War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges

[Combanitorics]

I've never been in organized combat, but I was a firefighter in the Air Force and as such saw a few SHTF moments, where the balance between living and dying was pretty fine. I didn't have the time nor inclination to notice any paranormal stuff. I was too busy working on the problem at hand, taking charge of my own survival and where necessary the survival of my brotha firedogs.

I experienced the same when being a medic some 20 years ago. I've seen my share of bodies and the dying. I never once stopped to consider if they're going to heaven. Just the tragedy and unerlying banality of it. With time and experience even the tragedy vanished and only the banality stayed.

Banality is defiantly the opposite of meaning.  I don't think the book refers to religious meaning, though.  I think it is talking about national, political, racial and human identity.  Religion only comes up in the discussion of the Yugoslavian conflict, since the area has a Muslim population.

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The fighting itself, or some benefit you reaped from being part of the fight?  Was it about belonging to a group, or did it stem from gains resulting from the outcome of the conflict?

I started out with a 25-man team. After two years there were seven of us left. Two more died after I was flown out, and the other four died before they were forty years old. We were still more alive than 99% of the people on this planet.

Because you experienced life in ways and at an intensity which the other 99% did not?

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Religious/Paranormal considerations totally aside, did these experiences "give you meaning" in any way beyond what meaning you already attached to your life?  As a personality or character, were these experiances extremely formative for you, or did you find that you yourself did not essentially change, including in your worldview?

They didn't change me too much. I'd already lived through the 1978 revolution in Iran, and that was for me the formative event in my life.

I see.