Reply #198: Most SF guys hide it better...

[The Doctor.]

I've been around more than a few of them. At first it takes a while to get the hairs on the back of your neck to stop prickling, but after you've been through some of their training... even a fraction... you get it.

I've never bothered to mention this, but I trained HTH with a guy out of the Rangers. He was recon in 'Nam. One of the things that I'll never get out of my system is the incredible 'high-alert' state that I was always in while training.
It's hard to describe, it is all at once a state of alertness, relaxation, paranoia, and energy. It settles into you after only a few weeks of training... and then it's permanent.

Until I nearly split a kid's face open for moving in a way I was 'conditioned' to respond to.

I dropped it after that, or tried. But it's still there, this thing, this 'programming'.

To this day I can still 'sense' so much about those around me. Every motion in a room, every attitude, I can't help it. And if they are trained in real HTH, if they are real killers, they stick out like a bright red flashing light... especially the ones who try to hide it.

I have zero doubt that some DU vets know exactly what I'm talking about... and more.

Personal crap aside, our SF guys go through some very serious shit before they even hit the field. Some here have been there, or know those who have. Nothing in the movies can touch what really goes down.

They are conditioned to do things that anyone with empathy is incabable of, and for good reasons... reasons that I respect. But have no doubts; We create monsters to do things that humans would not.