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.
我要問並且試著回答, 從某種角度來說,敏感的問題。 顯然,不管是百姓還是士兵 都深受戰爭之苦; 我不認為有哪位平民百姓會想念 曾經經歷過的戰爭。 我作戰爭報導 20 年, 有件事讓我感觸很深, 那就是許多士兵會懷念戰爭。 為什麼有人會 在如此慘烈的經歷後, 返回故土、回到家, 重回自己的家庭、國家,卻又懷念戰爭? 這是為什麼?又意味什麼? 我們必須回答這個問題, 因為若非如此,我們不可能 將士兵帶回到 他們所屬的社會中。 我們將無法阻止戰爭, 除非我們明白背後的道理。
The problem is that war does not have a simple, neat truth, one simple, neat truth.
問題在於,戰爭這檔事, 沒有一個簡單明瞭的真理可言, 完全沒有。
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.
有理智的人都厭惡戰爭、 厭惡戰爭的概念、 不想和戰爭扯上關係, 不想接觸也不想知道。 這是對戰爭的正常反應。 但如果我問在座的各位, 有沒有花過錢 去電影院 看好萊塢戰爭片當作娛樂, 多數人應該都會舉手。 戰爭就是如此複雜。 如果一群和平愛好者 都可以感受戰爭吸引人之處, 更不用說受過專門訓練、 血氣方剛的 20 歲小伙子。 我們必須明白這一點。
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.
我作戰爭報導 20 年, 在戰地最深刻的記憶當數 和阿富汗的美國士兵共處的那段時光。 我去過非洲、中東, 90 年代去過阿富汗, 但和美國士兵一起的經歷是 2007、2008 年。 當時,我參與了一場 非常激烈的戰役。 我當時在一個叫卡林哥的谷地, 位於東阿富汗。 谷地有六英里長。 在那有 150 人的戰鬥連隊。 曾有那麼一陣子, 我還在那的時候, 阿富汗全境的戰爭 有百分之二十 就發生在這六英里內。 150 名士兵承受著 北約在阿富汗五分之一的戰鬥, 為期數月。 戰爭非常激烈。 我大部分的時間在一個 叫雷斯特雷波的小哨站度過。 這名稱是為紀念一位醫護兵, 他被部署到戰地兩個月就犧牲了。 哨站是個膠合板搭成的簡陋兵舍, 依著山脊的一側而建, 還有沙袋、掩體、散兵坑。 那裡有 20 個人, 隸屬戰鬥連第二排。 我在那度過大部分的時間。 沒有流動水源。 洗澡是奢望。 士兵們在那一待就是一個月。 他們甚至衣服都不脫。 戰鬥、出任務、 睡覺都穿同一套衣服。 他們從不脫衣服,到月底, 他們回到總部時, 身上的衣服都不能穿了。 他們就燒掉它,領一套新的。 那裡沒有網路、沒有電話、 沒有對外的聯繫、 沒有現做的食物、 沒有任何 年輕人喜歡的東西: 沒車、沒妞、沒電視,什麼都沒有。 除了戰鬥。 他們因此被訓練成喜歡戰鬥。
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."
我記得有次,一個大熱天, 還是春天, 我們已經沒事做 大概幾星期時間了。 哨站通常都會遭受攻擊, 但是當時已經幾週沒遇到攻擊了, 每個人都閒得發慌、 熱得發昏。 我記得一個中尉從我身邊走過, 打著赤膊。 當時真的很熱。 他光著膀子走過,咕噥著: 「天哪,來次襲擊吧!」 他們已經無聊到不行了。 這也是戰爭的一部分,就像個中尉說: 「拜託給我們點事做, 不然我們要瘋了。」
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.
要理解他們的想法, 你必須暫時 以非道德的角度思考一下戰爭。 這很重要。 只是暫時地,不從道德角度, 而是從神經學的角度。 大家想一下,你在戰鬥中, 你的腦子裡會發生什麼事? 首先,這種體驗 是很奇異的,簡直非同尋常。 是我從來沒預料到的。 通常你並不會感到害怕。 戰鬥時我也曾感到非常害怕過, 但大多數時候我在那, 是不害怕的。 去之前害怕過, 回來之後也害怕, 這種恐懼能持續好幾年。 我已有六年沒在槍林彈雨下, 但今早我猛然驚醒, 夢到我被戰機掃射。 都六年了。 我甚至沒被戰機掃射過, 但我卻會做這樣的惡夢。 時間慢下來、 視野變得狹窄、 異常敏銳地注意到一些細節 而其他事被忽略。 某種角度來說,改變人的心智。 大腦開始作動, 腎上腺素被大量分泌, 流經你的全身。 年輕人為了獲得這體驗, 可以做出許多瘋狂的事。 這是個內建在身體的 荷爾蒙調控機制。 社會上,年輕男性的死亡率 是年輕女性的六倍。 死因是暴力或意外。 反正就是年輕人愛幹的那些蠢事: 從不該跳的地方跳下去、 把不該點的東西點著了…… 總之,你懂的。 年輕男性的死亡率 是年輕女性的六倍。 從統計數字上來說,一個小伙子 待在美國城市的消防隊 或是警察局, 會比在老家的街上閒逛、 找事幹,要安全得多。 從統計數字上來看的話是如此。
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.
你可以想像這在戰爭中也一樣。 在雷斯特雷波,幾乎每個人都命懸一線, 包括我, 包括我的好朋友蒂姆.赫瑟林頓, 他後來在利比亞犧牲了。 那有很多士兵 穿著被子彈打穿的制服, 子彈打穿了布料, 沒碰到他們的身體。
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.
一天早上,我靠著沙袋, 沒事做,正神遊的時候, 一些沙子飛起, 打在我的側臉上。 有東西打在我臉上, 但我不知道是什麽。 你得知道子彈這東西 飛得比音速還快。 如果有人朝你開槍, 射程幾百米的話, 子彈不是與你擦肩而過,就是擊中你 而槍聲半秒之後才會傳來。 所以沙子打到我的側臉上, 半秒之後,我才聽到槍聲。 是機關槍的聲音。 那是第一輪襲擊, 槍戰維持了一個小時之久。 那發子彈濺起沙子,撲在我臉上, 一發子彈打在離我腦袋三、四吋的地方。 想像一下,其實我後來也的確想了, 就是這點偏差救了我一命。 400 公尺外,它差 3 英吋就要擊中我。 想想這驚悚的數字。 每個在那的士兵, 都有類似的經驗, 如果不是幾次,至少也有一次。
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."
小伙子們在那待了一年, 然後回家。 有些人退伍回家, 心理上還有嚴重的問題。 有些人留在軍隊, 心理狀況稍微好些。 我和叫布蘭登.歐布萊恩 的小伙子走很近。 我們仍是好朋友。 他回美國之後離開了部隊。 有次,我舉辦晚宴, 邀請了他。 晚宴上他和一位女士交談, 也是我的朋友, 她知道戰地生活的險惡, 她說:「布蘭登, 在阿富汗打仗, 有沒有什麽讓你懷念的?」 他想了很久, 最後說:「女士,我懷念那裡的一切。」 他是我見過,在那場戰爭中, 受創最嚴重的人之一。 「女士,我懷念那裡的一切。」
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.
這究竟意味著什麼? 他不是精神病患、 不懷念殺人、 沒有瘋、不喜歡被槍射、 不希望戰友犧牲。 那他懷念的是什麽? 這問題我們必須回答。 想阻止戰爭發生, 我們必須回答這個問題。
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."
我認為,他懷念的是袍澤之情。 從某種角度來說,他懷念的 是殺戮的反面, 是他與其他士兵之間的 情感聯繫。 這裡的袍澤之情不同於友誼。 友誼多見於社會上, 你愈喜歡一個人, 愈情願為他付出。 但是袍澤之情, 與對他人的感覺無關。 那是群體中的共識, 大家都會把群體的福祉、 群體中他人的安危, 置於自身安危之上。 實際上相當於說: 「我愛他人勝過愛自己。」
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.
布蘭登是一個隊長, 手下有三名士兵。 他在阿富汗經歷了最慘痛的一天: 他好幾次險些喪生, 但這對他不算什麽。 對他來說最慘痛的是, 他的一個手下被子彈射中頭部, 打到鋼盔,把他震昏了。 他們以為他死了。 當時戰況正酣, 沒人顧得上他,一分鐘之後, 凱爾.史坦納坐了起來, 像是復活一樣, 因為他又恢復了意識。 子彈只是震昏他。 鋼盔擋開了子彈。 他記得, 在他半昏半醒時, 聽到人們說: 「史坦納被擊中頭部,他死了。」 他想:「我沒死。」 於是坐了起來。 之後布蘭登意識到, 他沒能保護自己的手下。 在阿富汗那麽久,他第一次哭了, 因為他意識到了這件事。 這就是袍澤之情。
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.
這不是什麼新詞。 在座許多人可能讀過《伊利亞德》。 阿基里斯寧願犧牲自己, 要保護他的朋友帕特羅克洛斯。 在二戰期間,也有許多故事。 受傷的士兵, 被送去後方戰地醫院, 但他們會逃跑。 爬窗翻牆、 身負重傷, 也要回到前線, 重回戰友身邊。 所以想到布蘭登, 就能想到這些戰士。 有如此經歷、如此的感情紐帶, 在一個小群體, 關心著其他 20 個人 勝過關心自己, 想像一下這是多美好的體驗。 他們有幸能有這樣一年的經歷。 後來回到家中, 回到社會, 像我們普通人一樣, 不知道自己可以依靠誰、 不知道誰深愛自己、誰值得自己去愛、 不知道那些自己認識的人 在關鍵時刻願意為他們做什麼。 這是很恐怖的事情。 相較之下, 戰爭從某種角度來說,對心理很簡單, 沒有這種疏離感。 這就是為什麽他們會懷念戰爭。 這是我們必須要瞭解, 也是我們需要修正社會的部分。
Thank you very much.
非常感謝各位。
(Applause)
(掌聲)