Horrors of war release the monsters inside us

By Donald M. Murray, Globe Correspondent  |  May 25, 2004

The first time I participated in a prisoner interrogation in World War II, I
stood a few steps behind the prisoner with my rifle pointed at his back, safety
off.

Never mind that I would have never shot him; the bullet would've passed through
the prisoner and the interrogator. It was enough to increase his fear.

He was told to drop his pants. He did, and moments later he defecated down his
leg into his boot and pants. I felt no sense of victory, no patriotic pride,
just embarrassment and shame.

Would I have taken him out and shot him? I'm grateful that I never had to find
out. We were at the front in the Battle of the Bulge; we needed to know what
German unit we faced, its size and weapons. I was 19 years old and a volunteer
in the paratroops, hungry to prove my manhood.

I remember my months in combat with pride -- and shame. I was proud that I could
do what I never thought I could do; I was ashamed that I could do what I never
thought I could do.

Of course, the door to memory that I try to keep locked was opened by the
pictures of our torture of prisoners far from the front in Iraq. The pictures
are obscene, depraved, and they cannot be avoided.

The guards are proud. They're at play. They document the darkness in the deep
tunnels of the mind. There is much for those who have not been in combat to
learn from those pictures.

War is rarely heroic. It unleashes the monsters that we did not know live within
us. The pictures did not show anything I saw at war. I am as shocked as anyone
by their perverted sexual play. I saw nothing like this in my battles.

And yet, what would I have done if I served with them and was ordered to
participate? I hope I would've refused, but there is no tradition of refusal in
the Army. Everyone pasting patriotic stickers on their bumpers should know they
are celebrating the darkness within the enemy -- within all of us. No escape.

Perhaps I would need no direct order. Soldiers depend on one another. They need
to be close; would I have had the courage to stand up to the pressure that peers
place on one another? I suspect not. I live with the guilt of sins committed and
sins I could have committed. We should study each photo. Each is a mirror. They
reveal what human beings -- Iraqi and American -- can do to one another in the
name of religion or patriotism. We all have an enemy within us.