Does this sort of thing ever give you the sense that those who read your words are simply hearing them versus actually taking them to heart? After hearing you speak at a function, he credits you for helping to make his mind up - surprisingly, in favor of joining. In the film, you tell a story of young a man who’s contemplating joining the Marines. It’s up to the people one way or another, and I just don’t believe bombs and drones are going to do it for them. This thought of curing people of being who they have been for centuries, then believing they will adopt our standards or values, just doesn’t seem possible. And now, just like back then, it’s hard to believe anything our politicians have tried to sell us. I just can’t imagine a happy outcome, just as 50 years ago it was hard to imagine Hồ Chí Minh and other committed revolutionaries surrendering. I can’t imagine any radical militias in Iraq or Afghanistan raising their hands up and surrendering just to accept their place in a democracy. Then we expect them to look at us as saviors and saintly and clean-handed.

Why should we expect others to?Īnd yet, we do expect others to. If you’re a farmer in Dubuque, Iowa, you’re not going to like it if al-Qaida or ISIS come and burn your houses down, pee in your wells or kill your children, even if by accident.

I just wish my country would be more careful about killing people and not so bellicose in our rhetoric. How have those conflicts impacted your perception of your life’s work? That goal of deterring people from war is one that, as you say in the documentary, has left you “consistently disappointed.” We’ve yet to experience time this century sans involvement in multiple wars. You carry all this stuff day after day after day. You couldn’t really tell because the bullet had hit her in the head. Nobody intended to kill the little girl, but there she is. I remember a little girl being carried into our perimeter by an old man. We were peeing in people’s wells, trampling their rice paddies and burning hooches. It seemed to me we were doing the opposite of what our country was told we were doing. On top of that, I didn’t like what we were seeing or what we were doing. I wanted to stay alive and I wanted to keep my friends alive, but I was playing catch up. I mean that almost literally - I couldn’t tell if my weapon was loaded or not during firing range practice. I didn’t like bugs, I didn’t like sleeping in the rain, and I didn’t know one end of the rifle from the other. I’d hated Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and dropped out of both of them. I ended up going to war as a foot soldier and was totally unequipped for it. I love my children, but I don’t love everything they do. It’s a little bit now like having children. I love my country, but I didn’t believe in my country’s war.

The things they carried