Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
One other point on us-and-them: categorizing people based on obvious characteristics seems to be something we (as humans) like. Think about the uniform. What purpose does it serve? It lets me know who is on my side and who is the enemy (an who is not in the fight). Take that away and we feel uncomfortable.

I am curious if Soldiers who kill an person who is not in uniform have a harder time dealing with that then a if they had killed the same person in a clearly identifiable enemy uniform.

But we are getting off topic.
Ah, don't worry that can be a SWC way of making progress There is a thread 'How Soldiers deal with the job of killing':http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=13523

There's also, now slightly off topic, a parallel one on how LE deals with killing.