Guilt for Killing

A finger on the button. 

An order to push the button on a Tomahawk missile. 

He obeyed.

The Tomahawk flew into Iran destroying a school killing 125 school children, little girls who will never again play with dolls, hug their daddies, have their first periods, have little girls and boys of their own. They won't even see another sunrise, sunset.

Does the person who pushed that button think, "I was just following orders," an excuse used at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazis, in Mai Lai and countless other times throughout history.

Did he think those little girls represented a danger to his country?

What if he had taken an AR-15 into a school in his own town and shot 125 school children? Would he have been branded a soldier doing his duty or a monster?

Does he think he did it for his president. Did he vote for that president?

Did he see the children as his enemy?

Did he feel the children were of a wrong religion?

Does he have children at home, little girls like the ones he killed?

Will he feel the guilt, suffer from PTSD as so many soldiers who committed terrible crimes against other humans in the name of patriotism war after, after war after . . .? 

Or for him was it just another day at the office?