TED演講: Why veterans miss war老兵為何懷念戰(zhàn)爭

Sebastian Junger：美國記者，因《The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea》一書而出名，他后來拍攝的一系列紀(jì)錄片記錄了美軍在阿富汗戰(zhàn)爭期間的故事，后來還出版了一本書名為《War》。

I'm going to ask and try to answer, in some ways, kind of an uncomfortable question. Both civilians, obviously, and soldiers suffer in war; I don't think any civilian has ever missed the war that they were subjected to. I've been covering wars for almost 20 years, and one of the remarkable things for me is how many soldiers find themselves missing it.

我會(huì)提出并且回答一個(gè)問題，這個(gè)問題在某些方面會(huì)讓人不舒服。 顯而易見，在戰(zhàn)爭中，平民和戰(zhàn)士都會(huì)受到傷害，我認(rèn)為沒有一個(gè)平民會(huì)懷念他們經(jīng)歷過的戰(zhàn)爭。我報(bào)道戰(zhàn)爭將近20年了，而我發(fā)現(xiàn)值得注意的事情之一就是，有多少士兵會(huì)覺得自己很懷念戰(zhàn)爭。

How is it someone can go through the worst experience imaginable, and come home, back to their home, and their family, their country, and miss the war? How does that work? What does it mean?

一個(gè)最后回到家里，回到祖國的人，會(huì)想念帶給他們最糟糕經(jīng)歷的戰(zhàn)爭？那是怎么回事？那是什么意思？

We have to answer that question, because if we don't, it'll be impossible to bring soldiers back to a place in society where they belong, and I think it'll also be impossible to stop war, if we don't understand how that mechanism works.

我們不得不回答這個(gè)問題，如果我們不給出答案，就無法使我們的戰(zhàn)士回歸那個(gè)屬于他們的地方，社會(huì)。并且，如果不弄明白這個(gè)問題，也不可能阻止戰(zhàn)爭的發(fā)生。

The problem is that war does not have a simple, neat truth, one simple, neat truth.

問題是戰(zhàn)爭沒有一個(gè)簡單純凈的真理。

Any sane person hates war, hates the idea of war, wouldn't want to have anything to do with it, doesn't want to be near it, doesn't want to know about it. That's a sane response to war.

任何理智的人都憎恨戰(zhàn)爭，憎恨戰(zhàn)爭意識(shí)，不想提它，不想接近它，不想了解它。那是對(duì)戰(zhàn)爭正常的反應(yīng)。

But if I asked all of you in this room, who here has paid money to go to a cinema and be entertained by a Hollywood war movie, most of you would probably raise your hands. That's what's so complicated about war. And trust me, if a room full of peace-loving people finds something compelling about war, so do 20-year-old soldiers who have been trained in it, I promise you. That's the thing that has to be understood.

但是，今天我要問在座誰花過錢去電影院觀看好萊塢戰(zhàn)爭片，你們中的大部分人肯定都會(huì)舉手。那這就令人匪夷所思了。相信我，如果在座的熱愛和平的人士認(rèn)為戰(zhàn)爭很刺激精彩，那么那些經(jīng)受訓(xùn)練的年輕戰(zhàn)士也會(huì)這樣想。這是需要大家心知肚明的。

I've covered war for about 20 years, as I said, but my most intense experiences in combat were with American soldiers in Afghanistan. I've been in Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan in the '90s, but it was with American soldiers in 2007, 2008, that I was confronted with very intense combat.

我曾經(jīng)報(bào)道過戰(zhàn)爭達(dá)20年。我最難忘的就是和在阿富汗美軍士兵在一起的經(jīng)歷。90年代，我曾到過非洲，中東以及阿富汗。但是我真正面臨著激烈的戰(zhàn)斗是在2007和2008這兩年，跟美軍士兵在一起的時(shí)候。

I was in a small valley called the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. It was six miles long. There were 150 men of Battle Company in that valley, and for a while, while I was there, almost 20 percent of all the combat in all of Afghanistan was happening in those six miles. A hundred and fifty men were absorbing almost a fifth of the combat for all of NATO forces in the country, for a couple months. It was very intense.

我在阿富汗東部的一個(gè)六英里長的名叫Korengal的山谷里。那里還有戰(zhàn)斗營的150位戰(zhàn)士。這六英里長的地方進(jìn)行了阿富汗戰(zhàn)役百分之20的戰(zhàn)斗。就是這150位戰(zhàn)士承擔(dān)了北約聯(lián)盟在這個(gè)國家百分之20的數(shù)月的激烈戰(zhàn)役。

I spent most of my time at a small outpost called Restrepo. It was named after the platoon medic that had been killed about two months into the deployment. It was a few plywood B-huts clinging to a side of a ridge, and sandbags, bunkers, gun positions, and there were 20 men up there of Second Platoon, Battle Company. I spent most of my time up there. There was no running water. There was no way to bathe. The guys were up there for a month at a time. They never even got out of their clothes.

大部分時(shí)間我都待在一個(gè)叫Restrepo的前哨基地。Restrepo 是為了紀(jì)念兩個(gè)月前在該哨所里被殺的醫(yī)療排而命名的。這個(gè)哨所有一些在山脊邊上由膠合板建造的B型小屋，沙袋，沙坑，槍位，以及20位戰(zhàn)斗營二排的士兵。我大部分時(shí)間是在那里度過的，沒有自來水，沒有辦法沖涼。士兵們每次都要在這種地方待一個(gè)月，他們甚至從不換衣服。

They fought. The worked. They slept in the same clothes. They never took them off, and at the end of the month, they went back down to the company headquarters, and by then, their clothes were unwearable. They burned them and got a new set. There was no Internet. There was no phone. There was no communication with the outside world up there. There was no cooked food. There was nothing up there that young men typically like: no cars, no girls, no television, nothing except combat. Combat they did learn to like.

他們要打仗，要工作，穿著相同的衣服，從不脫下，到月末，就返回總部，此刻，他們已經(jīng)衣衫襤褸。他們就把這些爛衣服燒毀領(lǐng)取新制服。那里也沒有網(wǎng)絡(luò)、電話，沒有和外界溝通的媒介。沒有熟食，沒有年輕人喜歡的一切東西：汽車，美女，電視機(jī)。只有戰(zhàn)爭，他們學(xué)會(huì)喜歡上了它。

I remember one day, it was a very hot day in the spring, and we hadn't been in a fight in a couple of weeks, maybe. Usually, the outpost was attacked, and we hadn't seen any combat in a couple of weeks, and everyone was just stunned with boredom and heat. And I remember the lieutenant walking past me sort of stripped to the waist. It was incredibly hot. Stripped to the waist, walked past me muttering, "Oh God, please someone attack us today." That's how bored they were. That's war too, as a lieutenant saying, "Please make something happen because we're going crazy."

我記得有一天，那是春季的一個(gè)熱天，我們已經(jīng)大概數(shù)周沒有戰(zhàn)斗了。通常會(huì)遭受襲擊的哨站這幾個(gè)星期卻沒有任何戰(zhàn)斗。每個(gè)人都非常無聊，又熱得要死。記得從我身旁走過的光著膀子的中尉，天氣太熱了，他都把衣服脫了，自言自語道：“老天，來場(chǎng)戰(zhàn)斗吧。”他們就是這樣無聊，這就是戰(zhàn)爭，“快點(diǎn)發(fā)生的什么吧，我們快瘋了?！蹦硞€(gè)中尉說。

To understand that, you have to, for a moment, think about combat not morally -- that's an important job to do — but for a moment, don't think about it morally, think about it neurologically. Let's think about what happens in your brain when you're in combat. First of all, the experience is very bizarre, it's a very bizarre one. It's not what I had expected. Usually, you're not scared. I've been very scared in combat, but most of the time when I was out there, I wasn't scared.

要明白這種心理，你需要有那么一刻不是從道義上思考戰(zhàn)爭，這很重要，而是從神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)方面想想。但你身處戰(zhàn)爭時(shí)，你腦海里在想什么？首先，這個(gè)經(jīng)歷非常奇怪，非常奇異。跟我所預(yù)料的不一樣。在那種情況下，你通常不會(huì)害怕。我曾經(jīng)在戰(zhàn)斗中害怕過，但我在那里的時(shí)候，我不害怕。

I was very scared beforehand and incredibly scared afterwards, and that fear that comes afterwards can last years. I haven't been shot at in six years, and I was woken up very abruptly this morning by a nightmare that I was being strafed by aircraft, six years later. I've never even been strafed by aircraft, and I was having nightmares about it. Time slows down. You get this weird tunnel vision. You notice some details very, very, very accurately and other things drop out.

只有在戰(zhàn)前和戰(zhàn)后，我才害怕。而戰(zhàn)后的那種恐懼能夠持續(xù)數(shù)年。六年里我沒有經(jīng)歷過子彈射擊。今天早晨我突然被噩夢(mèng)驚醒，六年后，我夢(mèng)見我被空軍炮轟致死。我從來沒有被炮轟過，但我卻經(jīng)常夢(mèng)見它。時(shí)光慢慢流逝，你有了奇怪的幻覺，你能準(zhǔn)確的注意到一些細(xì)節(jié)，忽略其他的事情。

It's almost a slightly altered state of mind. What's happening in your brain is you're getting an enormous amount of adrenaline pumped through your system. Young men will go to great lengths to have that experience. It's wired into us. It's hormonally supported. The mortality rate for young men in society is six times what it is for young women from violence and from accidents, just the stupid stuff that young men do: jumping off of things they shouldn't jump off of, lighting things on fire they shouldn't light on fire, I mean, you know what I'm talking about.

那幾乎是大腦微妙的轉(zhuǎn)換。你大腦里正在發(fā)生的事源于你身體系統(tǒng)里噴涌而出的巨量腎上腺素。年輕人愿意花任何代價(jià)來體驗(yàn)?zāi)欠N感覺，它已植入我們，有激素的支持。社會(huì)上，年輕男人源于暴力，事故的死亡率是年輕女人的六倍。他們做些愚蠢的事情：從不該跳的地方跳下去，點(diǎn)燃不該點(diǎn)燃的東西。你們應(yīng)該明白我說的是什么。

They die at six times the rate that young women do. Statistically, you are safer as a teenage boy, you would be safer in the fire department or the police department in most American cities than just walking around the streets of your hometown looking for something to do, statistically.

他們的死亡率是同齡女性的6倍。從數(shù)據(jù)來看，當(dāng)你是個(gè)男孩時(shí)，你是安全的，當(dāng)你在美國許多大城市的消防部或者警察局里，你會(huì)比在家鄉(xiāng)的街道上散步周游更安全。

You can imagine how that plays out in combat. At Restrepo, every guy up there was almost killed, including me, including my good friend Tim Hetherington, who was later killed in Libya. There were guys walking around with bullet holes in their uniforms, rounds that had cut through the fabric and didn't touch their bodies.

 你可以想想戰(zhàn)斗中的場(chǎng)景。在Restrepo，我和那里的戰(zhàn)士差點(diǎn)都死了，包括我的好朋友Tim Hetherington，他最后死在了利比亞的戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)上。戰(zhàn)士們穿著布滿槍眼制服，身上滿是穿過織物，未傷皮肉的傷痕，在那走來走去。

I was leaning against some sandbags one morning, not much going on, sort of spacing out, and some sand was kicked into the side of, sort of hit the side of my face. Something hit the side of my face, and I didn't know what it was. You have to understand about bullets that they go a lot faster than sound, so if someone shoots at you from a few hundred meters, the bullet goes by you, or hits you obviously, half a second or so before the sound catches up to it.

一天早晨，我靠著一些沙袋，沒什么事，有點(diǎn)在放空的狀態(tài)。有些沙子從我的側(cè)臉沖出來，我知道有東西擊中我的臉。但我不知道是什么。你必須明白子彈的速度比聲音快很多。因此當(dāng)某人在百米開外朝你舉槍射擊時(shí)，聽到聲響的半秒前子彈已經(jīng)經(jīng)過你，并且毫無疑問射中你。

So I had some sand sprayed in the side of my face. Half a second later, I heard dut-dut-dut-dut-duh. It was machine gun fire. It was the first round, the first burst of an hour-long firefight. What had happened was the bullet hit, a bullet hit three or four inches from the side of my head. Imagine, just think about it, because I certainly did, think about the angle of deviation that saved my life. At 400 meters, it missed me by three inches. Just think about the math on that. Every guy up there had some experience like that, at least once, if not many times.

 有些沙子在我側(cè)臉揚(yáng)起，半秒之后，我就聽到了嗒嗒嗒的聲音。是機(jī)關(guān)槍在掃射。第一輪掃射長達(dá)一個(gè)小時(shí)。之前就是子彈射擊，一顆子彈從距離我頭部三四英寸的地方爆炸。想象一下吧，我想就是這三四英寸的距離救了我一命。在400米開外，子彈在三英寸的地方錯(cuò)過了我。用數(shù)學(xué)計(jì)算一下吧，那里的男孩子們至少有一次有這樣的經(jīng)歷，如果沒有很多次的話。

The boys are up there for a year. They got back. Some of them got out of the Army and had tremendous psychological problems when they got home. Some of them stayed in the Army and were more or less okay, psychologically. I was particularly close to a guy named Brendan O'Byrne. I'm still very good friends with him. He came back to the States. He got out of the Army.

戰(zhàn)士們?cè)谀抢锎袅艘荒?。他們回來了。有些人離開了部隊(duì)，回到家中時(shí)，已有很嚴(yán)重的心理問題。有些人依舊呆在部隊(duì)里，心理上還算良好。我和一個(gè)叫Brendan O’Byrne的士兵關(guān)系很好。我們現(xiàn)在仍然是很要好的朋友。他回到了美國，離開了部隊(duì)。

I had a dinner party one night. I invited him, and he started talking with a woman, one of my friends, and she knew how bad it had been out there, and she said, "Brendan, is there anything at all that you miss about being out in Afghanistan, about the war?" And he thought about it quite a long time, and finally he said, "Ma'am, I miss almost all of it." And he's one of the most traumatized people I've seen from that war. "Ma'am, I miss almost all of it."

 有個(gè)晚上，我舉辦了一個(gè)晚會(huì)，我邀請(qǐng)了他，在晚會(huì)上，他開始和我的一個(gè)女性朋友交談。她知道戰(zhàn)爭有多殘酷，問他：“Brendan, 在阿富汗作戰(zhàn)中，你是否有想念的事情？”他想了很久，最后答道：“女士，我?guī)缀跸肽钅抢锏囊磺?。”他是那次?zhàn)爭中我見過的創(chuàng)傷最嚴(yán)重的一個(gè)人?！芭浚?guī)缀跸肽钅抢锏囊磺小?

What is he talking about? He's not a psychopath. He doesn't miss killing people. He's not crazy. He doesn't miss getting shot at and seeing his friends get killed. What is it that he misses? We have to answer that. If we're going to stop war, we have to answer that question.

他在講些什么，他不是一個(gè)神經(jīng)病，不會(huì)想念殺人的。他沒有瘋，不會(huì)想念被子彈射擊和親眼看戰(zhàn)友被殺的日子。他在想念什么呢？ 我們要找到答案。如果我們要停止戰(zhàn)爭的話，就必須回答這個(gè)問題。

I think what he missed is brotherhood. He missed, in some ways, the opposite of killing. What he missed was connection to the other men he was with. Now, brotherhood is different from friendship. Friendship happens in society, obviously. The more you like someone, the more you'd be willing to do for them. Brotherhood has nothing to do with how you feel about the other person. It's a mutual agreement in a group that you will put the welfare of the group, you will put the safety of everyone in the group above your own. In effect, you're saying, "I love these other people more than I love myself."

我認(rèn)為他想念的是戰(zhàn)友情。他懷念的是殺戮的對(duì)立面。他想念的是和他在一起的戰(zhàn)士之間的情結(jié)?，F(xiàn)在，戰(zhàn)友情和友情是不一樣的。很明顯，友情源于社交。你越喜歡某人，就付出的越多。戰(zhàn)友情和你對(duì)他人的感覺是毫無瓜葛。這種情結(jié)是一種相互的協(xié)議，你把集體的利益，人人的安全置于你之上。實(shí)際上，你能說：“我愛這些人勝過愛自己.”

Brendan was a team leader in command of three men, and the worst day in Afghanistan — He was almost killed so many times. It didn't bother him. The worst thing that happened to him in Afghanistan was one of his men was hit in the head with a bullet in the helmet, knocked him over. They thought he was dead. It was in the middle of a huge firefight. No one could deal with it, and a minute later, Kyle Steiner sat back up from the dead, as it were, because he'd come back to consciousness. The bullet had just knocked him out. It glanced off the helmet. He remembers people saying, as he was sort of half-conscious, he remembers people saying, "Steiner's been hit in the head. Steiner's dead." And he was thinking, "I'm not dead." And he sat up. And Brendan realized after that that he could not protect his men, and that was the only time he cried in Afghanistan, was realizing that. That's brotherhood.

 Brendan 是個(gè)組長，手下有三個(gè)戰(zhàn)士。在阿富汗最殘酷的日子里，他很多次差點(diǎn)被殺害，卻絲毫沒有受煩擾。在阿富汗，對(duì)他來說，最糟糕的事情就是他的一名手下被子彈射進(jìn)頭盔擊中頭部，擊倒在地。在這種戰(zhàn)火硝煙的深夜，他們以為他必死無疑，均束手無策。一會(huì)兒，Kyle Steiner 坐起來，可以說是死里復(fù)活，因?yàn)樗钟辛艘庾R(shí)蘇醒過來了。子彈只是將他擊倒，擦過頭盔。他半蘇醒時(shí)，他聽到人們說，他們說：“Stenier 被擊中了頭，死了?！彼谙耄骸拔疫€沒有死.” 他坐起來了。從那之后，Brendan 意識(shí)到自己無法保護(hù)他的戰(zhàn)友們。在阿富汗僅有的一次，他哭了。那就是戰(zhàn)友情。

This wasn't invented recently. Many of you have probably read "The Iliad." Achilles surely would have risked his life or given his life to save his friend Patroclus. In World War II, there were many stories of soldiers who were wounded, were brought to a rear base hospital, who went AWOL, crawled out of windows, slipped out doors, went AWOL, wounded, to make their way back to the front lines to rejoin their brothers out there.

這不是近期才出現(xiàn)的。很多人可能讀過《伊利亞特》。Achilles 冒著生命的危險(xiǎn)去拯救他的朋友Patroclus。 在二戰(zhàn)中，有許許多多這樣的故事：受傷的戰(zhàn)士被送到后方基地的醫(yī)院里。他們逃離病床，爬出窗戶，溜出門外，受傷，重新回到前線加入那兒的戰(zhàn)友們。

So you think about Brendan, you think about all these soldiers having an experience like that, a bond like that, in a small group, where they loved 20 other people in some ways more than they loved themselves, you think about how good that would feel, imagine it, and they are blessed with that experience for a year, and then they come home, and they are just back in society like the rest of us are, not knowing who they can count on, not knowing who loves them, who they can love, not knowing exactly what anyone they know would do for them if it came down to it. That is terrifying. Compared to that, war, psychologically, in some ways, is easy, compared to that kind of alienation. That's why they miss it, and that's what we have to understand and in some ways fix in our society.

所以你想想Brendan吧，想想那些有著同樣經(jīng)歷的所有戰(zhàn)士們吧。在一個(gè)小集體里，這樣的關(guān)系使得他們愛那20個(gè)人勝過愛他們自己。你們想想他們感情有多好。一年以來，他們受到福佑，回到家中，像我們一樣，歸入社會(huì)中，卻不知道能依靠誰，誰愛他們，他們能愛誰，總之，不能準(zhǔn)確的知道他們認(rèn)識(shí)的人能為他們做些什么。 那太可怕了。相比較精神上的疏遠(yuǎn)，戰(zhàn)爭在心理上來說更容易適應(yīng)。那就是為什么他們想念戰(zhàn)爭。那就我們必須明白的并且在某種程度上在我們社會(huì)上要進(jìn)行修補(bǔ)的。

Thank you very much.

 謝謝。

（視頻來源：優(yōu)酷，編輯 Helen）

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