Killing Fields

[DISCLAIMER]

While I was attending United States (U.S.) Marine Corps Recruit Training in San Diego, California in 1996, learning about how to take human lives with weapons of opportunity (i.e., belts, shovels, knives, firearms, etc.), hip hop collective Mo Thugs released their first album.

Featured on the collaborative effort Family Scriptures (1996) was the track “Killing Fields” by rap and vocal harmony group Graveyard Shift. Perhaps one of the most poignant verses on the song was delivered by the late lyricist Tombstone who stated:

Mobbin’ deep, like a com full of trucks

If you get stuck, you outta luck

Can’t duck

Can’t run from the cuts

Ah fuck, better grab them nuts

For the murderin’, layin’

You can run from the rock

But the rock is gonna cry out

“There’s no hiding space.”

19,000 white gamma rays

Bomb the place

Blowin’ off the face of men

Rippin’ the skin

‘Cause we are the soldiers of the world again and again, my friend

Punk-ass niggas can’t stand us, only ‘cause they fear to challenge us, war

We be living so scandalous

Head the fuck out, they ‘fraid they can’t handle us

Killa feelings and vandalous

Tombstone eloquently described the perilous situation in which battle, war, or all around mass killing takes place. Presumably, the Mo Thugs track alludes to a similar event that took place in Cambodia. Regarding this atrocity, one source states:

The Killing Fields are sites in Cambodia where collectively more than 1.3 million people were killed and buried by the Communist Party of Kampuchea during Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1970–75).

The mass killings were part of the broad, state-sponsored Cambodian genocide. The Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the term “killing fields” after his escape from the regime.

The killing fields of Cambodia were briefly discussed during my military training in boot camp. Whereas awfulizing serves as a major form of irrational belief in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), I argue that genocide meets the actual definitional standard of “awful.”

That which is “awful” is understood to be extremely disagreeable or objectionable. While most matters in life don’t qualify for this description, I maintain that genocide (the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group) does. You’re welcome to disagree.

I address this issue, because one source reports, “President Donald Trump on [4/23/2025] lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying the Ukrainian leader is prolonging the ‘killing field’ after he pushed back on ceding Crimea to Russia as part of a potential peace plan.”

According to Trump, “5000 soldiers a week are dying” in the latest iteration of the Russo-Ukrainian War—which the U.S. has backed by way of financial, militaristic, armament, and intelligence support on behalf of Ukraine. Thus, our nation bears the burden for these deaths.

Interestingly, I haven’t heard members of the Trump administration threatening to “walk away” from the Gaza war regarding Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups (initially), Gazan civilians, and whomever else the state of Israel drags into the conflict (i.e., Yemen, Iran, etc.).

Why is that? Why is the U.S. continuing to support what are arguably the killing fields of Gaza? According to one source, “At least 51,266 people have been killed in the 18 months since the Gaza war began.” Must we wait until that toll hits a million in order for the conflict to cease?

Even if not rising to the awful standard of genocide, who can morally and ethically refute that there appears to be taking place some form of ethnic cleansing (the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity)?

Although I learned how to take the lives of men, women, and children when receiving military training in 1996, I’ve begun to favor the hippie mentality of my dad as the years steadily pass me by. Now, rather than “Killing Fields,” a different song comes to mind.

In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono released the song “Give Peace a Chance”. The chorus repeatedly states, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” Otherwise, it’s as was stated on “Killing Fields,” as the chorus says, “Never will another try to play on another killin’ day.”

Peace.

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help you understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As the world’s foremost hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

Photo credit (edited), fair use

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