Jarhead part Deux

"Some shooters might liken the trigger to a clitoris, and the well-placed shot to the female's orgasm, but in STA 2/7 we refrain from anthropomorphizing out weapons. To do so would introduce a human element into an entirely mechanical relationship. To do so might humanize our enemy, a certainly fatal mistake. Trigger pull is trigger pull. Period." [Swofford, pg. 134]

This touched me to a large degree. For one, the sexual references & the choice of words. Every time they fire a weapon & hit their mark, it is rubbing a clit & causing a climax. But, to Swoff, he doesn't do that because it turns them human, so he says at the end of that paragraph "period." Typically when a female is on her menstral cycle, her 'period', the sex comes to a standstill [unless you wanna earn your redwings, but that is a different tale for a different date]. Swoff basically stops all of it with his 'period.'

Another thing that got to me was that dehumanization thing. Say every man who ever went to war went back to their homes... They would never be the same. If they had to be broken down to turn into that "killing machine" that means that they would have to go through ANOTHER bootcamp to turn back into who they are. They are broken down to such an extreme to become these heartless monsters but sent back into society with the same mentality. It kinda sickens me to think how freedom is never free & always comes with a price.