Press a Button get a Beer or How the Military Made me a Killer.

Press a button get a beer.

This is how I became a killer. Press a button get a beer. I realize that there are many reasons that I found myself emerging from the output of the machine pressing out killers but those were my own reasons for showing up. I was romancing the idea of world travel when I arrived on deck and boastfully fell into the hopper. I did receive a lifetime's worth of travel.

Was I hardened after bootcamp? Not at all and unexpectedly not. With my orders delayed and the rest of my shipmates travelling off to their respective schools or commands, I remained behind. For two weeks I was left on my own and this is where I slowly felt the programed robotic numbness fade.

Bootcamp won't make you hard, it only makes robots. It is designed to empty you of thought and into the void is a small opening to fill with the technical knowledge required to perform as a professional sailor or soldier. As my window began to close and I regained the ordinary senses of the world, my first dose of medicine was presented to me. The commander was running out of busy jobs to occupy my time with. Silly things like sentry and deck-swab. He eventually left me alone on my own recognizance and required that I report twice a day. A simpleton's report of whether I was alive or dead (I still half believe the dead must report themselves) and to check on my orders. Let me assure you this wasn't from kindness but human laziness which worked in my favor. I wandered off-base and realized I was a robotic ice cream man from the 1950s. Wearing a white shirt (sans ribbons), pants, and dixie cup hat, I found myself alone watching the Muppet's Christmas Carol at a discount theater and I began to wake up. I sat consuming each rolling credit. This was my medicine.

I wasn't hardened until I graduated Aircrew School. I had defeated all the obstacles, felt invincible, and I was an unproven hero.

Now then, how did I become a killer? After mastering the arts of Aviation Warfare, where everything was so impersonal, we were precise and ready for the world in our new roles. We trained and killed all the digital pixels and fictional enemies without thought or question.

The missions that came followed the same protocol and we kept pushing buttons and celebrating. We kept doing this with such insane routine and ease. I was consumed with pushing this damn button to get home and have a beer! Press the button get a beer and I was getting better at drinking beer. Even better than pressing buttons.

I became a killer by pressing a button and receiving beer. The beers came as my private challenge: 10 buttons, 10 beers, etc (this little etcetera is where the dark ages are remembered but remain undocumented). This continued until I awoke from my newly medicated haze and I explicitly saw what I was capable of producing and began to think again. I thought, I read, and I questioned.

A killer will never question. When I began to question, I ceased being a killer and became something else. I have since been a monster, beast, and eventually a man. Although the latter is only hearsay. I've heard this, yet still yearn to understand man. I am a madman, a bearman, and a fool--but just a man? I wouldn't recognize one if I was staring him in the flesh. I am not sure if I've met a man. I have met ignorance, anger, selfishness, and ego, oh the EGOs I have met! It doesn't matter because I will make something, and I will call him--man.