How soldiers deal with the job of killing

[carl]

JMA:

When he used the term mercy killing, I didn't think of people, I thought of animals. You put down a horse or a dog when you have to. Maybe Marlantes meant people but what I got was animals and I think that viewpoint would be more helpful to some, not all.

You can't teach it and I don't think it may be all that relevant but if an occasional individual was troubled by something, a suggestion that he think of it that way may be of help.

Very young officers and NCOs was perhaps the best that could be done in Vietnam. As the war progressed the NCOs got younger and younger because IIRC all the older guys who started out weren't available anymore, many because they didn't want to face the prospect of deployment after deployment. Maybe the same thing with the officers. We had a lot of people over there for years. That added to the inequities of the draft system and there just wasn't that much to choose from.

Marlantes was young but he was a very effective combat officer. The choice wasn't really between a Marlantes and somebody better; at that time it was between a Marlantes and a Calley.

[JMA]

JMA:

When he used the term mercy killing, I didn't think of people, I thought of animals. You put down a horse or a dog when you have to. Maybe Marlantes meant people but what I got was animals and I think that viewpoint would be more helpful to some, not all.

Yes he spoke of two incidents. One where he saved an injured seagull from dogs then rung its neck and having to have his dog put down.

Let me repeat what I said earlier:

At the end of the chapter he sums it up like this:

We cannot expect normal eighteen year olds to kill someone and contain it in a healthy way. They must be helped to sort out what will be healthy grief about taking a life because it is part of the sorrow of war.

You see here we go in the direction of Grossman in the thinking that killing is somehow 'bad' and will inevitably lead to feelings of guilt and grief.

Not so. Combat killing in war is not murder, it is not a homicide, it is a justifiable killing. (I'm not talking atrocities here)

Very young officers and NCOs was perhaps the best that could be done in Vietnam. As the war progressed the NCOs got younger and younger because IIRC all the older guys who started out weren't available anymore, many because they didn't want to face the prospect of deployment after deployment. Maybe the same thing with the officers. We had a lot of people over there for years. That added to the inequities of the draft system and there just wasn't that much to choose from.

I seems to have turned into a Henry Ford type production line by the end.

Talking about the older NCOs I noted that where they had been in the service before the war (meaning they joined up in peacetime for peacetime) tended to fall out early (meaning leave the service or find less onerous posts from where to see out the war). The younger ones who joined up during the war (or for the war) seemed to last a lot better. Similar back then for the US maybe?

Marlantes was young but he was a very effective combat officer. The choice wasn't really between a Marlantes and somebody better; at that time it was between a Marlantes and a Calley.

Help me understand it. He did a year (?) tour of which how long was he a platoon commander? Raw soldiers and officers often do well but there is no substitute for experience.

I don't follow the link with Calley.

[carl]

You see here we go in the direction of Grossman in the thinking that killing is somehow 'bad' and will inevitably lead to feelings of guilt and grief.

Not so. Combat killing in war is not murder, it is not a homicide, it is a justifiable killing. (I'm not talking atrocities here)

I agree.

Talking about the older NCOs I noted that where they had been in the service before the war (meaning they joined up in peacetime for peacetime) tended to fall out early (meaning leave the service or find less onerous posts from where to see out the war). The younger ones who joined up during the war (or for the war) seemed to last a lot better. Similar back then for the US maybe?

Professor White is the man to ask. I only know what I read. Now if you want to know how to give soccer moms speeding tickets without them getting mad at you, I'm the guy to ask.

Help me understand it. He did a year (?) tour of which how long was he a platoon commander? Raw soldiers and officers often do well but there is no substitute for experience.

Again, refer to Prof. White. But from what I've read, that was a common pattern, at least with the Army. Six months with troops and then six months in some kind of staff position. Madness.

I don't follow the link with Calley.

I understood you to say that Marlantes had some weaknesses from your point of view. When I mentioned Calley, it was along the same lines as when Ken said demand exceeded supply. The choice we had wasn't between Marlantes and an officer who wouldn't have had the weaknesses you perceived. It was between him and a horror of an officer like Calley.

Mike: I read Aveni's critique of Grossman that was buried in the comments. Very good and I got to bed later than usual that night.

Thank you for providing the link to that MMRMA report. I will read it. That kind of thing still fascinates me.

[JMA]

I understood you to say that Marlantes had some weaknesses from your point of view. When I mentioned Calley, it was along the same lines as when Ken said demand exceeded supply. The choice we had wasn't between Marlantes and an officer who wouldn't have had the weaknesses you perceived. It was between him and a horror of an officer like Calley.

Marlantes' problems (thankfully for his troops) seemed to manifest themselves after his service in Vietnam. The fact that (by his own admission) he became barely functional for a period indicates that problem (rather than a weakness). So then by all accounts Marlantes' service in Vietnam was good.

So it all comes back to selection then. My point is that one needs to set minimum levels for intellectual capability (SAT, ACT) and physical ability and spend most of the time the leadership and performance under stress tests ... with the odd psych test thrown in.

The first prize is that nobody falls apart either during or after combat service.

Second prize is that the officer can hold himself and his men together during that combat service and face what the future brings thereafter.

An absolute no-no is for an officer himself to fall apart during a combat tour or prove to be unable to provide the necessary leadership to help his men keep it together when under the stress of combat. Officer selection should attempt to screen for this.

Where this selection and screening fails and the officer fails to perform in combat (and on operations in general) he should be relieved immediately.

[Fuchs]

An absolute no-no is for an officer himself to fall apart during a combat tour or prove to be unable to provide the necessary leadership to help his men keep it together when under the stress of combat. Officer selection should attempt to screen for this.

JMA, by your measure the Wehrmacht was a terrible military force.

Its officers were falling apart quite often, turned into walking dead, many became alcoholics (especially in rear or flying units).

They did send their officers into vacation, into especially healthy and relaxing Kurorte", sent them away from combat on staff or training assignments and so on or simply insisted that they recovered fully after injuries, requiring weeks of recovery from combat.

[JMA]

JMA, by your measure the Wehrmacht was a terrible military force.

Its officers were falling apart quite often, turned into walking dead, many became alcoholics (especially in rear or flying units).

They did send their officers into vacation, into especially healthy and relaxing Kurorte", sent them away from combat on staff or training assignments and so on or simply insisted that they recovered fully after injuries, requiring weeks of recovery from combat.

Methinks you misunderstand me.

An officer falling apart in combat is the worst case scenario. Panic spreads faster than lightning (I'm told). Therefore all efforts must be made to prevent that happening. When it happens, and it will, act quickly to remove and replace he person.

Two problems. In peacetime there is less importance attached to careful officer selection (based on the martial requirements of soldiering) so those with gregarious sociability (but often little backbone) seem to slip through the selection net. As the war progresses the standard of candidates for officer selection starts to drop and the demand for 'numbers' allows weaker candidates to slip through.

While this is happening with the officers the NCOs are having their own problems (read recent post by Ken White on the matter). So at the end of the day you hope and pray your enemy are having greater problems than you are in this regard... because in the end it is the least incompetent military that wins the fighting war (of course the politicians are bound to screw that up as well).

Rotations are a good thing if they can be maintained (which as the war drags on they probably can't). The system which I agreed with was based on three years as a platoon/troop commander and thereafter 18 months/two years per posting.

The 'route' followed by an officer would be determined by his performance and not some egalitarian ticket punching requirement. That's as I see it.

[Fuchs]

The system which I agreed with was based on three years as a platoon/troop commander and thereafter 18 months/two years per posting.

Let's assume a small platoon of 20 and 100% officer retention for 30 years. Plus: The entire army is made up of platoons and all-officers staffs, nothing else.

5% of the platoon force would be officers, and 100% of the rest.
With officers serving 1/10th of their career as Plt Ldr, this would mean that there are 9 times as many officers outside of the platoons than inside.
It would be a 2/3 platoon 1/3 staff force with a ratio of enlisted/NCO : officer of 19:10.


Reduce officer retention and the qty of needed Plts would rise, increase platoon size and the army size needed to train enough officers as preparation for worse times would rise. Add non-officers to staffs and staffs would be even more bloated.
Additional layers of command can for the sake of simple math be considered represented by the staff pool.


3 years Plt command for every officer is simply unacceptable. Feel free to calculate it with variables of your choice; you end up with the conclusion that there are simply not enough platoons.



It might be debatable to send a 2nd Lt to a Coy, then promote him to 1st Lt once accustomed with the Coy's mode of operation and assign him to a Plt command for a year. The feel free to extend this for the best 1st Lts - not as an arrested career, but as a distinction and preparation for higher commands.

3 years for all is too much.

[ganulv]

We cannot expect normal eighteen year olds to kill someone and contain it in a healthy way. They must be helped to sort out what will be healthy grief about taking a life because it is part of the sorrow of war.

You see here we go in the direction of Grossman in the thinking that killing is somehow 'bad' and will inevitably lead to feelings of guilt and grief.

Not so. Combat killing in war is not murder, it is not a homicide, it is a justifiable killing. (I'm not talking atrocities here)

<Homicide> is a values-free descriptive term (homo- ‘human being’ + -cide ‘killing’) in most formal usages. I would assert that using the term in that way makes getting at the relevant factors much easier. Are (some) killers bothered because killing is inherently bad? Or because it has been drummed into their heads since birth that killing is inherently bad? What if someone is bothered because they were not bothered by ending a human life as they had been told their entire life that they would/should be?

It might be interesting to compare and contrast how soldiers deal with the job of killing with how medics deal with the job of preventing death.* For example, a reverse triage situation presents a particularly difficult combination of acts of omission and commission.

*As an aside, many career park rangers have come upon multiple mangled corpses and have unsuccessfully administered CPR multiple times over the courses of their careers. Killologists should really talk to them at length about these sorts of things.

[davidbfpo]

Following Ganulv's question above I have started a new thread 'How LE & others deal with the job of killing and death':http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=15164

Two posts in response have been moved to the new thread.

[JMA]

Following Ganulv's question above I have started a new thread 'How LE & others deal with the job of killing and death':http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=15164

Two posts in response have been moved to the new thread.

Good move.

I suggest that some of the current discussion around here may better belong in the 'Initial Officer Selection' thread.

[JMA]

What if someone is bothered because they were not bothered by ending a human life as they had been told their entire life that they would/should be?

Well there are (without doubt) quite a number of us out there who are not bothered. Yes, have thought about it... but on reflection am satisfied that the opinion of those who have never been in combat about how those of us who have should feel isn't worth a bucket of spit.

From John Keegan's book 'Face of Battle':

'Of course, killing people never bothered me,' I remember a grey haired infantry officer saying to me, by way of explaining how he had three times won the Military Cross in the Second World War. In black and white it looks a horrifying remark; but to the ear his tone implied, as it was meant to imply, not merely that the act of killing people might legitimately be expected to upset others but that it ought also to have upset him; that, through his failure to suffer immediate shock or lasting trauma, he was forced to recognised some deficiency in his own character or, if not that, then, regrettably, in human nature itself. Both were topics he was prepared to pursue, as we did then and many times afterwards.

If you work on even the most sane, well adjusted person long enough and hard enough then they may develop self doubts. What is in fact happening now is that prior to experiencing combat young soldiers are be 'conditioned' that they will develop significant psychological issues as a result not only of experiencing combat but from just thinking about being exposed to combat. So tell me who is the sick one in all this?

[ganulv]

Well there are (without doubt) quite a number of us out there who are not bothered. Yes, have thought about it... but on reflection am satisfied that the opinion of those who have never been in combat about how those of us who have should feel isn't worth a bucket of spit.

I know a fellow who had 90+ confirmed kills in Vietnam and told me he likely killed that many more. I won’t speak for him as to whether that fact ‘bothered’ him but he doesn’t hide the fact that it had everything to do with his later career as an RN. I also know a former state Supreme Court justice who helped send more than one 17–year–old boy to the gas chamber. I never associated with the old man outside of a work setting but my impression of him was that those decisions hadn‘t bothered him in the least over the years since he made them. I doubt either of them care very much at all of how I feel about them, but FWIW I’ve never spent a moment with the former that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy and I’ve never been slow to get out of the same room as the latter.