Josh Boisvert | Photography + Essays
I Used to Shoot A Rifle
excerpt By Joshua Boisvert
In and out, in and out. Slowly and silently. In and out – in and out – one breathe at a time. This is what I do to calm myself down. As I look in the distance I can't help but notice how beautiful the sunset looks. We are in the desert. Afghanistan. Waiting to get on board a helo. Before anyone could realize that this is finally it, we are all nervous. Scared maybe? Honestly I couldn't tell you. We just do whats required and if that means dying then so be it.
Being scared takes places of joking about what it is that we are about to encounter. We don't actually like to consider the fact that some of your closest friends might be killed, even on the way in. The plane ride over here everybody was saying how insane the Taliban was at fighting and how they could maneuver on you. This isn't Iraq where they fire a few rounds and take off, but I wouldn't know anything about that. These guys conduct operations late into the night, setup ambushes, record you on video, get your name and rank, all of these things. You don't think about it though – you only think about going forward. You don't think about the fact that people are going to die. You don't think about the fact that people have already died. This is just something you put inside your mind and pretend its happening someplace else.
As I recall these events a lot of it escapes my memory. I honestly have such a hard time writing about this because its something I don't consider at the forefront of my everyday life. There are times when being overwhelmed becomes the norm. I suffer from an elevated heartbeat, rising hypervigilance, and sometimes having trouble even concentrating. I ask myself over and over again considerably, “Where does this come from?”
This place, this new world that no one would ever thought existed. How does one find themselves here? I've already lost a good friend on the way over here. I lost many more in those ensuing months. Where am I? This mindset – where a man will debate with himself the intricacies of something he has no control over. Did I do everything I could? Did I do anything wrong? Why am I alive and he isn't? All valid questions. All valid arguments. All part of war.
To think – that, in the beginning, war seems somewhat like a romantic movie. The girl that plays hard to get – and the only thing you can do is pursue and woo her to gain her favor. But it is not like this at all. It is so much more than a romantic movie. It is much more than words.
The sand that we stand on has been here for millenia. Rich history of battles and fighting. The Afghan as a people have never fully been conquered. The only person that kept them under control for the past 3000 years was Alexander the Great, and a few portions of the Mongol invasions during their crusade. In that regard though – Afghanistan was not a country with the name that it holds today. These are people that have a rich history of fighting and dying for something they believe in. A deep embeded warrior culture passed down from tradition to tradition. It is something that you must respect. Even when we possess large amounts of ordnance and military technology they still put up a fight even during each engagement they know that they might die. As much as I hated these people – as much as I once viewed them as my eternal enemy, that is worth my respect.
Joshua Boisvert
This is an award winning essay written by Joshua Boisvert.
"I like to write from the heart, without a filter. I write for the people that have payed the ultimate sacrifice. Their story has been written, and they will never have the opportunity to grow old, have a family, have a career. I'm just trying to live, to write my own story, as best I can in their image."
Josh is a veteran, musician, writer, and photographer based out of Manchester, NH.
You can connect with Josh at www.oculi.org or @oculiphoto.