He was hurt, and he was angry, and he was feeling humiliated, and he was reacting the way a lot of people react in that situation - he was looking for someone to punish. He was feeling that if he could make someone else suffer, then his own dignity would be restored. He didn't know he was feeling all of this, though, he was just a kid. But he was feeling it, and he did say what he said - several times. And he did grow up to be just like his father: angry, red-faced, humorless, hyper-controlling and very unhappy.
I can tell you another story about abuse, too, and this one also is true.
I joined the army on the "buddy plan" with a friend named Jim. The army promissed that if you join as buddies, they will let you serve together, so we went to basic training in the same company, though Jim was put in a different squad, and was in a different section of the barracks.
One evening I heard a ruckus going on in the hallway, and stepped out to see what was going on. What I saw was a group of guys from Jim's squad pushing another guy down the hall. They were hitting him and kicking him and shouting that they were going to take him into the showers because he stinks. The truth, though, was that this guy was a little bit chubby and they had all ganged up on him to abuse him, to make themselves feel better (remember that the drill sargents had been abusing and humiliating all of us all day long - that's what they do in basic training). And the guy at the head of this pack of bullies was my buddy Jim.
So I stepped in front of the whole group, and in front of my friend Jim, and just looked at him in surprise and said, "Jim, what the hell are you doing?" He looked at me with his face all red and said; "Get the f___ out of the way, or your next!" And I beleived he meant it. I stepped aside and he and this pack of dogs took that guy into the showes and they scrubbed the skin off his back with steel wool. He had to be taken to the hospital and later he was dismissed from the army. You think he's still carying those scars?
Jim and I were never really friends after that. And I got myself purposely thrown out of the army a while later for going a.w.o.l. and Jim ended up cutting his wrists, so they threw him out, too.
The point is that this is how some people react when they are abused - they look for someone else to abuse in turn, so that they can "restore" their own sense of empowerment. And that's what John was feeling that day when he said that he couldn't wait to have kids of his own so he could beat the sh__ out of them.
These things really happened. And my life is not unusual. Open your eyes, and use the brain God gave you, and you'll see what I've seen. I don't hate John, or Jim, or anyone else. But this is what happens to people when they're abused. And this is what they do to other people, in turn. God bless 'Lighthouse's' dad for having the courage to break the chain of abuse that he suffered from as a kid.