When I was a kid (1977-1980) I went to Western Hills Elementary School on 66th and Western in Omaha Nebraska. Our janitor was a guy named Mr McMurray.
I never paid a lot of attention to Mr. McMurray until he started talking about his experiences in World War II. He had a bunch of stories and all the guys used to get around and listen to him tell them.
I'm not going to tell you that we found out after he died he was a medal of honor awardee or anything like that and he kept the stories age appropriate and not particularly gory. If I remember right he was an 11B who fought in the European theater. And that's about as much as I could tell you.
One day I asked him if he'd ever killed anybody and I watched his entire countenance change. Even as a stupid little 10-year-old kid, I saw and understood the pain in his eyes. He looked at me and said "Oh let's not talk about that." and I never ever asked him again and I've never asked anybody else that question ever.
I knew a guy in Georgia who was in the middle of a robbery at a waffle house and killed the robber.
We were talking at a VA Fatboy club meeting one day and whenever I go to those meetings I sit in the chair farthest from the door. And somebody asked me why and I explained Reaction Gap to them. I'm not sure how we got there but I also mentioned that I never sit near the cash register in a restaurant because of the friend of mine in Georgia who happened to be sitting right next to the cash register when the guy walked in and tried to rob the place.
There was one woman that came to the meetings and I made friends with her service dog so we got along. She basically said "Hey he took the trash out. I don't see the problem."
A few of the guys in the meeting were combat vets to be clear I am not I don't know if that woman was or not but they were looking at her like she was out of her mind.
I've never seen anybody that talked lightly about killing people who wasn't psychotic or lying.
