- "Naturally, the common man (that's us) people don't
want war....but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine
the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament,
or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can ALWAYS be
brought to the the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists
for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE
SAME IN EVERY COUNTRY." --Hermann Goering (Nazi Germany)
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- Today, through Leave No Child Behind legislation, schools
must hand over the names of children to be recruited for war or suffer
the threat of no money!! Of course it's our money to begin with, but what
if every school in the country just kept their state monies and refused
to beg for a pittance back? Slick recruiting busses pull up to high schools
and colleges promising a life of adventure, travel to exotic ports, and
that all important carrot the education your parents couldn't afford to
give you. Video games put out by the Armed Services having clean arcade
kill games are no different than those games bought for children year
in and year out at Christmas. Kill from a distance. Now global positioning
(phew space exploration has paid off) satellites can take care to guide
super-improved smart bombs right to their intended targets of water companies,
infra-structure, and electrical grids. But what isn't being told? What
of those impressionable young men, hardly having their second shave, left
damaged by being programmed to kill? Does this mechanism automatically
shut down when one gets their discharge papers? What of the rampages we
see killers on? Timothy McVeigh was a soldier, as was one of the recent
snipers. The murders of wives recently at an army base, were by soldiers
just returned from war. What of the numerous other instances of shootings
and violence and suicides across the country by veterans? William S. Frisbee
Jr., gives a look at the psychology and realities of war that one doesn't
get in the slick TV advertisements:
"Hollywood is great at making war seem so simple and strait forward.
It makes the watcher believe that people kill each other because they are
told, because it is kill or be killed, the enemy is hated or whatever.
Hollywood tries to make us believe that all soldiers fire at each other,
desperately attempting to hit and kill each other. While there is some
truth in the matter, it is mostly wrong.
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- When most people talk about killing, they are like virgins
talking about sex. You can talk about it all day, you can fully understand
the mechanics involved but when the time comes there is so much more involved
than the person thought! When bullets start flying emotions start running
high and that can have a powerful effect on how a person sees things. Five
hundred combatants can see five hundred different things. In war every
fighter see's things differently.
In World War Two, it is a fact that only 15-20 percent of the soldiers
fired at the enemy. That is one in five soldiers actually shooting at a
Nazi when he sees one. While this rate may have increased in desperate
situations, in most combat situations soldiers were reluctant to kill each
other. The Civil War was not dramatically different or any previous wars.
In World War Two only one percent of the pilots accounted for thirty to
forty percent of enemy fighters shot down in the air. Some pilots didn't
shoot down a single enemy plane.
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- In Korea, the rate of soldiers unwilling to fire on the
enemy decreased and fifty five percent of the soldiers fired at the enemy.
In Vietnam this rate increased to about ninety five percent but this doesn't
mean they were trying to hit the target. In fact it usually took around
fifty-two thousand bullets to score one kill in regular infantry units!
It may be interesting to note that when Special Forces kills are recorded
and monitored this often includes kills scored by calling in artillery
or close air support. In this way Special Forces units could score very
high kill ratios like fifty to a hundred for every Special Forces soldier
killed. This is not to say these elite troops didn't score a large number
of bullet type kills. It is interesting to note that most kills in war
are from artillery or other mass destruction type weapons.
If one cuts through the hype, one will find that man is often unwilling
to kill his fellow man and the fighter finds it very traumatic when he
has to do so. On the battlefield the stress of being killed and injured
is not always the main fear. When a soldier flees he becomes a back. Again,
humans are like animals. If you run from a dog it will chase you down and
bite you, maybe kill you. Humans are like that, to run from a human high
on adrenaline is an open invitation to be chased and killed. This is why
the most dramatic causalities occur during a retreat. Troops no longer
look into the eyes of a terrified foe like himself, he sees a back, prey
that is fleeing from him and is much more willing and able to shoot him
in the back. A fleeing soldier is no longer somebody, he is something,
he is prey for the soldier behind him. Killing a soldier that is submitting
is a very frequent occurrence because the killer may be high on adrenaline,
is in a highly emotional state and may not realize his foe is surrendering.
Then there are the psychopaths that are quite willing to shoot down surrendering
troops and these individuals are in every military.
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- Most sane humans, if given the choice, will not kill
their fellow man and are extremely reluctant to do so, despite what Hollywood
would like you to believe. When they are forced to do so, many can experience
a great deal of psychological trauma. Superior training currently used
by military organizations helps make the decision for the individual. This
is a form of brainwashing. In World War Two people learned to fire on a
firing range at paper targets. When they go to the battle field they may
have been excellent shots but they realized they were shooting at another
person, someone named Hans or Fredrick, or whatever. Today, more realistic
targets are used in more realistic environments. Killing a 'target' becomes
more automatic, more instinctive so when push comes to shove the trooper
may be scared and unthinking but his body knows what to do and does it,
sometimes before the soldier can rationalize what he is doing. This makes
the act of killing more traumatic for the killer and may be why a higher
percentage of Vietnam vets suffer after the war. They had training which
made them kill despite their desire not to.
Emotional and physical distance can also allow a person to kill his foe.
Emotional distance can be classified as mechanical, social, cultural and
emotional distance. Physical distance has to do with the distance. It is
much more difficult to kill someone when you can feel his breath and see
the fear in his eyes as you ram home a knife. It is very traumatic at such
close range. At long range, like an artilleryman firing at the target that
is over a couple hills, he does not see the enemy and can more easily deny
the enemy's humanity. Emotional distance allows a person to kill at closer
ranges and allows him to justify it more easily. Cultural distance is defined
as seeing the enemy as an INFERIOR life form. The enemy is dehumanized
and considered inferior. Like the Nazi's classified Jews and blacks (the
mentally-retarded, handicapped, homosexuals, gypsies, elderly--jm) as
inferior and subhuman, putting them outside the human species and thus
little more than an animal to be killed. In the animal kingdom, most animals
do not kill others of their SPECIES with very, very few exceptions. Humans
are like animals in this regard, we don't want to kill each other and sometimes
we behave like animals, especially in combat.
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- Distance directly affects how easy it is to kill. Bomber
pilots don't have trouble laying waste to kilometers of land and killing
hundreds of thousands because they don't see or hear the dead or dying.
For infantry units, this takes on a different aspect, they see the fear
in the other person's eyes, the sweat on his brow, the pain in his face,
the blood spurting from the wound, the desperate cries for mercy. The
enemy becomes real and vivid, the enemy becomes someone with hopes, dreams,
fears, a mother, a father, maybe a wife, just like the shooter. Killing
that enemy soldier is like killing himself. That is why infantry men are
more traumatized by war than any other field.
Moral distance is classifying the enemy as morally wrong. US troops fighting
the Nazi's or Japanese had moral distance to help them kill. The Nazi's
were butchers, cruel and vicious. The Nazi's were guilty and had to be
punished by those who were right and just. SOCIAL distance is a form of
classifying others as lesser beings. For instance, in the medieval ages
of Knights and men-at-arms, the Knights, the nobility were the primary
killers. A soldier could look across the line at another soldier just like
him, terrified unwilling to kill. A Knight would look down at the serf/soldiers
as lesser beings who simply could not COMPARE to himself and their loss
was not important because they were not as GREAT as he was.
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- Ships shoot at and destroy the enemy and although they
are killing other people, they don't see it that way. Naval crews are more
unlikely to suffer the psychological trauma of war for this reason. Snipers
see their target through a scope and this can make the enemy less human
to the shooter. In Desert Storm, the use of night sights made the war seem
more like a Nintendo game. Another factor that can have a big effect on
whether or not a person fires is the presence of authority. If an officer
is standing next to a person and orders that person to fire, then that
person is much more likely to do so.
The psychological casualty rate of front line units gave the POWERS THAT
BE, the idea of doing the same thing to enemy populations. In World War
Two this became more evident as the nations bombed innocent, helpless civilians.
It was believed that bombing them would cause a high number of psychiatric
casualties for the enemy and destroy their WILL to fight, but it didn't
happen. In many cases it hardened their resolve instead of creating hordes
of mentally traumatized people.
- Studies have shown that the more time in combat a soldier
spends the more likely they are to become a psychiatric casualty. A psychiatric
casualty is useless to a combat unit and presents as much danger to his
fellows as the enemy. It is generally believed that sixty days of frontline
combat will destroy a unit as an effective fighting force because after
sixty days of combat ninety eight percent of the unit is likely to be a
psychiatric casualty. This might be another reason so many people suffered
in Vietnam because there were no safe areas.
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- When a person becomes a psychiatric casualty this can
take different forms of various degrees. After several months of combat
nearly everyone will exhibit some symptoms of mental stress. In some case
rest and recuperation helps a great deal. The soldier may become 'tired'
and unwilling to do anything. He doesn't want to associate with friends
or participate in any physical or mental activity or responsibility. He
may be sensitive to loud noises, crying spells or fits of anxiety. In many
ways all he wants to do is vegetate and is subject to mood swings. Confusional
States are when a psychiatric casualty loses track of time, place and cannot
deal with his environment. Some symptoms include delirium, psychotic dissociation,
and manic-depressive mood swings. Another effect is the Ganzer syndrome.
He will make jokes, act silly or otherwise try to avoid the horror and
fear with humor. A soldier may use a body or body part and treat it as
still alive, like what the soldiers did to a dead body in Full Metal Jacket.
They propped him up, put a cigarette in his mouth and 'pretended' he was
alive. Some cases may be more extreme.
Conversion Hysteria can happen during combat or years later. The person
loses all touch with reality and may wander around regardless of dangers
like mines, enemy snipers, etc. He may ball up into a fetal position and
try to deny his surroundings or shake violently. Large portions of a person's
memory may be blocked out to protect the conscious mind from the horror.
A certain portion of a person's body may not function, like the arm that
pulls the trigger!
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- Anxiety States can affect a soldier's ability to sleep.
No matter how much sleep or rest he gets he is always tired. His dreams
may be plagued by nightmares and he may become obsessed with death. Some
of the symptoms of anxiety are shortness of breath, weakness, pain, blurred
vision, giddiness, temporary paralyzation and fainting. An affect of Anxiety
disorders is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Years after combat
the soldier's blood pressure may rise dramatically along with sweating,
nervousness and multiple problems.
Character Disorders are when a soldier becomes fixated on certain actions
or things. Paranoia may include irascibility, depression and anxiety about
his personal safety. Schizoids become hypersensitive and prefer to be 'alone'.
Epileptoid's become more prone to violent and unpredictable rages. Some
become obsessed with religion and some become psychotic. In essence (in
war) a person's very character has changed." Recommended reading-"On
Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society",
by Lieut. Colonel Dave Grossman. "You know the real meaning of PEACE
only if you have been through the war." Kosovar
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- A young man is discharged after the trauma of war with
neither he or his family aware of the psychological and physical consequences,
sometimes years afterwards. Unable to hold down a job or form any close
relationships, he drifts like a ship in the night from one port to another
seeking relief, a release from the demons that hound him. Many times he
turns to drugs or drink; getting no help and no answers from military officialdom
that has written him off as the refuse of war, no longer needed. Trained
to kill, he is now told to get a job and get back in the mainstream of
a nine to five job. He can't talk about or share the psychic shock he's
suffered with anyone, even if he could recall it all. Nobody prepared
him at the recruiting station, or on the slick, 'See The World-Get an
Education Bus,' or the TV commercials; for napalmed children, burning
flesh, manical raping, his buddies blown apart beside him, the thunder
of in-coming, the screams the thundering noise, the dripping Agent Orange
causing rashes all over him, the heat, the bugs, the canned rations and
the stench...the stench. Returning home he was ignored, spit on, left
in the gutter. Fighting to stop Communism? Democracy? Liberty? Drafted,
he went thinking he was saving his fellow countrymen from some future
threat or enemy! What the hell did he know at eighteen?? Haunted, gray,
homeless he sat in a bar, decades later and listened to the words of former
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, (polished -rich- fatted) remarking that,
"it was all a mistake". 58,000 names on a Wall in Washington
and millions dead through bombings and genocide, his life a shambles.....all
for a MISTAKE! Another war...same old slogans, same old lies, from those
who will never know the first thing about War, in their opulent board rooms
or fancy war bunkers. But then they don't have to....they've got the common
folk who'll do their dirty work once again. Give them the same old threat
of attack and call everyone who objects, a threat to democracy and unpatriotic.
Works everytime! JM
"Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent." --Issac Asimov
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