A Puppy’s Fate

There has been a general outrage over the last couple of days, over a video showing a US Marine throwing a puppy off a cliff, somewhere presumably in the Middle East.

At least one veterinarian has come out with the belief that the video shows a real animal being hurled.

“If this is something legitimate, it’s one of the most egregious acts of animal cruelty I have ever seen, if not the most,” said Dr. Matt Mickas, chief of Community Practice Services at WSU’s veterinary college.

He said it did not appear fake to him, because of the way the animal went slack by being held from the neck.

“To me, the sound on the YouTube clip sounded like a puppy in distress — the same sound we hear when the puppies come into the hospital,” Mickas said.

The Marine Corp is looking into the video and hopefully their investigation will come up with some answers. In the meantime, real or fake, the video is producing quite an outcry from many.

My feelings are myriad. We take young men and women and throw them into a grinder, and some of these people are not very stable to begin with. Should we be shocked when they loose basic morality? How can the average person cope with the fact that they’re killing people all the time? If one is in a constant state of killing humans, how can we expect them to treat dogs any better? Yet, how can we be expected to turn a blind eye to such heinous actions, by using such rationalizations?

What it all boils down to is that killing other people is not a natural state for humans to commit effort to. Even once is Earth shaking. Multiple times, over years of service - I can’t see how that can’t scar one for life. As a society, we’re going to have to deal with these traumatized individuals returning home to try to lead a normal life.

That’s where my real worry resides. Someone who has been desensitized to death to such a level that animal life is something to extinguish as a joke, is not someone I want walking around on the streets - not without having had some serious therapy to help them recover from the Hell they’ve been living through. However, the military has not received proper funding for such psychological care to date. In short, we’re going to have a lot of traumatized soldiers returning home, without the mental tools needed to help them make the transition back to day to day civilian life.

If real, this video shows a young man who is willing to kill baby animals for a joke. It shows a mindset that is dangerous to everything around him. People are rightfully outraged when babies and animals are hurt, more than with adult humans - because they are essentially helpless. A mindset that allows someone to torture or kill helpless beings, is not a mindset any civilized society wants. Furthermore, it indicates a generally dangerous trend of thinking, that has more often than not been precursor to vile actions against other people, even people that the sociopath claims to love.

This soldier needs real help, not empty promises or a small military pension and a slap on the back. I fear he won’t get that help and consequently someone in his life back here at home, is going to follow that puppy’s fate. Our casualties in this war, like all wars before it, will not end when the war ends. The final toll may take decades after to determine.