“Several senior U.S. Air Force officers have told me that when the U.S. Air Force tried to preselect fighter pilots after World War II, the only common denominator they could find among their World War II aces was that they had been involved in a lot of fights as children.“

- On Killing; Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

My first fight – the first fight I can remember – wasn’t exactly an even match.  I was five years old.  I was a goofy looking little bastard, with thick glasses that never set straight on my fat face.  My mother held my hand until the bus arrived.

A group of third and forth graders from around the block smelled my weakness.  They kicked and punched and choked me until long after I cried.  The bullying went on for months.  The bus driver saw nothing, and did nothing to stop them.

Until the day I spit on one of my attackers.  I was punished, forced to sit by myself at the front of the bus.  The village idiot.

Bullying became a regular feature in my life.  I was attacked in school and at home.  Bullies always work in groups.  It was never one person, always two or three or four.  They were never social outcasts – always popular kids, exacting punishment for my failure to adapt to normative behavior codes.

I was too fat.  Too smart.  I raised my hand too much.

I had the love of Jesus and a target on my back.

I lost every fight from Kindergarten until puberty.  Even the time I confronted one of my tormentors for picking on me.  I stood up to him and his friend held me down while he punched me repeatedly in the face, calling me a faggot.  He whipped my ass while my best friend stood by.

“If you can recapture or imagine the anger and indignity a child feels in a school-yard fight and magnify that into a way of life, then you can begin to understand these individuals and their capacity for violence.” - On Killing

In hindsight, I was a weird kid.  I read a lot, and spent a lot of time by myself.  I probably would have kicked my ass too.  In 8th grade I made a bold decision – I joined the football team.

Then I discovered two of the most wonderful substances on Earth: testosterone and adrenaline.

The very first game was an away game.  It was a damp Friday evening in September.  We sat in the dim red glow of the bus while our Coach read off the list of starting players.  My name was on that list.  I felt so nervous I wanted to vomit.

On the very first play I fired out of my stance and hit the fat son-of-a-bitch in front of me so hard I knocked my own wind out.

That was nothing! I thought.  This fat fuck is a pushover!

I owned him.  He was was bigger than me, but for the rest of that game number 77 was my bitch.  He had no fight in him.

A few months later, I won my first fight.  I was backed into a corner in the gym locker room.  The neighborhood bully and two of his friends – with the entire class blocking us in.

He hit me once.

When the red mist lifted my football coach was dragging me by the arms into the gym.  He dropped me unceremoniously on my ass in front of the female class.  My co-combatant came shuffling out behind us, bleeding from the face.  Once I had him pinned to the floor, his friends vanished.

This became a monthly – then weekly – ritual.

Eventually, self defense turned into pre-emptive strike.  Call me a faggot one too many times?  Hit me in the head with spitwads?  You had a beating coming.  My temper was well known.  The administrators threw their hands up.  I barely avoided being expelled.

“There is strong evidence that there exists a genetic predisposition for aggression.  In all species, the best hunter, the best fighter, the most aggressive male, survives to pass his biological predispositions on to his descendants . . . But there is another factor: the presence or absence of empathy for others.” - On Killing

According to the U.S. Air Force, during WWII only 1 percent of fighter pilots were responsible for 40 percent of the killing.

By adulthood, most people have spent their entire lives avoiding conflict.  If you watch a typical bar fight develop, groups of males in full territorial swagger will peacock and posture in front of one another.  Most of the time, the person initiating physical contact pushes the other guy.

Shoving someone is, technically, assault.  However, a shove is not an attack.  It is provocation.  Alternately, people will throw their drinks on others to provoke them into fighting.  For most people, it takes a lot of build-up to escalate into actual physical violence.

And a lot of alcohol.

The best way to deal with someone who is escalating toward a violent encounter is to walk away.  While the other party postures, you shake your head and leave.

Alternately, you can call their bluff.  If you’re going to fight, engage.  Don’t mince words.  Don’t dig for a snappy one-liner.  When someone opens their mouth, put your elbow in it.

Men grow a pair when they think you won’t fight back.  This is never more apparent than from behind the wheel of a vehicle.  I have jumped from my own vehicle – and those of others – on numerous occasions.  In my experience, the other person’s balls vanish every time.

Statistically speaking, 100 percent of those people ran away.

The one time someone approached my vehicle, walking up from behind and shouting, he shut his mouth the moment he laid eyes on me.  I looked at him, he looked at me, and he stood there quivering in anger.  I smirked and rolled up my window.  Watching him in my rear view, I saw him hang his head.  He refused to even look in my direction.

There is an unmistakable look in a man’s eyes when he wants to harm you.  That guy didn’t have it.

I have a ferocious temper.  My anger is perpetually on a slow boil.  Depending on what other sources of stress there are in my life, I may only be a short exchange of words away from snapping.

I have found numerous coping mechanisms.  Weight training.  Martial arts.  Sweat and toil works wonders for getting the venom out.  Alcohol numbs it.

. . . But every day of my life, in my heart, there is anger.  It ebbs and flows, but the longer it touches me the more bitter I get.  Some days I can pin-point its source exactly.  On others, I have all I can do to function.  I sit in the bathroom at work, shuddering, overcome by compulsive rage.

When it seeps to the surface, no amount of logic or reason can calm it.  The more my anger grows, the farther from others I feel.  Numb to their feelings, immune to sympathy and charm and compassion.

I feel my anger weaponizing into hatred.

It knows no prejudice – not race nor creed – only friend or foe.  When it rears its head, in that intense moment, I am faced with a cold and logical choice – do I want to hurt this person?

If I answer yes, they will not be paying for their crime alone.  They will be taxed for every unkind word, every injury.  All the pain I have ever felt.

A debt waiting to be repaid.