Reality, Dreams, Lies & Propaganda Collide
"Mercy and Truth Collided"
Rubicon w/ Sean Griobhtha
This is a companion sequel to I Had A Dream. If you’ve already read that piece, I’ll not repeat it here, but if you haven’t read it, click the link and read because this piece won’t fully be understandable to you without the other. This writing is a rambling thing, but that often happens where reality, dreams, and lies & propaganda collide.
“Mercy and Truth collided
Righteousness and Peace engaged in a clash”
Abraham Joshua Heschel
I’ve had that exact dream again, and my brain has added to it, yet again. This dream, and its expansion, is probably the most vivid dream I’ve experienced with PTSD – the colors, smells, sounds, feelings, details, etc… But first, I’m giving you fair warning, the content of reality and dream are very disturbing; my conclusions may be disturbing; but as I’ve said in the book, your responsibilities as a Citizen in a democracy require you to shoulder many burdens, especially motivations and reasoning of sending young men into combat: “You have been forewarned. If you are not stable or adult enough to handle these things, and choose not to read further, consider yourself part of the problem which allows atrocities to take place – you are a co-conspirator in government sanctioned murder. Remember, in a conspiracy, it is not necessary to show that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.”
One or two more things, when asking questions in I Had A Dream and in this piece, they are not rhetorical questions, I’m really asking because I don’t have all answers and understanding, nor do you, but hopefully a conversation with self and others is possible. Neither these details nor discussion of them are for sympathy, but to have the growth and engagement of empathy and understanding for how young men get caught up in dealing death. The events I put forth, which force the dreams, are detailed in X Rubicon in the chapter Drugs of the Sierra Madre. This was the 12th of 18 missions which I planned and executed; it took place in March 1981. As you will see later on, these things happen all too easily in war, proxy or otherwise.
“…There was some moonlight and I made my way quickly to the canyon entrance and waited for the outer guard, as his route would take him close by there in the trees. There was no chance of using my pistol or rifle, even with suppressors, until the last guard. I was ready with my knife, but when I saw the guard, I knew I had to reevaluate my method. He was ~6’5”, with muscles on muscles, at least 265lbs, and he had a neck like a bull [I being 6’1” and ~175]. I wasn’t even sure if I could get my knife into him or if I could get it deep enough (yeah, he scared the hell out of me). I let him make another round and came up with a new plan. I ran a trip wire across his path under a heavy branch, and climbed the tree out on the branch with my garroting wire on d-rings and waited.
“When he tripped and fell forward, I jumped into his back and lungs with my feet, then dropped into his lungs again with my knees, then sat on him while slipping the garroting wire around his neck. He was so stunned it was almost as if he raised his head to make it easier. But I soon learned how badly people will fight to live. I pulled hard like riding a bull, and he fought hard like he was a bull. It’s not like TV or a movie, people often die hard, and take a long time. This went on for what seemed like too many excruciating minutes, with him fighting the whole time. And then… he just stopped. I fell over exhausted, then noticed I had pulled the wire all the way back to his vertebrae, and blood was everywhere. I became so angry… probably the most angry I’ve ever felt, at myself for a myriad of reasons, and maybe at him for just not dying neatly. I kicked his head and it separated from his body...”
This is exactly how it happened, and then my brain (and heart?) expanded with great detail and vividness. His severed head started talking to me. I’ve had previous dreams where the head growled at me, now he was actually talking to me, not in his native Spanish or accent, but in clear English. “Why did you do this to me?” Fighting back tears I answer him, “Well, you know how it is. We’re both in the same line of killing, and you know, when you’re in the situation, it’s either kill or be killed.” He told me about his family, and about a girl he loved… There was more, but you get the idea and pain won’t allow me to go further with that conversation.
Now, I’m not insensible to the fact the he, being a cartel guard, would have destroyed me similarly, in which case you wouldn’t be told about this at all, ever. However, seeing your own evil up close and personal is extremely jarring, and continues to be jarring and laden with guilt for the rest of your life. Talking to my wife, who patiently listens, she told me I was talking in garbles, then at one point said something like “slap that pig”. My recall of the dream doesn’t have that phrase, but it is something I would have said to Lt Weasel or to someone else while referring to Lt Weasel (my hatred for that jackass knows no bounds).
I’m no dream expert, nor do I understand many of the dream theories proposed. When waking from dreams like these, I spend the first ~hour of waking trying to analyze and make sense. My brain seems to me to be in league with my heart in trying to make me think. I feel the pain and sadness inside the breakthrough dreams and afterward. Why is my brain (and heart) showing me reality all over again and then adding more convoluted detail? When his head talked to me, I suppose it really was my own guilt talking; but what’s the point in forcing these things?
For over four decades I’ve hammered myself with questions: How could I have been so naive and stupid to get caught up in the mechanistic killing?; Why didn’t I stop sooner?; Why, for fuck’s sake, didn’t I kill my commanders and propagandists instead of those who really didn’t deserve it?; Why did I continue? I know that propaganda, lies, ties that bind, and no fully functional braking system are the major factors. I know that young people in some generations don’t understand that most adults are unworthy of trust. I make no excuses for my own faults involved, and there is NOTHING in this book that glorifies war, killing, murder, or destruction. But is it all just guilt that drives thoughts?
“While on the oil rig, I became steadily more tired. My sleep had become riddled with dreams about killing, and waking up in cold sweats from fighting. As I slowly descended into major depression, I began laying awake for hours in my bunk on the rig, and my mattress in my room. My thoughts would spin and race for hours until I was only getting an hour of sleep each night. After a few months my thoughts became dissociated, and somewhat psychotic. I could see the faces of many that I had killed. Begging faces, defiant faces, scared faces… The woman and her husband entered my dreams angry that I had stolen their lives and ruined their family. The detached head of the cartel guard growled at me. Every day the guilt, shame, and sadness grew to the point where I found it hard to function normally.” (X Rubicon - Coming Down)
You may read this and think, “He deserves all of this.” I won’t disagree with you, because I often feel this. But that judgment from you is egregiously and highly precocious, and lacks empathy, when you haven’t experienced these things – preferring to do as Jung chastised, “Thinking is hard, that’s why most people judge.” Until Citizens completely internalize the pain, suffering, and destruction of war, they are doomed to repeat it. Some people are born as sociopaths, they don’t have feelings or understanding of emotions because they were in fact born with genetic faults; and some people are made into psychopaths, changed for the worse through societal propaganda, lies, and growing tolerance to ever greater amounts of adrenaline (just as athletes who have utilized arsenic as a performance enhancer by exposing themselves starting with micro doses and building toleration in order to gain performance enhancing effects) — this is the case with Israelis; but the US is not behind them in any sense. In many ways the US, UK, French, Canadian, Australian, German, et al governments exceed the Israelis in being psychopathic; but unlike the Israeli majority psychopathic population, a majority of these other populations strongly object to what their government is doing, but those governments are now on the verge of going fully fascist because those same populations don’t fully understand democratic responsibility.
I do understand that young men are bound and determined to prove themselves in life and receive accolades from posers (this includes men and women). Unfortunately, when it comes to the military and war they are guided by adults that represent the worst of humanity, Non-Combat Pretenders who, though NEVER having faced this type of violence, spew tired old lies and propaganda about glory and “getting the job done, like a man!” This is the case in the Palestine occupation, and for over 100 years back. This was the case in WW1, Korea, Vietnam, Central and South America, Philippines, Ukraine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, and so much more. This was the case in Afghanistan which John Pilger so ably documented – as US and NATO servicemen loaded Afghans into shipping containers, locked them in, and began firing non-stop into those containers until everyone was dead.
There is no condoning or excusing such action, but I do understand that soldiers get overwhelmed in war, relying on power and failing to understand that ALL occupation or invasion forces are hated, and they BREAK! They may fail at the time to understand how they got that far down the path, but they do understand what ALL the Non-Combat Pretenders and Rolfs never understand: the great fear and loathing that builds when thrown into a human shredding machine, and it’s either kill or be killed.
At twenty-five, and still alive,
Much longer than expected for a man...
At twenty-five, all hope has died,
And the glass of my intentions turns to sand...
And shatters in my hand.25 – The Pretty Reckless
See, I told you this would be rambling, but these things constantly come up in my head and heart when these dreams recur. The realities I’ve come to deal with better, but the dreams bring in all the feelings and pain with an intense vengeance. It’s like a life sentence without parole. Now, I’ll tell you something that I’ve never uttered out-loud, except to Sean, because it makes me feel completely sad and sick about myself. After separating that head, the three knife kills and brain shot that followed seemed “less”. I know how awful that sounds; and, perhaps that’s what my head and heart want me to feel and think about. I don’t know. What do you think?
**********
Rubicon spent just under three years as a military Scout. During that time he was awarded the “AF Cross, 2 Silver Stars, 4 Bronze Stars, Defense Superior Service Medal, AF Good Conduct Medal, and the CIA Distinguished Service Medal” (ODNI). When he refused to kill further, he was stripped of these awards and was abandoned with his PTSD by the military and thrown away.
Sean Griobhtha (gree-O-tah) is a combat veteran. His latest book is X Rubicon: Crossing Life, Sex, Love, & Killing in CIA Proxy Wars: An indictment of US Citizens: ignorantia non excusat, which details the life of Rubicon (“2.5 years of deception & death; 40+ years of locking up emotions & Truth”). You can find him mostly on SubStack & Facebook. It’s important that you read the Foreward (Vanguard); written by a highly intelligent woman with a heart of empathetic gold; she’ll bring you in gently, which neither Rubicon nor I would ever do.
Read the Foreward (Vanguard) free at Substack. Learn more about the author and Rubicon at Substack. 40% discount available for book clubs, student groups, humanitarian groups, We Are Not Your Soldiers groups, Veterans for Peace groups, & more: Inquire at O.Griobhtha+XRubicon at gmail.
Riveting and tragic. Enlightening.