On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

The effectiveness of modern conditioning techniques that enable killing in combat is irrefutable, and their impact on the modern battlefield is enormous. Three primary situational variables that influence or enable killing behavior are; [1] the demands of authority, [2] group absolution, and [3] the distance from the victim.

Demands of Authority

-          Subject’s proximity to authority

-          Subject’s respect for the authority

-          Intensity of the authority

-          Legitimacy of the authority

Group Absolution

-          Subject’s identification with the group

-          Proximity of the group to the subject

-          Intensity of the group’s support for the kill

-          Number in the immediate group

-          Legitimacy of the group

Total distance from the victim

-          Physical distance

-          Social distance, which considers the impact of a lifetime of viewing a particular class as less than human in a socially stratified environment.

-          Cultural distance, which includes racial and ethnic differences that permit the killer to dehumanize the victim.

-          Moral distance, which takes into consideration intense belief in moral superiority and vengeful actions.

-          Mechanical distance, which includes the sterile video game unreality of killing through a TV screen, a thermal sight, a sniper site, or some other kind of mechanical buffer.

Chart page 188

Graph Page 98

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

In study after study two factors show up again and again as critical to the magnitude of the post-traumatic response. First and more obvious is the intensity of the initial trauma. The second and less obvious but absolutely vital factor is the nature of the social support structure available to the traumatized individual.

The social support system – or lack thereof- upon returning from combat is a critical factor in the veteran’s psychological health. Indeed, social support after war has been demonstrated to be more crucial than even the intensity of combat experienced. Psychiatric casualties increase greatly when the soldier feels isolated.

The honors and decorations that are traditionally heaped upon military leaders at all levels are vitally important for their mental health in the years that follow. These decorations, medals, mentions in dispatches, and other forms of recognition represent a powerful affirmation from the leader’s society, telling them that he did well, he did the right thing, and no one blames him for the lives lost in doing his duty.

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

Societies which ask men to fight on their behalf should be aware of the consequences. Manifestations of PTSD include recurrent and intrusive dreams and recollections of the experience, emotional blunting, social withdrawal, exceptional difficulty or reluctance in initiating or maintaining intimate relationships, and sleep disturbances. These symptoms can in turn lead to serious difficulties in readjusting to civilian life, resulting in alcoholism, divorce, and unemployment. The symptoms persist for months or years after the trauma, often emerging after a long delay.

Success in war and national survival may necessitate killing enemy soldiers in battle. If we accept that we need an army, then we must accept that it has to be as capable of surviving as we can make it. But if society prepares a soldier to overcome his resistance to killing and places him in an environment in which he will kill, then that society has an obligation to deal forthrightly, intelligently, and morally with the result and its repercussions upon the soldier and the society.

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

Treatment for these many manifestations of combat stress involves simply removing the soldier from the combat environment. The problem is that the military does not want to simply return the psychiatric casualty to normal life; it wants to return him to combat. And he is understandably reluctant to go. If soldiers begin to realize the insane soldiers are being evacuated, the number of psychiatric casualties will increase dramatically.

Proximity, or forward treatment, and expectancy are the principles developed to overcome the paradox of evacuation syndrome. These concepts, which have proved themselves quite effective since World War I, involve [1] treatment of the psychiatric casualty as far forward on the battlefield as possible, often inside enemy artillery range and [2] constant communication to the casualty by leadership and medical personnel of the expectancy that he will be rejoining his comrades in the front line as soon as possible. These two factors permit the psychiatric casualty to get treatment and much needed rest, while not giving a message to still-healthy comrades that psychiatric casualty is a ticket off the battlefield.

Military Field Hospital

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

There is 2 percent of the male population that, if pushed or if given a legitimate reason, will kill without regret or remorse. It is this levelheaded participation in combat that we as a society glorify and that Hollywood would have us believe that all soldiers possess. Their common denominator was that they had been involved in a lot of fights as children. Not bullies, but fighters. If you can recapture or imagine that into a way of life, then you can begin to understand these individuals and their capacity for violence.

Gweynne Dyer - War

There is such a thing as a “natural soldier”: the kind who derives his greatest satisfaction from male companionship, from excitement, and from the conquering of physical obstacles. He doesn’t want to kill people as such, but he will have no objections if it occurs within a moral framework that gives him justification – like war.

But armies are not full of such men. They are so rare that they form only a modest fraction of small professional armies, mostly congregating in the commando-type special forces. In large conscript armies they virtually disappear beneath the weight of numbers of more ordinary men. And it is these ordinary men, who do not like combat at all, that armies must persuade to kill.

The presence of aggression with the absence of empathy results in a sociopath. The presence of aggression with empathy results in completely different kind of individual from the sociopath.  They are a distinct minority, and in times of danger, a nation needs them desperately.

Boys who grow up without a stable male figure in their lives are desperately seeking a role model. Strong, powerful, high-status role models such as those offered in movies and on television fill the vacuum in tier lives. Modern society has taken away their fathers and replaced them with new role models whose successful response to every situation is violence. The media in our modern information society have done much to perpetuate the myth of easy killing and have thereby become part of society’s unspoken conspiracy of deception that glorifies killing and war. And then we wonder why our children have become ever more violent.