How soldiers deal with the job of killing

[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.