My life is plagued by the thoughts of my past and I’m haunted in part by dogs of all things.

Perhaps the creatures on the vast earth I have the most affiliation with and they haunt my waking days.

Many years ago I was deployed to overseas and some how fate landed me in a position where I was ordered to cull a large pack of dogs in a deserted village. They were getting very dangerous for the troops bailing soldiers up and there were fears of rabies and the worry that someone would shoot inside the perimeter to defend themselves. Anyway it fell to me to become their hunter and inevitably their killer.

You couldn’t write this stuff, no one would believe you, the restrictions placed on me even though I never killed a dog in my life before. I had to catch and destroy them by hand, literally I was told /ordered  “just use a hammer …bop on their head all done, easy.

I didn’t have the moral courage at the time to say no to this order and that’s a decision I regret now many years later. So I did my job, no experience needed apparently I was officially the dog killer on the deployment. I think I killed about 80 dogs but I cant remember them all. I remember the ones that were the most difficult to kill the ones that didn’t go quietly into the night. I caught them in a simple bamboo trap (cage) then I smashed them with a hammer.

The first dog dies so horribly and after that I learnt to be better until at the end I was a expert and the animals didn’t suffer.

But it broke me, something inside me left on that deployment and I’ve never been able to get it back. I cant get past the memories of the dogs I slaughtered, I even vividly remember the smells the sounds everything.

Sometimes I wonder if I should return to that village, my logical brain is telling me there is nothing there but dust and memories but my emotional brain is telling me I will find a measure of peace if I return and mourn.

I know in the vast world this might be a stupid post but I don’t have a answer for this and I cant find the closure I need.