You might want to ask why am I posting such a personal event because of all the slandering that might happen... Yeah, I know I'm probably going to be called a wimp, softy, pu$$y, and what not, but hopefully if this journal survives in years to come, I'll be able to look back one day and show my children that I was scared, and God forbid, if they ever have to live through a war, they can be too...

1990 or 1991. I was in third grade and my brother was in kindergarden. We are walking through Media Play with my dad and find a shareware version of Doom. We beg him to buy it for us. After 10 minutes of proding, he finally gives in and buys it for us... He reminds us that it is only a game...

Tonite on the news... I'm hearing about the recent losses and happenings going on with the war. The station had a special on following a british news anchor and cameraman who were with a group of American soldiers. THe group was approached by multiple Iraqi's dressed in civilian clothing and bearing signs or peace/surrender. When they get close, they open fire. Out of a close by building, Iraqi soldiers begin to pour out and fire upon the American soldiers, and subsequent British reporters. The Americans a pinned. It's a fire fight. They cannot move forward or backwards. They are surrounded on all sides. Soldiers that are walking are ordered to crawl on their bellies to avoid fire. When the shooting gets intense, artillery strikes are called in. When those do not prove fruitful, the American soldiers soon realize that they are running out of ammo. "Conserver your ammunition!" is heard in the background. The camera shifts to a soldier talking on a phone explaing that they group is under heavy fire, low on ammo, and in need of assistance. Air strikes come and soon after, a white flag is flown by the Iraqi's. The camera fades out...

I was watching this in the kitchen with my mother (I was at their house) making dinner. When I heard the conserve your ammo, I started shaking. I sat down to eat and watched the rest of the story. I was still shaking and now it was pretty noticable that I was fighting off tears. My brother and his girlfriend come in and sit down to eat. Mom notices my and asks whats wrong. I shurgged it off and said I was fine. She came over and gave me a hug knowing I was lying. I think I scared my brother and his girlfriend. Then dad comes home. (Yes, this all happened at the same time.) He picks up on it, but decides not to say anything out of respect for me.

What the hell was wrong with me? When I heard those words being yelled out of the soldiers mouths on TV, all I could think of was me playing Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, and all the other first/third person shooters I play. Same with paintball, cause I play that too... Then it hit me and hit me hard. Those are games. What I heard and saw on TV was not. That was not a game. That was real and all I could do was quiver. It's like my body shut down and all I could think of was fear and how I did that daily except those guys don't have a reset button.

Dad took me on the side, gave me a long hug. Reminded me that, yes, that is not a game, but that all those soldiers knew what they were getting into. (He used to be in the army reserves, so he has a good idea.) It helped a bit, but all that keeps running through my head is seeing that soldier scream "Conserve your ammunition!" and me running behind a brick wall in a paintball tournament. When the air raids were called, all I could think of was me using a RPG in Quake...

And knowing that those men and women were out there risking their lives for something they believed in scared me... Because there was a chance that they might not be able to come back. There is a chance that they might die...

And that to me, is very scary. Almost so much that I couldn't put it into words. Just imagine not being able to control yourself infront of your parents and your sibling with his/her significant other. If you can imagine what it would take for you to unvoluntarily do that, you might be able to figure out what I was feeling.

It just was too real for me to handle... And the fact that there was real life Quake going on (and I could see it and understand it for the first time in my life), was way to much for me to handle...

::whimper::