Marlantes: 'What it is like to go to war', Chapter 2: Killing
His opening statement is:
Not quite. He does not explain 'splitting' nor provides no definition of these 'feelings' nor the data to support the 'most'.Killing someone without splitting oneself from the feelings that the act engenders requires an effort of supreme consciousness that, quite frankly, is beyond most humans.
I have no personal feelings nor have I heard anyone I know express difficulty in dealing with having killed an enemy in a clean kill during a face to face engagement. (By clean kill I exclude the execution of a wounded enemy or prisoners - which I am prepared to accept could lead to pangs of conscience or worse.)
I have no scientifically collected data either but I suggest that as there are many thousands of soldiers and marines who have been exposed to close combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan from whom the definitive data can be collected. The first question they should be asked is whether they have read Grossman.
The Kiwi doc of 1949 states:
I have asked Chris jM if he can find the supporting data of this report to see how they arrived at this. I hope he can find it.The average New Zealander on entering the Army has an aversion to killing a fellow man. This aversion will be partially overcome during the training period when he learns to fire automatically at enemy figure targets, and to use his longer range weapons with technical accuracy. This the aversion will survive into battle. Once he comes under fire, however, and especially when he has seen his comrades wounded or killed by enemy fire, it will be submerged by a desire to kill the enemy, if only to save himself. In hot blood, the average infantryman will kill without hesitation and without subsequent misgivings.
Back to Marlantes.
He has flashbacks and nightmares over a NVA soldier into whose eyes he looked before the NVA soldier was killed either by him or his radio operator - he is not sure. OK so he is having problems over the death of an enemy soldier he is not certain he killed. This is IMHO a little weird.
I wonder what sort of (if any) psychological testing formed part of the selection process Marlantes passed through en route to becoming a Marine officer. My gut feel tells me that the problem is personal and maybe ... just maybe ... he is projecting his 'issues' onto to 'most humans' because after-all he is a normal person right?
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