TED演讲稿：老兵为何怀念战争

　　以下是新东方在线口译网为大家带来的TED演讲稿：老兵为何怀念战争。TED是美国的一家私有非盈利机构，该机构以它组织的TED大会著称，这个会议的宗旨是“用思想的力量来改变世界”。大家在锻炼雅思听力的时候，也可以学习一下里面的主角们的思维模式，论述方法，希望还能对大家的英语写作有所启迪。

　　I'm going to ask and try to answer, in some ways, kind of an uncomfortable question. Both civilians, obviously, and soldiers suffer in war; I don't think any civilian has ever missed the war that they were subjected to. I've been covering wars for almost 20 years, and one of the remarkable things for me is how many soldiers find themselves missing it.

　　我且询问并且回答一个问题，这个问题在某些方面会让人不舒服。 显而易见，在战争中，公民和战士都会受到伤害，我认为没有一个公民会怀念他们经历过的战争。

　　How is it someone can go through the worst experience imaginable, and come home, back to their home, and their family, their country, and miss the war? How does that work? What does it mean?

　　一个最后回到家里，回到祖国的人，会想念带给他们最糟糕经历的战争?那是怎么回事?那是什么意思?

　　We have to answer that question, because if we don't, it'll be impossible to bring soldiers back to a place in society where they belong, and I think it'll also be impossible to stop war, if we don't understand how that mechanism works.

　　我们不得不回答这个问题，如果我们不给出答案，就无法使我们的战士回归那个属于他们的地方，社会。并且，如果不弄明白这个问题，也不可能阻止战争的发生。

　　The problem is that war does not have a simple, neat truth, one simple, neat truth.

　　问题是战争没有一个简单纯净的真理。

　　Any sane person hates war, hates the idea of war, wouldn't want to have anything to do with it, doesn't want to be near it, doesn't want to know about it. That's a sane response to war.

　　任何理智的人都憎恨战争，憎恨战争意识，不想提它，不想接近它，不想了解它。那是对战争正常的反应。

　　But if I asked all of you in this room, who here has paid money to go to a cinema and be entertained by a Hollywood war movie, most of you would probably raise your hands. That's what's so complicated about war. And trust me, if a room full of peace-loving people finds something compelling about war, so do 20-year-old soldiers who have been trained in it, I promise you. That's the thing that has to be understood.

　　但是，今天我要问在座谁花过钱去电影院观看好莱坞战争片，你们中的大部分人肯定都会举手。那这就令人匪夷所思了。相信我，如果在座的热爱和平的人士认为战争很刺激精彩，那么那些经受训练的战士也会这样想。这是需要大家心知肚明的。

　　I've covered war for about 20 years, as I said, but my most intense experiences in combat were with American soldiers in Afghanistan. I've been in Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan in the '90s, but it was with American soldiers in 2007, 2008, that I was confronted with very intense combat.

　　我曾经报道过战争达20年。我最难忘的就是和在阿富汗美军士兵在一起的经历。90年代，我曾到过非洲，中东以及阿富汗。2007和2008这两年间，我接触美军士兵。那里，我面临着激烈的战斗。

　　I was in a small valley called the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. It was six miles long. There were 150 men of Battle Company in that valley, and for a while, while I was there, almost 20 percent of all the combat in all of Afghanistan was happening in those six miles. A hundred and fifty men were absorbing almost a fifth of the combat for all of NATO forces in the country, for a couple months. It was very intense.

　　我居住在阿富汗东部的一个六英里长的名叫Korengal的山谷里。那里还有战斗营的150位战士。这六英里长的地方进行了阿富汗战役百分之20的战斗。就是这150位战士承担了北约联盟在这个国家百分之20的数月的激烈战役。大部分时间我都是在一个叫Restrepo的部署里。Restrepo 是为了纪念两个月前在该部署里被杀的医疗排而命名的。

　　I spent most of my time at a small outpost called Restrepo. It was named after the platoon medic that had been killed about two months into the deployment. It was a few plywood B-huts clinging to a side of a ridge, and sandbags, bunkers, gun positions, and there were 20 men up there of Second Platoon, Battle Company. I spent most of my time up there. There was no running water. There was no way to bathe. The guys were up there for a month at a time. They never even got out of their clothes.

　　这个部署有一些在山脊边上由胶合板建造的B型小屋，沙袋，沙坑，枪位，以及20位战斗营二排的士兵。我大部分时间是在那里度过的，没有自来水，没有办法冲凉。士兵们每次都要在这种地方生活数月，他们甚至从不换衣服。

　　They fought. The worked. They slept in the same clothes. They never took them off, and at the end of the month, they went back down to the company headquarters, and by then, their clothes were unwearable. They burned them and got a new set. There was no Internet. There was no phone. There was no communication with the outside world up there. There was no cooked food. There was nothing up there that young men typically like: no cars, no girls, no television, nothing except combat. Combat they did learn to like.

　　他们要打仗，要工作，穿着相同的衣服，从不脱下，到月末，就返回总部，此刻，他们已经衣衫褴褛。他们就把这些烂衣服烧毁领取新制服。那里也没有网络电话，没有和外界沟通的媒介。没有熟食，没有年轻人喜欢的一切东西：汽车，美女，电视机。只有战争，他们学会喜欢上了它。

　　I remember one day, it was a very hot day in the spring, and we hadn't been in a fight in a couple of weeks, maybe. Usually, the outpost was attacked, and we hadn't seen any combat in a couple of weeks, and everyone was just stunned with boredom and heat. And I remember the lieutenant walking past me sort of stripped to the waist. It was incredibly hot. Stripped to the waist, walked past me muttering, "Oh God, please someone attack us today." That's how bored they were. That's war too, is a lieutenant saying, "Please make something happen because we're going crazy."

　　我记得有一天，那是春季的一个热天，我们已经大概数月没有战斗了。通常会遭受袭击的哨站这几日却没有任何战斗。每个人都非常无聊和受热。记得从我身旁走过的光着膀子的中尉，天气太热了，他都把衣服脱了，自言自语道：“老天，来场战斗吧。”他们有多无聊，就像战争一样，“快点发生吧，我们快疯了。”言出某位将军。

　　To understand that, you have to, for a moment, think about combat not morally -- that's an important job to do — but for a moment, don't think about it morally, think about it neurologically. Let's think about what happens in your brain when you're in combat. First of all, the experience is very bizarre, it's a very bizarre one. It's not what I had expected. Usually, you're not scared. I've been very scared in combat, but most of the time when I was out there, I wasn't scared.

　　等等，你需要弄明白，不是从道义上思考战争，那是一项很重要的工作，从神经系统方面想想吧。但你身处战争时，你脑海里在想什么?首先，这个经历非常奇怪，非常奇异。不是我所预料的。你通常不会吃惊害怕。

　　I was very scared beforehand and incredibly scared afterwards, and that fear that comes afterwards can last years. I haven't been shot at in six years, and I was woken up very abruptly this morning by a nightmare that I was being strafed by aircraft, six years later. I've never even been strafed by aircraft, and I was having nightmares about it. Time slows down. You get this weird tunnel vision. You notice some details very, very, very accurately and other things drop out.

　　我曾经在战斗中非常害怕，但是当我在外面采访时，我却不害怕，只有在战前和战后，我才害怕。那种恐惧能够持续数年。六年里我没有经历过子弹射击。今天早晨我突然被噩梦惊醒，梦见六年后，我被空军炮轰致死。我从来没有炮轰过，但我却经常梦见它。时光慢慢流逝，你有了奇怪的幻觉，你能准确的注意到一些细节，忽略其他的事情。那几乎是大脑微妙的转换。

　　It's almost a slightly altered state of mind. What's happening in your brain is you're getting an enormous amount of adrenaline pumped through your system. Young men will go to great lengths to have that experience. It's wired into us. It's hormonally supported. The mortality rate for young men in society is six times what it is for young women from violence and from accidents, just the stupid stuff that young men do: jumping off of things they shouldn't jump off of, lighting things on fire they shouldn't light on fire, I mean, you know what I'm talking about.

　　你大脑里正在发生的事源于你身体系统里喷涌而出的巨量肾上腺素。年轻人有过那种体验，它已植入我们，有了激素的支持。社会上，年轻男人源于暴力，事故的死亡率是年轻女人的六倍。他们做些愚蠢的事情：跳离他们不该跳离的地方，放火于不该被烧之物。你们应该明白我说的是什么。他们有着比女人六倍的死亡率。

　　They die at six times the rate that young women do. Statistically, you are safer as a teenage boy, you would be safer in the fire department or the police department in most American cities than just walking around the streets of your hometown looking for something to do, statistically.

　　统计上，当你是个男孩时，你是安全的，当你在美国许多大城市的消防部或者警察局里，你会比在家乡的街道上散步周游更安全。

　　You can imagine how that plays out in combat. At Restrepo, every guy up there was almost killed, including me, including my good friend Tim Hetherington, who was later killed in Libya. There were guys walking around with bullet holes in their uniforms, rounds that had cut through the fabric and didn't touch their bodies.

　　 你可以想想战争上的场景.在Restrepo，我和那里的战士差点都死了，包括我的好朋友Tim Hetherington，他最后死在了利比亚的战场上。战士们穿着布满枪眼制服，身上满是穿过织物，未伤皮肉的伤痕，在那走来走去。

　　I was leaning against some sandbags one morning, not much going on, sort of spacing out, and some sand was kicked into the side of, sort of hit the side of my face. Something hit the side of my face, and I didn't know what it was. You have to understand about bullets that they go a lot faster than sound, so if someone shoots at you from a few hundred meters, the bullet goes by you, or hits you obviously, half a second or so before the sound catches up to it.

　　一天早晨，我靠着一些沙袋，没有太多的前进，有些被阻。有些沙子从我身旁飞过，差点击中我的脸。但我不知道是不是沙子。你必须明白子弹的速度比声音快很多。因此当某人在百米开外朝你举枪射击时，听到声响的半秒前子弹已经经过你，并且毫无疑问射中你。

　　So I had some sand sprayed in the side of my face. Half a second later, I heard dut-dut-dut-dut-duh. It was machine gun fire. It was the first round, the first burst of an hour-long firefight. What had happened was the bullet hit, a bullet hit three or four inches from the side of my head. Imagine, just think about it, because I certainly did, think about the angle of deviation that saved my life. At 400 meters, it missed me by three inches. Just think about the math on that. Every guy up there had some experience like that, at least once, if not many times.

　　 有些沙子在我面前扬起，半秒之后，我就听到了嗒嗒嗒的声音。是机关枪在扫射。第一轮扫射长达一个小时。接下来，就是子弹射击，一颗子弹从距离我头部三四英寸的地方爆炸。想象一下吧，我想就是这三四英寸的距离救了我一命。在400米开外，子弹在三英寸的地方错过了我。用数学计算一下吧，那里的男孩子们至少有一次有这样的经历，如果没有很多次的话。

　　The boys are up there for a year. They got back. Some of them got out of the Army and had tremendous psychological problems when they got home. Some of them stayed in the Army and were more or less okay, psychologically. I was particularly close to a guy named Brendan O'Byrne. I'm still very good friends with him. He came back to the States. He got out of the Army.

　　战士们在那里呆了一年。他们回来了。有些人离开了部队，回到家中时，已有很严重的心理问题。有些人依旧呆在部队里，心理上还算良好。我和一个叫Brendan O’Byrne的士兵关系很好。我们现在仍然是很要好的朋友。他回到了美国，离开了部队。

　　I had a dinner party one night. I invited him, and he started talking with a woman, one of my friends, and she knew how bad it had been out there, and she said, "Brendan, is there anything at all that you miss about being out in Afghanistan, about the war?" And he thought about it quite a long time, and finally he said, "Ma'am, I miss almost all of it." And he's one of the most traumatized people I've seen from that war. "Ma'am, I miss almost all of it."

　　 有个晚上，我举办了一个晚会，我邀请了他，在晚会上，他开始和我的一个女性朋友交谈。她知道那儿的事情很不好，问他：“Brendan, 在阿富汗作战中，你是否有想念的事情?”他想了很久，最后答道：“女士，我几乎想念那里的一切。”他是那次战争中我见过的最受折磨的一个人。“女士，我几乎想念那里的一切。"

　　What is he talking about? He's not a psychopath. He doesn't miss killing people. He's not crazy. He doesn't miss getting shot at and seeing his friends get killed. What is it that he misses? We have to answer that. If we're going to stop war, we have to answer that question.

　　他在讲些什么，他不是一个神经病，不会想念杀人的。他没有疯，不会想念被子弹射击和亲眼看战友被杀的日子。他在想念什么呢? 我们要找到答案。如果我们要停止战争的话，就必须回答这个问题。

　　I think what he missed is brotherhood. He missed, in some ways, the opposite of killing. What he missed was connection to the other men he was with. Now, brotherhood is different from friendship. Friendship happens in society, obviously. The more you like someone, the more you'd be willing to do for them. Brotherhood has nothing to do with how you feel about the other person. It's a mutual agreement in a group that you will put the welfare of the group, you will put the safety of everyone in the group above your own. In effect, you're saying, "I love these other people more than I love myself."

　　我认为他想念的是战友情。他怀念的是杀害的反面。他想念的是和他在一起的战士之间的情结。现在，战友情和友情是不一样的。很明显，友情源于社交。你越喜欢某人，就付出的越多。战友情和你对他人的感觉是毫无瓜葛。这种情结是一种相互的协议，你把集体的利益，人人的安全置于你之上。实际上，你能说：“我爱这些人胜过爱自己.”

　　Brendan was a team leader in command of three men, and the worst day in Afghanistan — He was almost killed so many times. It didn't bother him. The worst thing that happened to him in Afghanistan was one of his men was hit in the head with a bullet in the helmet, knocked him over. They thought he was dead. It was in the middle of a huge firefight. No one could deal with it, and a minute later, Kyle Steiner sat back up from the dead, as it were, because he'd come back to consciousness. The bullet had just knocked him out. It glanced off the helmet. He remembers people saying, as he was sort of half-conscious, he remembers people saying, "Steiner's been hit in the head. Steiner's dead." And he was thinking, "I'm not dead." And he sat up. And Brendan realized after that that he could not protect his men, and that was the only time he cried in Afghanistan, was realizing that. That's brotherhood.

　　 Brendan 是个组长，手下有三个战士。在阿富汗最残酷的日子里，他很多次差点被杀害，却丝毫没有受烦扰。在阿富汗，对他来说，最糟糕的事情就是他的一名手下被子弹射进头盔击中头部，击倒在地。在这种战火硝烟的深夜，他们以为他必死无疑，均束手无策。一会儿，Kyle Steiner 坐起来，可以说是死里复活，因为他又有了意识苏醒过来了。子弹只是将他击倒，擦过头盔。他半苏醒时，他听到人们说，他们说：“Stenier 被击中了头，死了。”他在想：“我还没有死.” 他坐起来了。从那之后，Brendan 意识到自己无法保护他的战友们。在阿富汗仅有的一次，他哭了。那就是战友情。

　　This wasn't invented recently. Many of you have probably read "The Iliad." Achilles surely would have risked his life or given his life to save his friend Patroclus. In World War II, there were many stories of soldiers who were wounded, were brought to a rear base hospital, who went AWOL, crawled out of windows, slipped out doors, went AWOL, wounded, to make their way back to the front lines to rejoin their brothers out there.

　　这不是近期才出现的。很多人可能度过《伊利亚特》。Achilles 冒着生命的危险去拯救他的朋友Patroclus。 在二战中，有许许多多这样的故事：受伤的战士被送到后方基地的医院里。擅离职守的战士，爬出窗户，溜出门外，擅离职守，受伤，重新回到前线加入那儿的战友们。

　　So you think about Brendan, you think about all these soldiers having an experience like that, a bond like that, in a small group, where they loved 20 other people in some ways more than they loved themselves, you think about how good that would feel, imagine it, and they are blessed with that experience for a year, and then they come home, and they are just back in society like the rest of us are, not knowing who they can count on, not knowing who loves them, who they can love, not knowing exactly what anyone they know would do for them if it came down to it. That is terrifying. Compared to that, war, psychologically, in some ways, is easy, compared to that kind of alienation. That's why they miss it, and that's what we have to understand and in some ways fix in our society.

　　所以你想想Brendan吧，想想那些有着同样经历的所有战士们吧。在一个小集体里，这样的关系使得他们爱那20个人胜过爱他们自己。你们想想他们感情有多好。一年以来，他们受到福佑，回到家中，像我们一样，归入社会中，却不知道能依靠谁，谁爱他们，他们能爱谁，总之，不能准确的知道他们认识的人能为他们做些什么。 那太可怕了。相比较精神上的疏远，，战争在心理上造成的伤害的某些方面是容易的。那就是为什么他们想念战争。那就我们必须明白的并且在某种程度上在我们社会上要进行修补的。

　　

　　Thank you very much.

　　 谢谢。

　　(Applause)

　　(掌声)