Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Fascinating and horrifying stuff. How does one prepare young officers to exert the authority to bring matters back under control when they boil over (which they will and his sergeant is out there slitting throats and cutting ears off with the rest of them)?
Rank is generally a stabilizer but not always. There are also examples of Officers ordering, suggesting or implying such actions are acceptable. Or recall the notorious example of young LT Calley at My Lai in Viet Nam who participated in the shootings and whose Platoon Sergeant tried unsuccessfully to stop him and the men (personally, I'd have buttstroked the LT but that's just me... )...
...It seems that our job in this regard (30 years ago) was so much easier when we knew what was right and what was wrong (as taught by our mothers and not some military instruction) and did not have the type of politically imposed RoE soldiers have to live with today.
Quite true...

I agree BTW, with your 5% and think the percentage who can kill without hesitation and no enjoyment is really about 80 and of those at least 50%, probably most, will suffer little to no remorse or psychological damage. I suspect the total of those severely traumatized by actually killing is smaller than the number traumatized by seeing death and destruction but who have not killed or had to do so as I believe that action seems to perform a balancing act of sorts on the old psyche. I also believe both numbers combined will in truth average less than 10% of troops committed (METT-TC dependent, as always, obviously intensity of combat and / or length of time committed will have an effect... ).

I'd like, BTW, to know how much of that 'psychological damage' is induced by those who think there just must be some there and keep probing or pushing until some erupts...

(Those guesstimates are applicable to a generation now past, in or approaching their 60s but I suspect that the numbers are valid for the current generations as well.)