cars, no girls, no television, nothing except combat. Combat they did learn to like.
Pokrivao sam rat oko 20 godina, kako rekoh, ali moja najžešća iskustva iz borbe su bila sa Američkim vojnicima u Afganistanu. Bio sam u Africi, Bliskom istoku, Afganistanu u 90-ima, ali bilo je to sa Američkim vojnicima tijekom 2007., 2008. kad sam se suočio sa vrlo žestokom borbom. Bio sam u maloj dolini zvanoj dolina Korengal u istočnom Afganistanu. Bila je duga šest milja. Bilo je 150 ljudi Borbene Satnije u toj dolini, i neko vrijeme, dok sam bio tamo, gotovo 20 posto sve borbe u svom Afganistanu se dešavalo u tih šest milja. Stotinu i pedest ljudi je upijalo gotovo petinu sve borbe svih NATO snaga u zemlji, kroz nekoliko mjeseci. Bilo je vrlo intenzivno. Proveo sam većinu svog vremena u malenoj ispostavi zvanoj Restrepo. Ime je dobila po vojniku bolničaru koji je bio ubijen oko dva mjeseca nakon raspoređivanja. To je bilo nekoliko daščara od iverice oslonjenih na stranu grebena, te vreće s pijeskom, bunkeri, borbeni položaji, i tamo gore je bilo i 20 ljudi Drugog Voda Borbene Satnije. Proveo sam većinu svog vremena tamo. Nije bilo tekuće vode, nije bilo načina da se okupa. Momci su bili gore po mjesec dana. Nikad nisu niti izašli iz odjeće. Borili su se. Radili su. Spavali su u istoj odjeći. Nikad je nisu skinuli, a na kraju mjeseca, otišli bi dolje u stožer satnije, i do tada, odjeća bi postala neupotrebljiva. Spalili bi je i dobili novi komplet. NIje bilo Interneta. Nije bilo telefona. Nije bilo komunikacije sa ostatkom svijeta od tamo. Nije bilo kuhane hrane. Tamo gore nije bilo ničega što se mladim ljudima tipično sviđa: nije bilo auta, cura, televizije, ničega osim borbe. Borbu su naučili uživati.
I remember one day, it was a very hot day in the spring, and we hadn't been in a fight in a couple of weeks, maybe. Usually, the outpost was attacked, and we hadn't seen any combat in a couple of weeks, and everyone was just stunned with boredom and heat. And I remember the lieutenant walking past me sort of stripped to the waist. It was incredibly hot. Stripped to the waist, walked past me muttering, "Oh God, please someone attack us today." That's how bored they were. That's war too, is a lieutenant saying, "Please make something happen because we're going crazy."
Sjećam se jedan dan, bio je vrlo vruć dan u proljeće, i nismo bili u borbi par tjedana, možda. Inače, ispostava je napadana a nismo vidjeli borbu par tjedana, i svi su bili omamljeni od dosade i vrućine. I sjećam se poručnika kako hoda ispred mene nekako skinut do pasa. Bilo je nevjerojatno vruće. Skinut do pasa, hoda ispred mene mrmljajući, "O bože, molim te neka nas netko napadne danas." Eto toliko im je bilo dosadno. I to je rat, poručnik koji govori: "Molim te neka se nešto dogodi jer smo više izluđeni."
To understand that, you have to, for a moment, think about combat not morally -- that's an important job to do — but for a moment, don't think about it morally, think about it neurologically. Let's think about what happens in your brain when you're in combat. First of all, the experience is very bizarre, it's a very bizarre one. It's not what I had expected. Usually, you're not scared. I've been very scared in combat, but most of the time when I was out there, I wasn't scared. I was very scared beforehand and incredibly scared afterwards, and that fear that comes afterwards can last years. I haven't been shot at in six years, and I was woken up very abruptly this morning by a nightmare that I was being strafed by aircraft, six years later. I've never even been strafed by aircraft, and I was having nightmares about it. Time slows down. You get this weird tunnel vision. You notice some details very, very, very accurately and other things drop out. It's almost a slightly altered state of mind. What's happening in your brain is you're getting an enormous amount of adrenaline pumped through your system. Young men will go to great lengths to have that experience. It's wired into us. It's hormonally supported. The mortality rate for young men in society is six times what it is for young women from violence and from accidents, just the stupid stuff that young men do: jumping off of things they shouldn't jump off of, lighting things on fire they shouldn't light on fire, I mean, you know what I'm talking about. They die at six times the rate that young women do. Statistically, you are safer as a teenage boy, you would be safer in the fire department or the police department in most American cities than just walking around the streets of your hometown looking for something to do, statistically.
Da to razumijete, morate, na trenutak, razmišljati o borbi ne moralno -- to je važno činiti — ali na trenutak, nemojte razmišljati moralno, razmišljajte o tome neurološki. Razmislimo o tome što se događa u vašem mozgu kad ste u borbi. Prije svega, iskustvo je vrlo bizarno, to je vrlo bizarno. Nije ono što sam očekivao. Obično, niste prestrašeni. Znao sam biti vrlo prestrašen u borbi, ali većinu vremena kad sam bio tamo, nisam bio prestrašen. Bio sam vrlo prestrašen prije i nejvjerojatno prestrašen nakon, i taj strah koji dođe nakon može trajati godinama. Na mene nije pucano šest godina, pa ipak sam se iznenada prenuo jutros iz noćne more u kojoj me napala letjelica u brišućem letu šest godina poslije. Nikad me nije napala letjelica u brišućem letu a imao sam noćne more o tome. Vrijeme uspori. Dobijete taj čudni pogled kao kroz tunel. Primjećujete neke detalje vrlo vrlo vrlo točno a druge stvari ispadaju iz slike. Nalik je nekom malo izmijenjenom stanju uma. Ono što vam se događa u mozgu je da dobijate ogromnu količinu adrenalina koja vam kola kroz tijelo. Mladi ljudi poduzimaju svašta da bi doživjeli to iskustvo. To je ugrađeno u nas. To je hormonalno podržano. Stopa smrtnosti mladih muškaraca u društvu je šest puta one mladih žena od nasilja i od nesreća. samo gluposti koje mladići čine: skakanje sa stvari sa kojih ne bi trebali skakati, paljenje stvari koje ne bi trebali paliti, mislim, znate o čemu pričam. umiru šest puta češće nego što umiru mlade žene. Statistički, sigurniji ste kao tinejdžer, bili biste sigurniji u vatrogascima ili u policijskoj stanici u većini Američkih gradova nego da samo hodate uokolo po ulicama vlastitog grada, tražeći nešto za raditi, statistički.
You can imagine how that plays out in combat. At Restrepo, every guy up there was almost killed, including me, including my good friend Tim Hetherington, who was later killed in Libya. There were guys walking around with bullet holes in their uniforms, rounds that had cut through the fabric and didn't touch their bodies.
Možete zamisliti kako se to odigrava u borbi. U Restrepu, svaki je momak tamo gore skoro poginuo, uključujući mene, uključujući Tima Hetheringtona, koji je kasnije ubijen u Libiji. Tamo je bilo momaka koji su hodali sa rupama od metaka na svojim uniformama, pogocima koji su prošli kroz tkaninu ali im nisu dotakli tijela.
I was leaning against some sandbags one morning, not much going on, sort of spacing out, and some sand was kicked into the side of, sort of hit the side of my face. Something hit the side of my face, and I didn't know what it was. You have to understand about bullets that they go a lot faster than sound, so if someone shoots at you from a few hundred meters, the bullet goes by you, or hits you obviously, half a second or so before the sound catches up to it. So I had some sand sprayed in the side of my face. Half a second later, I heard dut-dut-dut-dut-duh. It was machine gun fire. It was the first round, the first burst of an hour-long firefight. What had happened was the bullet hit, a bullet hit three or four inches from the side of my head. Imagine, just think about it, because I certainly did, think about the angle of deviation that saved my life. At 400 meters, it missed me by three inches. Just think about the math on that. Every guy up there had some experience like that, at least once, if not many times.
Bio sam naslonjen na neke vreće pijeska jedno jutro, ne radeći ništa specijalno, nekako odmarajući, a nešto pijeska me lupilo sa strane, nekako lupilo u jednu stranu mog lica. Nešto je lupilo stranu lica, a ja nisam znao što. Morate znati o mecima da lete dosta brže od zvuka, tako da ako netko puca po vama sa nekoliko stotina metara, metak prolazi pored vas, ili vas pogađa očito, oko pola sekunde prije nego ga zvuk sustigne. Dakle malo me pijeska bilo poprskalo po licu. Pola sekunde kasnije, čuo sam ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. To je bila strojnica. To su bili prvi hici, prvi rafal sat vremena dugog puškaranja. Metak je pogodio, metak je pogodio tri ili četiri palca pokraj moje glave. Zamislite, samo razmislite o tome, jer ja sigurno jesam, razmislite o otklonu koji mi je sačuvao život. Na 400 metara me je promašilo za tri palca. Samo razmislite o matematici toga. Svaki momak tamo gore je imao neko iskustvo nalik ovom, barem jednom, ako ne više puta.
The boys are up there for a year. They got back. Some of them got out of the Army and had tremendous psychological problems when they got home. Some of them stayed in the Army and were more or less okay, psychologically. I was particularly close to a guy named Brendan O'Byrne. I'm still very good friends with him. He came back to the States. He got out of the Army. I had a dinner party one night. I invited him, and he started talking with a woman, one of my friends, and she knew how bad it had been out there, and she said, "Brendan, is there anything at all that you miss about being out in Afghanistan, about the war?" And he thought about it quite a long time, and finally he said, "Ma'am, I miss almost all of it." And he's one of the most traumatized people I've seen from that war. "Ma'am, I miss almost all of it."
Dečki su tamo gore godinu dana. Vratili su se natrag. Neki su od njih izašli iz vojske i imali ogromne psihološke probleme kad su došli kući. Neki su od njih ostali u vojsci i bili manje ili više u redu, psihološki. Bio sam posebno blizak momku koji se zvao Brendan O'Byrne Još smo uvijek jako dobri prijatelji. Vratio se u Sjedinjene države. Izašao iz vojske. Jednom sam priredio zabavu. Pozvao sam ga, i on je počeo pričati sa ženom, jednom od mojih prijateljica, a ona je znala kako je loše bilo tamo, te mu je rekla: "Brendan, postoji li uopće nešto što ti nedostaje glede bivanja u Afganistanu, glede rata?" i on je razmislio o tome poprilično dugo, te na kraju rekao: "Gospođo, nedostaje mi skoro sve." A on je jedan od traumatiziranijih ljudi koje sam vidio iz tog rata. "Gospođo, nedostaje mi skoro sve."
What is he talking about? He's not a psychopath. He doesn't miss killing people. He's not crazy. He doesn't miss getting shot at and seeing his friends get killed. What is it that he misses? We have to answer that. If we're going to stop war, we have to answer that question.
O čemu on to priča? Nije psihopat. Ne nedostaje mu ubijanje ljudi. Nije lud. Ne nedostaje mu da se po njemu puca niti da gleda kako mu prijatelji bivaju ubijeni. Što je to što mu nedostaje? Moramo na to odgovoriti. Ako želimo zaustaviti rat, moramo odgovoriti na to pitanje.
I think what he missed is brotherhood. He missed, in some ways, the opposite of killing. What he missed was connection to the other men he was with. Now, brotherhood is different from friendship. Friendship happens in society, obviously. The more you like someone, the more you'd be willing to do for them. Brotherhood has nothing to do with how you feel about the other person. It's a mutual agreement in a group that you will put the welfare of the group, you will put the safety of everyone in the group above your own. In effect, you're saying, "I love these other people more than I love myself."
Mislim da je ono što mu nedostaje bratstvo. Nedostaje mu, na neki način, suprotnost od ubijanja. Ono što mu nedostaje je povezanost sa drugim ljudima s kojima je bio. Sad, bratstvo je različito od prijateljstva. Prijateljstvo se događa u društvu, očito. Što vam se netko više sviđa, više ćete biti spremni učiniti za njih. Bratstvo nema nikakve veze sa tim što osjećate za drugu osobu. To je međusobna suglasnost u grupi da ćete staviti dobrobit grupe, da ćete staviti sigurnost svakog u grupi iznad vlastite. U stvari, govorite: "Volim ove ljude više nego volim sebe."
Brendan was a team leader in command of three men, and the worst day in Afghanistan — He was almost killed so many times. It didn't bother him. The worst thing that happened to him in Afghanistan was one of his men was hit in the head with a bullet in the helmet, knocked him over. They thought he was dead. It was in the middle of a huge firefight. No one could deal with it, and a minute later, Kyle Steiner sat back up from the dead, as it were, because he'd come back to consciousness. The bullet had just knocked him out. It glanced off the helmet. He remembers people saying, as he was sort of half-conscious, he remembers people saying, "Steiner's been hit in the head. Steiner's dead." And he was thinking, "I'm not dead." And he sat up. And Brendan realized after that that he could not protect his men, and that was the only time he cried in Afghanistan, was realizing that. That's brotherhood.
Brendan je bio vođa tima zapovjednik tri čovjeka, i najgori dan u Afganistanu — Zamalo je poginuo toliko puta. Nije ga to mučilo. Najgora stvar koja mu se dogodila u Afganistanu je kad je jedan od njegovih ljudi bio pogođen u glavu metkom u kacigu, prevalio ga na pod. Mislili su da je mrtav. Bilo je to usred puškaranja. Nitko se nije mogao baviti time, a minutu kasnije, Kyle Steiner se uspravio i sjeo natrag iz mrtvih, kako se činilo, jer se probudio iz nesvijesti. Metak ga je samo onesvijestio. Okrznuo mu je kacigu. Sjeća se ljudi kako govore, dok je bio nekako polusvjestan, sjeća se ljudi kako govore: "Steiner je pogođen u glavu. Steiner je mrtav." A on je mislio: "Nisam mrtav." i onda je sjeo. Te je Brendan nakon toga shvatio da ne može zaštititi svoje ljude, i to je bio jedini put da je plakao u Afganistanu, kada je to shvatio. To je bratstvo.
This wasn't invented recently. Many of you have probably read "The Iliad." Achilles surely would have risked his life or given his life to save his friend Patroclus. In World War II, there were many stories of soldiers who were wounded, were brought to a rear base hospital, who went AWOL, crawled out of windows, slipped out doors, went AWOL, wounded, to make their way back to the front lines to rejoin their brothers out there. So you think about Brendan, you think about all these soldiers having an experience like that, a bond like that, in a small group, where they loved 20 other people in some ways more than they loved themselves, you think about how good that would feel, imagine it, and they are blessed with that experience for a year, and then they come home, and they are just back in society like the rest of us are, not knowing who they can count on, not knowing who loves them, who they can love, not knowing exactly what anyone they know would do for them if it came down to it. That is terrifying. Compared to that, war, psychologically, in some ways, is easy, compared to that kind of alienation. That's why they miss it, and that's what we have to understand and in some ways fix in our society.
Ono nije izmišljeno nedavno. Puno vas je vjerojatno čitalo "Ilijadu". Ahil bi sigurno riskirao svoj život ili dao svoj život da spasi svog prijatelja Patrokla. U Drugom svjetskom ratu, bilo je puno priča o vojnicima koji su bili ranjeni, odvedeni u pozadinsku bolnicu, koji su pobjegli, spuzali kroz prozore, kliznuli kroz vrata, pobjegli, ranjeni, da bi vlastitim snagama našli put natrag na prvu crtu kako bi se ponovno pridružili svojoj braći tamo. Onda pomislite o Brendanu, pomislite na sve te vojnike koji imaju iskustvo nalik tome, vezu poput te, u maloj grupi, gdje su voljeli 20 drugih ljudi na neki način više nego što su voljeli sebe, pomislite o tome kako bi to bio dobar osjećaj, zamislite, a oni su blagoslovljeni tim iskustvom na godinu dana, potom dođu doma, i samo su natrag u društvu kao što smo i mi ostali, gdje ne znaju na koga mogu računati, gdje ne znaju tko ih voli, koga oni mogu voljeti, gdje ne znaju točno što bi bilo tko koga poznaju učinio za njih kada bi se svelo na to. To je zastrašujuće. U usporedbi s tim, rat, psihološki, na neki način, je lagan, u usporedbi s tom vrstom otuđenja. To je zašto im nedostaje, i to je ono što moramo shvatiti i na neki način popraviti u našem društvu.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)