Love and Repulsion
Love
He'd wanted to join the military when he was a kid, and at seventeen, was drafted into the Army, and eventually became a Green Beret, during the Vietnam War. That war stole so much from so many, himself included. He watched men that he cared about be killed, and couldn't save them, no matter how hard he tried.
When he returned to America, all he desired was to have people treat him like a normal person, not like a hero; he didn't care about accolades, he just didn't want to be looked upon as a monster. His friend, one of the few he'd known who hadn't died in 'Nam, had passed away from cancer before he'd gotten to see him again and say goodbye, and no one was sympathetic towards him in the slightest.
In fact, not only were they not sympathetic, they were downright cruel, trying to run him out of town, beating him, shooting at him, and eventually, arresting him and sending him to a military prison. He couldn't seem to catch a break.
Over the course of the next thirty-seven years, he was forced to fight more times than he'd ever wanted to, to protect people and save lives, just like he'd been trained to in the service, among other things.
Still, no matter how many battles he won or lost, no matter how many people died who he cared about, he never truly lost his heart. Sometimes it went into hiding, but a small gesture, like a smile or a kind word, could bring it back out, beating strongly.
He has never given up, and never will, for as long as he possibly can. Because more than anything, John James Rambo just wants to survive, and to win, even when the war seems unwinnable.
Repulsion
He was a combatant, a killing machine. The military made him into what he was, and then spit him out back into society, and told him to "fit in". Yeah, right. The world didn't work like that.
Instead, he was treated like scum, like an outcast, someone who should have been incarcerated or executed for crimes people said he'd committed in Vietnam during the war.
Once he started to think that those people might have been onto something, he stopped caring. Stopped caring about trying to fit in, stopped caring about the things that people said about him, stopped caring about the world, period.
He stored all that hate, and rage, and animosity towards the earth and almost everyone on it, only bringing it out when necessary. Every time he was contacted about fighting another war, or going into a dangerous place to save others, he protested at first, but eventually agreed to help.
Not out of the goodness of his heart, he'd stopped listening to his heart when he'd stopped caring about everything, but because deep inside, he craved violence. The thrill of his blood pumping wildly through his veins as he began the hunt, how he could breathe clearer the faster he moved and the more cat-like he became, the way he could almost feel his enemies' fear radiating off them like little birds being toyed with by a lion.
It was the ultimate exhilaration for a beast like him. War was real, peace was a fantasy, one that he gave up on finding. No matter how many times he'd tried to walk away, to have a family and live the quiet life, he was always reminded of what he really was, what his life was supposed to amount to.
For a while, he was truly happy, but occasionally, he reacted in a way that made even the people closest to him fear him, and that power he carried with him always gave him a hint of an ego boost. Not that he would hurt them, just that he knew, and they knew too, how easily he could.
When that last, little shred of light in his life dimmed and went out, he snapped. There was no more reason to be happy, so he retreated into the darkness that has always welcomed him so freely and shed any and all goodness left inside of him, so that the animal could come back out and play. After all, he may have hidden his true inclinations for a while, showing that he could pretend to be loving, and sweet, and kind, but the real him, the vile creature who never left the war, wasn't loving, or sweet, or kind. He was hateful, and disgusting, and mean.
John James Rambo believed he wasn't normal the first time he took a life and realized how easy it was to do. He believed he wasn't normal when he aimed an exploding arrow at another human being and let it fly, or when he strangled a man by pulling his throat out with his bare hands. He believed he wasn't normal when he pinned a man to a wall in his barn, stalked towards him, and cut him open enough to rip out his still-beating heart.
But he knew for sure that he wasn't normal, when he realized that he'd enjoyed what he'd done; that he was someone who secretly looked forward to eviscerating more people and seeing the life drain out of their eyes, feeling their warm blood splatter his clothes. Because deep down inside, he was a savage, and nothing and no one was going to change that about him.
