illuminatus

Today, I finally made some alone time for myself. After getting needed things done, such as cutting my own hair and completing all of my school work, I got to sit around in silence and think. Something I have not been able to do since moving back home. Being alone can be so underrated. It can be such a lift of everything.

So I notice something about EVERYONE I meet. I introduce them into my lie, and then try to slowly bring about my truth little by little. Working against a massive current, going from what I appear to be, and what I really am. It's like I have been leaning on my past as a crutch, playing the guilt off in a way that's entirely not needed. Put forward a lie just strong enough that with only a close look can something else be seen, give off some sort of mystery to myself, without being intentionally mysterious.

Well, what does my mind really think about?

Want a lesson in ballistics? What happens when a bullet tears though a body? For our standard issue 5.56 mm NATO rounds, not a whole lot actually. The NATO 5.56mm ball round is small, for those educated in piercings, about a 4gauge, and the round itself is less than a half inch long. However, it has a special tip, that liquefies upon firing, and can penetrate a four inch thick piece of steel while maintaining lethality. Translation, it can push right through the side of a car engine and still kill whoever is behind it.

When it flies through the air, you can actually see it. It moves as a beautiful brass line in the sky, it has a mild shock wave behind it, but from behind the barrel all you can hear the ringing of the sonic boom it creates, from in front, well, depends on how close it is. It could hiss, snap, pop, various sounds. A snap typically means it's aimed directly at you. Count your blessings on those, that meant that the barrel is directly pointed at you, and you can thank the round itself for missing.

As one of these rounds enters a body, there is no pink mist, no splatter, no dramatic body reaction. A shot to the abdomen will only be followed by a reaction from pain, not from the round's inertia. Typically you can expect anywhere from a half second to 2 seconds before a reaction become visible. Only three round placements will create an instant reaction: the heart, the base of the spine, the brain. We are trained to aim at the base of the spine, an area called we identify as the clavicular notch, right at the top of the sternum. Too low, you can hit the heart, too high, the brain. A hit to any of these three area will render an instant death.

It partially cauterizes the area it hits with it's tip, however the spiral of the round and the rigid area where it meets the shell rips that area back up. Not a whole lot of blood loss at all, actually. Not immediately. A brain shot would have to be the most beautiful, because the neck and body never get a chance to respond to the hit. All that can be seen is a brass line momentarily disappearing from sight as it travels through the skull. The head does not move in any direction, just becomes a lifeless body, a rag doll, and falls to the ground. No blood splatter, no mist. No dramatic body flail, just the brass line. Then nothing. It's amazing to see something die off so fast it's almost as if it had always been inanimate.

Higher caliber weapons, such as the M2 .50cal machine gun, have much different reactions. This weapon is so powerful it can actually create a kill by missing. It's shock wave is has about a 6 inch radius. If it were to travel 5 inches from your ear, your head may partially implode. This weapon is the definition of violent. One shot to the heart and the head and arms may detach, a full blown red cloud behind it, incredible amounts of blood splatter. This round is pure metal, no addition, it needs none. A full blown round can travel as far as nine miles before touching ground, lethal over two miles. But only out of the M2, its 82 pound body and stiffened recoil spring allow 550 lbs of back force per shot. It's made as a mounted weapon, giving the round as much power as possible. An M82 rifle absorbs much more recoil, as it is shoulder fired, reducing the rounds movement.

A grenade is a completely different subject. Forget the movies, with large flame bursts or sparks of whatever. It actually has a small blast radius, 5meter kill radius, 15 meter projectile radius. The m26 is about one pound in weight, filled with comp b and a cook time of anywhere from five to ten seconds. We are told to never go above three, and it's a fast count. Comp b is one of those that actually implodes before exploding, fracturing the shell of the grenade to create the same affect the old pineapple grenades had, with shrapnel. If one were to lay on it, the blast will, in fact, be contained. The body will be surprisingly intact, open chest, bones shelled to almost nothing, organ tissue torn, but still all there. Remember the position of the little green army guy as he was throwing a grenade? Looked like he was throwing a football? That's the official way to throw one. And trust me, regardless of the video games, they are hard to throw and don't really go a great distance.

Explosives are a beautiful thing, if you learn how to play with them, the things you can do are just amazing. Creating a door busting flash bang type of explosion from a few coils of det cord and a 500mL Iv bag, doorknob busters, and something we called the air taker, using the idea of a fire's back draft to remove all breathable air from a room. A flame burst is created, the fire last barely a second, instantly taking all the air in the room and suffocating itself in the blink of an eye. Muscle reactions from such explosions are something that I have yet to ever recreate.

Welcome to my mind. Brass lines in the air, shock waves, blood clouds, open chests. Watch a heart beat in real life, slowly until nothing. These are the random thoughts that pass through my head no matter what my environment. Imagine being in public thinking like this. Looking at people and placing them in each scenario, what would that guy do if he heard a snap? What does his heart look like? Would she be able to continue fighting if she suddenly didn't have a leg anymore?

Maybe this is a bit of an introduction to my mentality. For the four people who know of this site and have actually met me before, maybe this is something they never knew of me. Odds are, actually.

They say that when you take a life, it's as easy as a finger squeeze, and it is. But what they never teach you to deal with is what you just took. Not just a life, but everything they ever could be. You just took away a brother, a son. A future father, grandfather. A college graduate, someone's future. And always, a child.