When a Reddit user posted an open question to U.S soldiers asking them how they justify their actions against innocent civilians abroad, he probably didn't expect this candid response…

'You kill. Watch friends die. It's usually quick, almost never quiet, but for the rest of your life, when you remember sitting at the bar with them, they're blown open. You picture the nights you spent downtown at Scruffy Murphy's, but instead of the stupid hookah shell necklace, your boy's jaw is blown off, and his left eye is ruined, and he's screaming. You fight, you kill, you watch friends die, and you notice a distinct lack of change. You kick in doors and tell terrified women to sit on the floor while you and your friends ransack their home, tearing the place apart, because they might be hiding weapons. There is no reason to believe this house in particular is enemy, same for the next one, and the one after that, or the seven before; they just happened to be there, and maybe they had weapons. Probably not, they almost never did.'

The moving testimony is just a snippet from the refreshingly honest reply given by U.S soldier Daniel Crimmins when asked how military servicemen can be so "blasé" about drone strikes and other civilian deaths due to the 'War On Terror'.

Someone with the username VisualEffects originally posted:

'9/11. The day Americans feel so strongly about that they say "Never forget". A tragedy for sure. But you've retaliated and killed over 50 fold as many innocent civilians abroad as retribution for this event. How do you as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months you are committing a 9/11 event to other people? Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in America every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. And yet you just go around the rest of the world doing it on a weekly basis to other people and don't think twice about it. It brings me to tears knowing how absolutely blasé you guys are about it.'

Crimmins, from U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division, left a surprising reply to the post. He explained to the Redditor that like many others, he had been brainwashed into believing the 'good vs evil narrative', even comparing it to the legacy that Star Wars left him with as a child. Crimmins is clearly full of regret over his decision to sign up, resentment towards the government, grief at having lost his friends, anger at the mainstream media, and compassion for those innocent people he was sent to kill.

Crimmins's response is heartbreaking and powerful, showing us that there are NO winners in War: everyone is a pawn, everyone is a victim, and the only ones who stand to gain from this destruction are the rich old white men who send these young, naive patriots into battle against their fellow human beings.

Here is his moving reply in full:

'Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media's definition of the attack as a act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college.

Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the "us vs. them" good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.

Some of us, therefore, left our dorm rooms, and walked down Main Street to the recruiter's office. Some of us were genuinely surprised the office wasn't full to bursting of young men eager to avenge their fallen countrymen. Some of us were genuinely surprised when we had to push the recruiter to stop trying to sell desk jobs and just let us join the damn Infantry.