Recognizing the Monster between Stimulus and Response

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

I remember the exact moment when this quote applied to me. It was toward the end of 2010, and I was deployed to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. We were targeting a network operating out of 3 different areas within the foothills of Tora Bora. We had hit some juicy targets already, but this particular one, was one of the best. After watching a patrol of 4 turn into 8, 8 turn to 12, and 12 eventually to 24, we all wondered when the task force would drop on them. They didn’t, and the patrol found security inside a compound. At first, we were incredulous. Every member of that patrol was armed. Some had RPGs, a few were armed with PKs, and no one possessed anything less than an AK. But the team leaders in our troop were not to be discouraged. This patrol was full of evil men. They were a problem worth solving. The team leads got together and formed a solid plan. Bold, risky, with a timeline that had almost zero room for error, it was creative, combining new and innovative tactics with legacy ones. I’m avoiding details on purpose because I want to protect something that proved effective on the battlefield time and time again.

Our initial engagement brought 23 down using small arms only (assault rifles and machine guns). Still receiving fire from the primary target building, we fired a 66mm rocket at the door, but it fell short. Maneuvering down the ridgeline (finger, really), we crossed a small saddle then assaulted into the compound. One team occupied the right side of the compound and converged on the building the mujahedeen had abandoned to their doom. The other team, the one I was in, fanned out on the left, covering for them. We had a guy in a bad position in the center of the compound. Someone prompted him to move but it was too late. A gunshot from an AK-47 found him. Fortunately, he was hit in the side-plate. An eighth of an inch higher, and we’d have lost him. The subsequent gunfight quickly subsided, and it was time for us to assault the primary target building. Being on the left side, I was in position to throw a grenade into a window prior to us entering. With a thermobaric grenade in hand, ready to pull the pin, we heard a baby screaming through the window. My team leader told me to hold up and I replied, verbatim, “Fuck that baby.”

Instantly, I recognized I had crossed a line in my mind. That baby wasn’t pulling sides in this war. It was just a baby, an innocent life. And I was no baby killer. War can make you say crazy things. Thank God my action following those words were the stowing of the grenade back into my gear. But it happened, and I have to acknowledge it. For a fleeting moment, I became exactly like the monsters we fought against. Innocent life meant nothing to me. I was there to kill the enemy, and if an innocent got in my way, I was prepared to snuff it out. But I also have to acknowledge that I didn’t. I saw myself—in the midst of an on-going target assault—crossing over and stopped. It wasn’t like that event stayed my trigger finger or other means to kill. I continued to do my job that night, and many nights after. It was simply a recognition, that’s all.

I don’t feel bad about it. I’m not ashamed for saying it, or even feeling it in the moment. Bloodlust can do that to you. For those who never felt it, I can’t explain it to you. If I tried, you wouldn’t understand. And if any ‘warrior’ tells you they never felt it, I call bullshit. I saw it in my brother’s eyes, and my own, deployment after deployment. It comes with the territory when you hunt and kill men. But that’s what Nietzsche is talking about. We were staring into the abyss, and it stared back. It hypnotizes you, and if you’re not careful, you can lose yourself.

Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, they’re cut from the same cloth. Monsters, all of them. Anyone who culturally accepts the systematic rape of young boys, the savage degradation of women, and calls for the beheading/torture/rape/violent death of anyone who doesn’t accept their way of life, prophet, or deity is a monster. I didn’t lose a wink of sleep snuffing out any one of them. They were evil and killing them felt good.

But there! See it?

This is where things can start to get murky. At least they did for me, and it took that moment in 2010 to see that I’d crossed over and became the monster I fought. Innocence be damned! It was about the kill and no longer about the greater service of ridding the world of evil. The abyss had hypnotized me, and I lost myself in it. All it took to find myself again was recognition.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” –Viktor Frankl

This is how we hark Nietzsche’s words, and “should look to it” that we don’t become monsters. Monsters in war, at home, with family, friends, neighbors, even with ourselves. It’s easier than we think. The abyss is where evil lurks, but evil also lurks inside us. We can become monsters with the ease of flipping a switch. The first step to not being one is recognizing when you’ve become one, and Frankl tells us exactly where to look. In the space between stimulus and response.

Read Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, and you’ll find monsters abound. Men falter. Some choose to do nothing. Some choose to do evil with gusto. Some placate evil. And some find positive growth and freedom because they’ve actively participated in the space between stimulus and response. Through that active participation, they see clearly. They know what’s right and what’s wrong. They know who they are, and when they’ve lost themselves. They make the necessary adjustment to ensure they remain that best version of themselves, not degenerate into the monster they do not wish to be.

Choice. They all have their glory and consequence. Next time you find yourself in that space between stimulus and response, how will you choose?