"At least 27 Russian soldiers in Donetsk attempting to retreat from their positions were killed by friendly fire from their comrades, according to a Ukrainian lawmaker. The result was 27 dead and 34 wounded. Approximately half of the wounded had their arms or legs blown off, Mysiagin said." Source
Just another random and sad event of this kind, we really do not need to search any deeper than "Friendly fire" is most search engines to see such events being reported, the case in the source is being supplied purely for context. Anyway, could you understand what brings an soldier in the battlegrounds to shoot his own allies down? Without going any deep on the Ukraine war itself, lets talk about the general concept of friendly fire and how we do not need guns or any kind of physical damage to bring up the "Friendly Fire Concept" in our daily lifes.
Its usually not intentional, sure, but the damage caused is still representing something to the poor mistaken allies, also the mental acid corroding the mind of who pull the triggers on his own teammates, the remorse of messing families in your own side of the war is just so cruel to live with. Shooting others is already cruel enough, sad that people who do not even need to hold guns are basically forcing those below to do it for them, to pull triggers and splash blood on gray concrete walls. Killing the other side of our wars is usually bad enough for us, imagine when you mistake allies, that could be directly helping you, and shoot them? but what takes someone to do it anyway?
The answer is pretty straight for most, fear and confusion, and sure its! but there is more about it to be brought to the discussion; At a neurological level, most forms of life will have an chaotic behavior when in deep need of surviving, nobody wants to be dead suddenly, its an instinctive way to keep ourselves alive, from an ant running without an given direction when their anthills collapse, from a dog fearing friendly humans due to previous traumatic episode with them, to us, always alert to the dangers around, always with the fingers ready to pull triggers, triggers that will release an energetic controlled explosion, forcing straight damage off the barrel, usually with an victim as lost as us, as the target.
When someone gets to hold an loaded gun, and is sent to the trenches along other fearful "Stormtroopers" to clean the remains of human life, there is basically just one thing on their mental space, to shoot or to be shot. When I say Stormtroopers, I am not making any reference to "Star Wars" world, soldiers do not need to hold laser guns and wear fancy white armors to be called an Stormtrooper, actually in the early first world war was when we started this concept, on the Germany's army there would be highly trained soldiers, always ready to face the statistics of certain death on each of their missions. As the most valuable soldiers of the army, they would be treated as celebrities among the troops, with best food and general conditions than their ordinary counterparts, the elite soldiers would carry automatic sub-machineguns, designed for close combat, designed to jump on the enemies front lines defense to vanish any form of life around, and accomplish special missions. Those were late in the first world war, known as Sturmtruppen, a.k.a Stormtroopers (Assault Troops)
Its just another tale of human tragedy, the roots of modern assault squads are heavily linked to this old concept of storming with bombs and raiding defenses with automatic guns, being held by figures that resemble demons, the grim reapers of the frontlines, the most feared pieces of the hellish world, of wars on trenches, seemingly unbeatable soldiers for whose in their "wrong side", but also fearful on the point of view of the "demons" itself, which had no perspective of being brought back home alive.
There would be no such thing as wars on the perfect world, wars are purely an form of dealing with differences in the worst of the ways, when two sides do not agree, "two teams" are sent to sort the differences in an violent, chaotic warfare, where blood paints not only walls and soil, but also souls among the cultures being affected. The original Stoormtroopers also had families awaiting for them, they were also just as misleaded as their enemies when the superiors started rallying them to the battles.
Its hard to think about feelings and emotions of an being that is killing multiple of your friends in a matter of seconds, with scary weapons shooting faster than anyone can run, held by agile and resilient figures, but the truth is, they were just as tired of the war as anyone else, they were just as prone to the following horrors of such an tragedy as any of the bodies that they made leak conscience.
War brings fear on both sides, and on the parallel sides that have nothing to do with it, and the point is, if someone gives you an gun, and makes you fight for your own family protection, for your own country and cultures to prosperate, there is a high chance that you will do it blindly. We can be trained, on our pshysical beings, to be killing machines, but nobody can train the commanders off those killing machines to not suffer from this actions, to not be scared from the possibilities of being unalive in a single blink.
There is friendly fire occuring not only on the small view of the wars, were a soldier mistakes their friends as enemies and so, treats them as one, but there is friendly fire on the bigger scales of the war as well, there is friendly fire occuring among each corrupted soul that start wars because they can do so.
Friendly fire is all about delaying your own side development in an war scenario, delaying your own people to prosperate for an "life of the winners", and it happens on an global scale, as an majority of those fighting the current wars of modern life, will not come back to their families and friends, they will be just another number on statistics papers.
Where are we going with this? instead of focusing on making the world better, and thus making all sides better, there is people focusing on demolishing the other side just to prosperate superficially faster..
In a few hundred years what will the several thousands of misleaded souls represent to the history? Nothing, not even the cause of their life being lost will be considered, because it will not matter enough. If we do not start an nuclear devastation, of course, we will be just so much more developed in the next few hundred years, that we will suffer to understand the reasons of such chaotic events of the past history.
The soldiers shooting their fellows, the governs saboting their own people with all forms of corruption, the presidents destroying whole centuries of cultures because they are dumb as needing more oil and not being able to ask for it without gunpowder being involved.
It ends up that this behaviour is rooted in human beings, in all levels of power, from the starving guy that will be jailed for "stealing" bread, to the powerful president with nuclear ogives threating to push buttons, ending whole continents on an butterfly effect.
Modern society imposes a severe problem called egocentrism, more we have, more we want, always more reserved our resources must be, nobody can touch our water or food supplies, does not matter if there is people starving out there, it is their problem, shall they work for their own food while mine expires the shelf life!
Unfortunately many think this way, many commit friendly fire not only against those unknown names, but also against their own families.
How many do not understand their own siblings? instead of focusing on an broader development, focusing on consuming from their own blood because ego said to do so!?
World is harsher and harsher every single day, for a single person to truly evolve, there is many others going for mistaken paths, thinking they did well with their fat wallets while their own family struggles to understand the reasons of being left back, sometimes being used as stepgrounds or being tortured by the errors of others, errors that they might not see, as their own ego is more important than the emotions of those around.
An elite soldier, trained to make vanish souls and be feared in the battlegrounds, will also fear his weaker enemies, and is prone to errors and mistakes against his own teammates. Friendly fire occurs all the time on the battlegrounds, since the early ancient times we were prone to this, now with more lethal weapons and an increased fear ratio, we are even more vulnerable to be shot by our own side of any fight of any size, by our own family, by our own best friends, by those supposed to support and protect us.
To shoot your friends down is easy, all you need is an slightly paranoia, fear of being shot, and really just need to mistake the sides, we are always prone to be damaged by our own around.
Sometimes there is this feeling of an stranger on the nest, stranger that might be just like you, but will still be mistaken as an non existent threat.
It will happen not just in an violent war scenario, but also on the silent wars of modern families, with siblings not empathizing enough with themselves, or parents not allowing their children's to do what they truly want, forcing what they think is best, even if they actually do not understand any bit of their own creation's point of view.
Its easy to point fingers and speak bad stuff about someone, but it is hard to give an reason for the surrounding problem roots, even harder to give an solution for all of this.
We are in a world that people will call you ill, but will not offer a cure, people will point your flaws but will not see the virtues. A world of increasing egocentrism, increasing individualism, because nobody understands neither tries to understand anyway, about their own similars, its easier to live our own life, watered by rudeness, ignorance and lack of comprehension.
Its not fault of anyone, its fault of the false developed system we have currently, system of working until your hands decay, system of not care about the problems of others because the life gave many problems for each of us to take care of already, problems more dense than any empathy could see above.
We drown on our own mud pits, and so we can not really see who drowns as well, maybe if we see an hand we will try to pull ourselves, in an attempt to get out of the problems, but sometimes the hands we see are just as desperate as ours, also seeking a firm place to hold and pull themselves out.
Thanks for any of those who read this far!
