The Moment I Knew Why There Were Suicide Bombers

I was preparing to deploy to Iraq when the thought bubbled up, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Maybe I’ll die in Iraq.” I was surprised because my inner monologue was hopeful. A flicker of excitement kindled in my chest—I didn’t understand.

Why?

And the answer came just as quickly. I couldn’t possibly do more if I was killed. No one could ask or require more. I’d have given my full measure. My wife, my kids, and I would matter to my family back home.

My inadequacy would be wiped away.

A single deployment to Iraq was insignificant compared to my father’s Special Operations career. My non-classified, non-combat support job paled in importance to his and I could never deploy enough to be worthy of his attention, let alone respect.

But if I died serving my country… he’d be proud. They’d all have to be. Military service was paramount. My family back home would acknowledge me. They’d love me. They’d respect me. My life would have mattered.

I would matter to them.

A lifetime of pining to belong… to be wanted… to be accepted and to be worthy would finally culminate if I was killed in Iraq. In this imagining I’d hope for a quick death. An explosion would be best. Quick and painless. Better yet if I never saw it coming.

For a moment, the icy shiv jabbed into my heart melted. I couldn’t remember a time it wasn’t there. The pain was briefly supplanted with the thought of my wife and kids truly integrating with my family back home. They would belong. They would be accepted. They would be loved.

But the reprieve was fleeting because it wasn’t real.

A still, small voice spoke to me. This is something a suicide bomber would think.

And the realization of just how mentally fucked up it all was set in. It was as if I’d stepped outside myself.

I had a wife and kids that I would leave behind in the wake of my death. My children would never know their father. I’d never grow old with my wife. I’d never see who my children grew up to become. I’d never get to see the family we’d become. In that moment, I hadn’t even considered them.

All I’d envisioned was being accepted by the rest of my family. All I’d sought was to soothe a primal ache cultivated since my earliest memories.

I vowed never to think that thought again or tell a soul that I’d ever thought it. I saw how self-destructive and feckless it was. I saw how cowardly, self-serving, and self-pitying I was.

I was a coward because I knew the truth and didn’t want to face it. It was too painful.

The truth was, there wasn’t anything I could ever do. That’s not what it was about.

But back then I wasn’t aware of the dysfunction. I only understood part of the truth. I didn’t yet know the “why.”

The seeds were sown before I was born and blossoming over a lifetime. I devoured the fruit, blight and all, determined to make it part of me. I was determined to make me and mine a part of it.

It would be many years later before I finally spat it out.

There’s freedom in knowing the “why”—there’s also forgiveness.

For them. For myself.

_______________________________

This first appeared in The Havok Journal on June 18, 2024.

Mike Warnock is the editor-in-chief of The Havok Journal and a retired U.S. Army major and Air Force veteran. He served 20 years on active duty across both branches, led surgical teams as an operating room officer-in-charge, later held clinical, administrative, and inspector general roles, and retired in 2019. A nurse with 23 years of combined civilian and military experience, including two Iraq deployments, he writes from a grounded perspective shaped by military service, medicine, war, and family. He holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a master’s degree in military history from Norwich University.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.