What the Tender Heart Can Know

A Story by Paris Hlad

The sin of seeing is the insidious guilt that manifests in a soldier when he witnesses, for the first time, an act of extreme cruelty in the context of war, especially an act performed by someone with whom he is aligned.[1] The gentler aspects of his nature are betrayed, and he believes that his alignment with the actor (his alignment with war) makes him an accomplice in what he merely observes. He is deceived by his senses, and his mind is forever corrupted by feelings of shame, betrayal, and existential fear.

In World War II, there were battles fought in the Pacific in which nearly all Japanese defenders were killed. Very few surrendered and even fewer were taken as prisoners of war. Twenty-one thousand Japanese soldiers defended Iwo Jima. A total of 20,784 were killed. They were deceived by their superiors and not allowed to surrender. Things were similar at the Battle of Okinawa. More than a quarter-million Japanese perished, about half of them civilians.

Some of the finest young men the world has ever produced were American soldiers who partook in that sin of seeing. They lived with it until they died, and very few spoke openly about it. They were heroes, the likes of which we may never see again, but they were also war victims. They suffered beyond what the heart should know. My father was one of them. All guilt for the abomination that was the War in the Pacific belongs to the god of the physical universe, the Demiurge of antiquity and today.[2]

[1] The sin of seeing is the poet’s invention. It is creatively and specifically applied to those who experience war in the way he describes and should not be interpreted as an attempt to redefine Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a complicated psychological condition that has many origins and manifestations. Although PTSD frequently occurs among combat veterans, it is commonly experienced by sexual assault survivors, victims of childhood abuse, and others who endure intense psychological trauma.

[2] But even those who have participated in the killing of others should know that the words Christ spoke to the adulteress were intended for all humanity and apply to every iniquity �" “Go, and sin no more.” It is the simplest of all spiritual propositions and possibly the most controversial. When we penitently confess our sins, we become new men because the blood of Christ has relegated the man we were to the junkyard of physical existence �" “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it through Him.” John 3:17