Toussaint
Jacques flapped up and looked over at him. "From what you've said about U.S. policy and such, I'll bet you agree with Tolstoy's view of history.""You've read WAR AND PEACE?"
"Sure. What do you think a bachelor colonel does with his spare time, anyway?"
They laughed, crows in a water puddle laced with road oil.
"Well, let me see," Derek said thoughtfully. "I certainly can't subscribe to an unadulterated 'great man theory' of history, that's for sure."
"It is difficult to imagine how anyone with an ounce of introspection, who has had significant experience of combat, could possibly believe in that theory. . . even if the combat has been with a small, highly trained and expert group. Normal or mass combat is just like Tolstoy describes it: a haze of unanticipatable chance occurrences, a paucity of information, a coalescence of an infinitude of conditioning factors. With the small expert group, however, something strange emerges. The commander is in control, here, no more than in normal combat. In this 'high combat', let's call it, some kind of 'force' takes over to govern the actions of the group. Everyone knows what everyone else knows about the action going down, it seems. It's almost as if each person sees the action, not only through his own eyes, but also through the eyes of everyone else in the group: you are aware of things you couldn't possibility see with your own eyes, but which someone else is in a position to see. It's very strange: somehow, for the duration of the combat, you are not just one person. This happens most intensely, not in a planned action like an ambush, but when the group engages in combat unexpectedly. Everything is instantaneous reaction, but stretched out like in a slow dream. A dream that's all flying bullets, exploding bodies, the taste of blood, the smell of shit and cordite, screams of terror, the concussion of explosives, the gurgle of death. No one decides: 'it' decides. There is spontaneous coordination. You already know what will happen before it happens. Chance, seemingly, is no longer part of the action. But no person controls events! Everything gets done, but it's like no decisions were made: everything just happens properly, and afterwards everyone wonders how it could have been so. It was like that with a half-team I worked with during the early days in Laos: PEO and White Star. I've never been able to understand it. It haunts me. Coming back into normal life is like going into solitary confinement: you have to learn how to live at a distance from people. Separation, again, becomes the only reality. You find yourself returning to high combat time after time trying to recapture that, uh, extraordinary state of being. . . I know this must have some implications for our understanding of history, just as Tolstoy's observations do."
Derek sat there smiling at the Colonel and said nothing.
After a moment, Jacques asked, "What the hell does that silly shit-eaten grin mean?"
"Come on Colonel, you know as well as I that an SF trooper reveals his true motivational framework only to another individual who has worn that green beanie: as far as the world will ever know, he is an authentic patriot."
It was Toussaint's turn to smile.