#32 "The Pit Bulls Among Us"

Dear Don1001,

Recently an Orange County toddler died after being mauled by her family’s pit bull. The 23-month-old girl was pronounced dead at the U.V.M. Center after she ventured out of the house and was attacked by the family dog. This is a true tragedy and a part of me weeps for the loss of a child and the fracturing of a family. But is anyone surprised that a Pit Bull took out a child or anyone else for that matter? No, because that is what Pit Bulls do. They were bred to be the fiercest animal on the Planet that you could still get on a leash. There are recorded cases of trained groups of Pit Bulls killing lions and bears for sport. When I read that in the U.S. there are about 45 human fatalities a year resulting from dog attacks, mostly by dogs bred to be killers, I was shocked, I thought there would have been more. When you put killing machines around the weak, infirmed or the old, there will be causalities. Which leads me to my second thought, when will the men and women of the Armed Forces that were thrust into the hardest battle conditions of modern warfare start to go “Postal”? Which is a quaint term for Postal workers that “lost it” and start killing their fellow workers. It turned out that most of the “Postal” were former Vietnam Vets suffering from the effects of war. Well folks, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen that have been exposed to “extreme conditions” in the last few years and most of them were not psychologically prepared for the vagaries of war. It’s not that professional soldiers don’t get some buffer, attempts in training to prepare for the bad that happens. But one moment you’re dropping off your kids at school in Clarksville, Tennessee and a week later, you’re in Afghanistan. Could you make the transition from watching your kids at soccer practice to listening to Guns and Roses at Volume 10 as the Hummer in front of you, disintegrates from a hundred pound homemade land mine? It is a rare individual that can seamlessly deal with a transition that extreme. And there are huge amounts of Regular, Reserve and Guard troops that saw more action in their yearlong tours in Afghanistan or Iraq than most troops averaged in World War II, Korea and Vietnam Wars, combined. Some troops (Reservists and Guard included) have done multiple tours, so there will be scores of these people, years from now, that will kill their fellow civilians unless this country starts pouring literally hundreds of millions of dollars into treating their mental illnesses as they emerge. Yes, there will be a body count. It is not a matter of if, just a matter of when and how often. You can’t ask humans to do inhumane things or be in inhumane conditions and remain human. Our instincts enable us to do almost anything at the moment to survive; it is only later upon reflection that the pain starts. At this point, whether America likes it or not, there are Pit Bulls, of our own making, among us.

                                        Growling, Brother Gregory

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