I started realizing that as I was yelling these obscenities and threatening to hurt these people, that I didn't want to hurt them. That all my commands for them to stop were just pleas for them to stop that I was really just begging them to stop because I didn't want to hurt anybody..... I brought my rifle up to aim and put my finger on the trigger and took the slack out of the trigger. I was getting ready to fire and they came halting to stop. I saw the little red dot on the little girls...
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I started realizing that as I was yelling these obscenities and threatening to hurt these people, that I didn't want to hurt them. That all my commands for them to stop were just pleas for them to stop that I was really just begging them to stop because I didn't want to hurt anybody..... I brought my rifle up to aim and put my finger on the trigger and took the slack out of the trigger. I was getting ready to fire and they came halting to stop. I saw the little red dot on the little girls forehead and I realized I was aiming a rifle at a little girl and I saw her crying. I didn't want to do anything but freeze it all and hold her and tell her it would be ok..... Shortly after that my friend Heredia died... the way everyone reacted, everyone just went on like it was another day... no one really batted an eye... it all just messed with me a lot....We have to realize that PTSD is a symptom of an attack of conscience and my conscience is telling me something is wrong. I don't need to take a bunch of pills to silence my conscience. I need to take steps to listen to it. I need to take steps to end this war and take steps to make sure no one suffers like I did or does what I did." .. Brian Hannah, Iraq War Veteran from San Marcos, TX.
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