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

by Dave Grossman

The incredible effectiveness of modern training techniques can be seen in the lopsided close-combat kill ratios between the British and Argentinean forces during the Falklands War, the U.S. and Panamanian forces during the 1989 Panama Invasion,[3] or the U.S. and Iraqi forces during the invasion of Iraq. During his interviews with British veterans of the Falklands War, Holmes described Marshall’s observations in World War II and asked if they had seen a similar incidence of nonfirers in their own forces. Their response was that they had seen no such thing occur with their soldiers, but there was “immediate recognition that it applied to the Argentineans, whose snipers and machine-gunners had been very effective while their individual riflemen had not.” Here we see an excellent comparison between the highly effective and competent British riflemen, trained by the most modern methods, and the remarkably ineffective Argentinean riflemen, who had been given old-style, World War II–vintage training.