On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

by Dave Grossman

Killing is the worst thing that one man can do to another man…it’s the last thing that should happen anywhere. —Israeli lieutenant I reproached myself as a destroyer. An indescribable uneasiness came over me, I felt almost like a criminal. —Napoleonic-era British soldier This was the first time I had killed anybody and when things quieted down I went and looked at a German I knew I had shot. I remember thinking that he looked old enough to have a family and I felt very sorry. —British World War I veteran after his first kill It didn’t hit me all that much then, but when I think of it now—I slaughtered those people. I murdered them. —German World War II veteran And I froze, ’cos it was a boy, I would say between the ages of twelve and fourteen. When he turned at me and looked, all of a sudden he turned his whole body and pointed his automatic weapon at me, I just opened up, fired the whole twenty rounds right at the kid, and he just laid there. I dropped my weapon and cried. —U.S. Special Forces officer and Vietnam veteran I fired again and somehow got him in the head. There was so much blood…I vomited, until the rest of the boys came up. —Israeli Six-Day War veteran So this new Peugeot comes towards us, and we shoot. And there was a family there—three children. And I cried, but I couldn’t take the chance…. Children, father, mother. All the family was killed, but we couldn’t take the chance. —Israeli Lebanon Incursion veteran

Our enemies do the same thing. Matt Brennan tells of Con, a Vietnamese scout assigned to his platoon. This individual had been a loyal Viet Cong until a North Vietnamese squad made a mistake and killed his wife and children. Now he loved to run ahead of the Americans, hunting for [North Vietnamese soldiers]…. He called the Communists gooks, just as we did, and one night I asked him why. “Con, do you think it’s right to call the VC gooks and dinks?” He shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. Everything has a name. Do you think the Americans are the only ones who do that?…My company in the jungle…called you Big Hairy Monkeys. We kill monkeys, and”—he hesitated for an instant—“we eat them.”

The dead soldier takes his misery with him, but the man who killed him must forever live and die with him.

A culture raised on Rambo, Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, and James Bond wants to believe that combat and killing can be done with impunity—that we can declare someone to be the enemy and that for cause and country the soldiers will cleanly and remorselessly wipe him from the face of the earth.

Unless he is caught up in murderous ecstasy, destroying is easier when done at a little remove. With every foot of distance there is a corresponding decrease in reality. Imagination flags and fails altogether when distances become too great. So it is that much of the mindless cruelty of recent wars has been perpetrated by warriors at a distance, who could not guess what havoc their powerful weapons were occasioning. —Glenn Gray The Warriors

In the same way that the distance relationship has been identified, so too have many observers identified the factor of emotional or empathic distance. But no one has yet attempted to dissect this factor in order to determine its components and the part they play in the killing process.

To fight from a distance is instinctive in man. From the first day he has worked to this end, and he continues to do so. —Ardant du Picq Battle Studies

Maximum Range: “They Can Pretend They Are Not Killing Human Beings”

From January 7 to July 24, 1969, U.S. Army snipers in Vietnam accounted for 1,245 confirmed kills, with an average of 1.39 bullets expended per kill. (Compare this with the average fifty thousand rounds of ammunition required for every enemy soldier killed in Vietnam.)[3] In the course of calculating confirmed sniper kills, no enemy was counted as a kill unless an American soldier actually was able to physically “place his foot” on the body. Yet for all its effectiveness, there is a strange revulsion and resistance toward this very personal, one-on-one killing by snipers. Peter Staff, in his book on snipers, notes that after every war “the United States military rushes to distance itself from its snipers. The same men called upon to perform impossible missions during combat quickly find themselves to be peacetime pariahs. World War I, World War II, Korea. It was the same.”

Even when the killer has every motivation to hate and despise his victim, and every reason to quickly depart his close-range kill, he is often riveted, frozen by the magnitude of what he has done.

As men draw this near it becomes extremely difficult to deny their humanity. Looking in a man’s face, seeing his eyes and his fear, eliminate denial. At this range the interpersonal nature of the killing has shifted. Instead of shooting at a uniform and killing a generalized enemy, now the killer must shoot at a person and kill a specific individual. Most simply cannot or will not do it.

The Romans apparently had a serious problem with their soldiers not wanting to use piercing blows, for the ancient Roman tactician and historian Vegetius emphasized this point at length in a section entitled “Not to Cut, but to Thrust with the Sword.” He says: They were likewise taught not to cut but to thrust with their swords. For the Romans not only made jest of those who fought with the edge of that weapon, but always found them an easy conquest. A stroke with the edges, though made with ever so much force, seldom kills, as the vital parts of the body are defended by the bones and armor. On the contrary, a stab, though it penetrates but two inches, is generally fatal.[7]

Holmes says that despite all the bayonet training soldiers receive, “in combat they very often reversed their weapons and used them as clubs…. The Germans seem to have a positive penchant for using the butt rather than the bayonet…. In close-in fighting the Germans preferred clubs, coshes, and sharpened spades.” Note that all of these are bludgeoning or hacking weapons.

And Remarque, in All Quiet on the Western Front, tells of a German soldier who was caught while in possession of one of the saw-backed pioneer bayonets and was subsequently brutally killed and left as an example to his peers. Holmes tells us that Germans in both wars who were found with such weapons were so treated by captors who were horrified by the weapon and thought that it was deliberately designed to cause added suffering.

Combat at close quarters does not exist. At close quarters occurs the ancient carnage when one force strikes the other in the back. —Ardant du Picq Battle Studies

The second factor that enables killing from behind is a process in which close proximity on the physical distance spectrum can be negated when the face cannot be seen.

This same enabling process explains why Nazi, Communist, and gangland executions are traditionally conducted with a bullet in the back of the head, and why individuals being executed by hanging or firing squad are blindfolded or hooded. And we know from Miron and Goldstein’s 1979 research that the risk of death for a kidnap victim is much greater if the victim is hooded. In each of these instances the presence of the hood or blindfold ensures that the execution is completed and serves to protect the mental health of the executioners.

In modern battle, which is delivered with combatants so far apart, man has come to have a horror of man. He comes to hand-to-hand fighting only to defend his body or if forced to it. —Ardant du Picq Battle Studies

the sexual partner is not actually destroyed in the encounter, merely overthrown. And the psychological aftereffects of sexual lust are different from those of battle lusts. These differences, however, do not alter the fact that the passions have a common source and affect their victims in the same way while they are in their grip.

Riflemen miss if orders sound unsure; They only are secure who seem secure… —Kingsley Amis “The Masters”

Dr. Stanley Milgram’s famous studies at Yale University on obedience and aggression found that in a controlled laboratory environment more than 65 percent of his subjects could be readily manipulated into inflicting a (seemingly) lethal electrical charge on a total stranger. The subjects sincerely believed that they were causing great physical pain, but despite their victim’s pitiful pleas for them to stop, 65 percent continued to obey orders, increase the voltage, and inflict the shocks until long after the screams stopped and there could be little doubt that their victim was dead.

Freud warned us to “never underestimate the power of the need to obey,” and this research by Milgram (which has since been replicated many times in half a dozen different countries) validates Freud’s intuitive understanding of human nature.

Even when the trappings of authority are no more than a white lab coat and a clipboard, this is the kind of response that Milgram was able to elicit: I observed a mature and initially poised businessman enter the laboratory smiling and confident. Within 20 minutes he was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse…. At one point he pushed his fist into his forehead and muttered: “Oh God, let’s stop it.” And yet he continued to respond to every word of the experimenter and obeyed to the end.

The mass needs, and we give it, leaders who have the firmness and decision of command proceeding from habit and an entire faith in their unquestionable right to command as established by tradition, law and society. —Ardant du Picq Battle Studies

- Proximity of the authority figure to the subject. Marshall noted many specific World War II incidents in which almost all soldiers would fire their weapons while their leaders observed and encouraged them in a combat situation, but when the leaders left, the firing rate immediately dropped to 15 to 20 percent. - Killer’s subjective respect for the authority figure. To be truly effective, soldiers must bond to their leader just as they must bond to their group. Shalit notes a 1973 Israeli study that shows that the primary factor in ensuring the will to fight is identification with the direct commanding officer. Compared with an established and respected leader, an unknown or discredited leader has much less chance of gaining compliance from soldiers in combat. - Intensity of the authority figure’s demands for killing behavior. The leader’s mere presence is not always sufficient to ensure killing activity. The leader must also communicate a clear expectancy of killing behavior. When he does, the influence can be enormous. When Lieutenant Calley first ordered his men to kill a group of women and children in the village of My Lai, he said, “You know what to do with them,” and left. When he came back he asked, “Why haven’t you killed them?” The soldier he confronted said, “I didn’t think you wanted us to kill them.” “No,” Calley responded, “I want them dead,” and proceeded to fire at them himself. Only then was he able to get his soldiers to start shooting in this extraordina...

The Roman centurion was a professional leader who had the respect of his soldiers because he had come up through the ranks and had previously demonstrated his ability in combat. This kind of legitimacy is completely different from that associated with leadership in civilian life, and the Greek leader was primarily a civilian whose peacetime legitimacy was not easily transferred to the battlefield and was often tainted by the spoils system and the petty politics associated with the local village he had come from. In the Greek phalanx the leader at squad and platoon level was a spear-carrying member of the masses. The primary function of these leaders (as defined by their equipment and lack of mobility within the formation) was to participate in the killing. The Roman formation, on the other hand, had a series of mobile, highly trained, and carefully selected leaders whose primary job was not to kill but to stand behind their men and demand that they kill.

Some leaders choose to fight to their deaths, taking their men with them in a blaze of glory. In many ways it is easier for the leader if he can die quickly and cleanly with his men and need never live with what he has done. One of the more striking of such situations is that of Major James Devereux, the commander of the U.S. Marines defending Wake Island. The small marine detachment on Wake held out against overwhelming Japanese forces from December 8 to December 22, 1941. The last message sent out before Devereux and his men were overwhelmed was received by radio telegraphy and said simply: S…E…N…D…. M…O…R…E…. J…A…P…S…

But the price for the leader who has lived through such a situation is high. He must answer to the widows and the orphans of his men, and he must live forevermore with what he has done to those who entrusted their lives to his care.

The Lost Battalion of World War I is a famous example of a unit that was sustained by its leader’s will. This unit, a battalion of the 77th Division, was cut off and surrounded by Germans during an attack. They continued to fight for days. They ran out of food, water, and ammunition. The survivors were surrounded by friends and comrades suffering from horrible wounds that could not receive medical attention until they surrendered. The Germans brought up flamethrowers and tried to burn them out. Still their commander would not surrender. They were not an elite or specially trained unit. They were only a composite infantry battalion made up of citizen-soldiers in a National Guard Division. Yet they performed a feat that will shine forever in the annals of military glory. All the survivors gave full credit for their achievement to the incredible fortitude of their battalion commander, Major C. W. Whittlesey, who refused to surrender and constantly encouraged the dwindling survivors of his battalion to fight on. After five days their battalion was rescued. Major Whittlesey was given the Congressional Medal of Honor. Many people know this story. What they don’t know is that Whittlesey committed suicide shortly after the war.

Disintegration of a combat unit…usually occurs at the 50% casualty point, and is marked by increasing numbers of individuals refusing to kill in combat…. Motivation and will to kill the enemy has evaporated along with their peers and comrades. —Peter Watson War on the Mind

Marshall noted that a single soldier falling back from a broken and retreating unit will be of little value if pressed into service in another unit. But if a pair of soldiers or the remnants of a squad or platoon are put to use, they can generally be counted upon to fight well.

Kruck’s 1972 research describes scenes from the animal kingdom that show that senseless and wanton killing does occur. These include the slaughter of gazelles by hyenas, in quantities way beyond their need or capacity to eat, or the destruction of gulls that could not fly on a stormy night and thus were “sitting ducks” for foxes that proceed to kill them beyond any possible need for food. Shalit points out that “such senseless violence in the animal world—as well as most of the violence in the human domain—is shown by groups rather than by individuals.”

Konrad Lorenz tells us that “man is not a killer, but the group is.”

All crowding has an intensifying effect. If aggression exists, it will become more so as a result of crowding; if joy exists, it will become intensified by the crowd. It has been shown by some studies…that a mirror in front of an aggressor tends to increase his aggression—if he was disposed to be aggressive.

But if we examine the psychological leverage provided by the chariot to enable killing on the battlefield, we soon realize that the chariot was successful because it was the first crew-served weapon.

The chariot was defeated by the phalanx, which succeeded by turning the whole formation into a massive crew-served weapon.

And when gunpowder was introduced, it was the crew-served cannon, later augmented by the machine gun, that did most of the killing. Gustavus Adolphus revolutionized warfare by introducing a small three-pound cannon that was pulled around by each platoon, thus becoming the first platoon crew-served weapon and presaging the platoon machine guns of today.

Increasing the distance between the [combatants]—whether by emphasizing their differences or by increasing the chain of responsibility between the aggressor and his victim allows for an increase in the degree of aggression. —Ben Shalit The Psychology of Conflict and Combat

- Cultural distance, such as racial and ethnic differences, which permit the killer to dehumanize the victim - Moral distance, which takes into consideration the kind of intense belief in moral superiority and vengeful/vigilante actions associated with many civil wars - Social distance, which considers the impact of a lifetime of practice in thinking of a particular class as less than human in a socially stratified environment - Mechanical distance, which includes the sterile Nintendo-game unreality of killing through a TV screen, a thermal sight, a sniper sight, or some other kind of mechanical buffer that permits the killer to deny the humanity of his victim

Cultural Distance: “Inferior Forms of Life”

Moral Distance: “Their Cause Is Holy, So How Can They Sin?”

Social Distance: Death across the Swine Log

Mechanical Distance: “I Don’t See People…”

Oftentimes the criteria for deciding whom to kill are dictated by deciding who is manning the most dangerous weapon.

Every surrendering soldier instinctively knows that the first thing he should do is drop his weapon, but if he is smart he will also ditch his helmet.

Several independent studies indicate that this powerful conditioning process has dramatically increased the firing rate of American soldiers since World War II.

The recent loss of friends and beloved leaders in combat can also enable violence on the battlefield. The deaths of friends and comrades can stun, paralyze, and emotionally defeat soldiers. But in many circumstances soldiers react with anger (which is one of the well-known response stages to death and dying), and then the loss of comrades can enable killing.

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—and if it is the price of gaining admission to the kind of environment he craves. Whether such men are born or made, I do not know, but most of them end up in armies (and many move on again to become mercenaries, because regular army life in peacetime is too routine and boring).

There is strong evidence that there exists a genetic predisposition for aggression. In all species the best hunter, the best fighter, the most aggressive male, survives to pass his biological predispositions on to his descendants. There are also environmental processes that can fully develop this predisposition toward aggression; when we combine this genetic predisposition with environmental development we get a killer. But there is another factor: the presence or absence of empathy for others. Again, there may be biological and environmental causes for this empathic process, but, whatever its origin, there is undoubtedly a division in humanity between those who can feel and understand the pain and suffering of others, and those who cannot. The presence of aggression, combined with the absence of empathy, results in sociopathy. The presence of aggression, combined with the presence of empathy, results in a completely different kind of individual from the sociopath.

One veteran I interviewed told me that he thought of most of the world as sheep: gentle, decent, kindly creatures who are essentially incapable of true aggression. In this veteran’s mind there is another human subspecies (of which he is a member) that is a kind of dog: faithful, vigilant creatures who are very much capable of aggression when circumstances require. But, according to his model, there are wolves (sociopaths) and packs of wild dogs (gangs and aggressive armies) abroad in the land, and the sheepdogs (the soldiers and policemen of the world) are environmentally and biologically predisposed to be the ones who confront these predators.