The Day I Helped Kill Four Chessplayers

What you are about to read is a true story. Because this story would seem so unbelievable to some, I almost decided not to write it. However, because of the irony and intrique involved I decided to share it with others. Since the story could be long, I'll try to take some shortcuts and abbreviate it as much as possible. Some important details will be left out on purpose if you know what I mean.

Back in 1999 I deployed to England as a member of an air defense analysis team of approximately five people. In short, we did air defense analysis and provided daily reports from the warfighter (pilots included) all the way up to the President of the United States in support of Operation Allied Force.

As you would expect in any war, there are people shooting at each other and the enemy was shooting at our planes. My job was to find these people so we could eliminate that threat to our pilots. One day with a little help from a computer I came up with a location where there were firing. I placed it in the report and thought nobody would act on it.

Later on in the afternoon I was told we had a kill. Somebody asked me to come and view the video. As I was watching the video, I could see three or four guys taking a break outside their vehicle as they played a game of chess. One guy looked up, and dropped his cigarette from his mouth, as he saw the missle heading towards his position. It was too late. There was nothing they could do. Everything went black. There's no doubt about it. They were dead, cold stone dead. Nobody could survive that.

The ironic thing about it is that I'm a chess player. Some might say this was my greatest simul. It's crazy how things turn out sometimes.

That's war and that's what happens in war. Now that war has become a virtual war, killing is easy, really easy. You can kill someone from hundreds if not thousands of miles away and go home and sleep soundly at night. It takes the guilt out of war.

I worked with a pilot who killed an entire village in Vietnam of hundreds of people. He had a hard time living with himself, understandably so. Now, just push a button and go home to your nice warm bed.

Just some thoughts.

cheers

Paul