He made it sound like a war. He talked about being on the front lines. Snipers shooting at policemen. Firemen having their throats slit by piano wire strung across doorways. People lynching their neighbors. Herman described a city that was out of control, and a police force that was under siege. The protestors that were killed weren’t people to him. They were the enemy. He said the police knew the protestors would try to kill them when they were released, and so they did something about it. They killed the protestors first. Herman doesn’t see anything wrong with what they did. To him, it was self-preservation. Even ten years later, he feels the same way. It wasn’t about the power struggle. It wasn’t about police brutality. It was about pure instinctual survival. "Kill or be killed," he said. To him, it was as simple as that. The only time I felt anything remotely close to what Herman described was when the Reds were after Max. But those circumstances were entirely different. They were attacking Max. They weren’t sitting in a cell somewhere with their arms tied behind their backs. Doesn’t Herman understand that no matter what the potential threat was, killing those protestors was murder? The circumstances didn’t change that.

Then Herman placed it all squarely back on my shoulders. He said the police were only trying to protect people like me, the ones with the most to lose. Do I have a brand on my forehead that says ‘Rich, Spoiled, Useless. Protect at all costs’? Yet, Herman took one look at me and he had me pegged. When the pulse happened, that was exactly what I was, a spoiled rich kid more concerned that his uncle would embarrass him because he ran the family yacht aground than with what had just happened to the world. I was one of those people that sat around in a café wearing a two thousand dollar wristwatch, planning my next vacation. I had studied journalism. I thought I had a social conscience, but I didn’t understand anything at all. I had no clue. I continued to live that life after the pulse, insulated in my little world. I let others do the dirty work for me. I was too focused on my own life to be bothered. I doubt that I will ever be able to make up for my apathy, or for my passive acceptance of all the things that were ‘necessary’ in the name of security. I was as much to blame as anyone was. I have as much blood on my hands as those who pulled the triggers. No matter how much I have tried, I haven’t been able to shake my past. I know I have much more than I deserve. I feel it more keenly now than ever before. I doubt that I will ever be able to repay the debt that I owe.

Maybe things are not as black and white as I first believed. It is possible that what happened was more a result of desperation than premeditation. Maybe those police officers needed to do what they did to survive. Herman considered it a war. Maybe it was. But I still don’t know if I can accept his concept of survival at all costs. I don’t know if I can just throw out everything I believe in. I doubt that I could fight that way. If we don’t hold onto our values, even in the most extreme situations, then we become just like those we are fighting, animals in a jungle. I can’t accept that. There has to be more to the human race than just brutality and survival. There has to be some good in the world.