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March 5 - March 8, 2022
courage “is not a chance gift of nature like aptitude…it is willpower that can be spent—and when it is used up—men are finished. ‘Natural courage’ does exist; but it is really fearlessness…as opposed to the courage of control.”
a general slowing down of mental processes and apathy, as far as they were concerned the situation was one of absolute hopelessness…. The influence and reassurance of understanding officers and NCOs failed to arouse these soldiers from their hopelessness…. The soldier was slow-witted…. Memory defects became so extreme that he could not be counted on to relay a verbal order…. He could then best be described as one leading a vegetative existence…. He remained almost constantly in or near his slit trench, and during acute actions took no part, trembling constantly.
“achievement is a sharp tonic to morale….
that the soldier is both victim and executioner.
The soldier in combat is trapped within this tragic Catch-22. If he overcomes his resistance to killing and kills an enemy soldier in close combat, he will be forever burdened with blood guilt, and if he elects not to kill, then the blood guilt of his fallen comrades and the shame of his profession, nation, and cause lie upon him. He is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.
It was a betrayal of what I’d been taught since a child.”
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
Numerous studies have concluded that men in combat are usually motivated to fight not by ideology or hate or fear, but by group pressures and processes involving (1) regard for their comrades, (2) respect for their leaders, (3) concern for their own reputation with both, and (4) an urge to contribute to the success of the group.[5]
This bonding is so intense that it is fear of failing these comrades that preoccupies most combatants.
For those who know that they have not fired while their friends died around them, the guilt can be traumatic.
These decorations, medals, mentions in dispatches, and other forms of recognition represent a powerful affirmation from the leader’s society, telling him that he did well, he did the right thing, and no one blames him for the lives lost in doing his duty.
The dead soldier takes his misery with him, but the man who killed him must forever live and die with him.
killing in combat, by its very nature, causes deep wounds of pain and guilt.
It is a combination of factors that forms the beast, and it is a combination of stressors that is responsible for psychiatric casualties.
Were they traumatized by the realization that someone would hate them enough to do this horrible thing to them?
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.
force. One survivor said the sound of the wind was “like the Devil laughing.”…
Seventy thousand died at Hamburg. Eighty thousand or so died in 1945 during a similar firebombing in Dresden. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand died in firestorms over Tokyo as a result of only two firebomb raids.
From a distance, I can deny your humanity; and from a distance, I cannot hear your screams.
The difference is the difference between what the Nazi executioners did to the Jews and what the Allied bombardiers did to Germany and Japan. The difference is the difference between what Lieutenant Calley did to a village full of Vietnamese, and what many pilots and artillerymen did to similar Vietnamese villages.
Incredibly, yet undeniably, there is a qualitative distinction in the eyes of those who suffered: the survivors of Auschwitz were personally traumatized by criminals and suffered lifelong psychological damage from their experiences, whereas the survivors of Hamburg were incidental victims of an act of war and were able to put it behind them.
Even our legal system is established around a determination of intent. Emotionally and intellectually we can readily grasp the difference between premeditated murder and manslaughter.
the difference is distance.
protected by the same potent combination of group absolution, mechanical distance (the rifle scope), and physical distance.
And just as a remarkably small percentage of World War II fighter pilots were capable of doing the majority of the air-to-air killing, so too have a few carefully selected and trained snipers made a tremendous and disproportionate contribution to their nation’s war effort by remorselessly and mercilessly killing large numbers of the enemy.
When soldiers do kill the enemy they appear to go through a series of emotional stages. The actual kill is usually described as being reflexive or automatic. Immediately after the kill the soldier goes through a period of euphoria and elation, which is usually followed by a period of guilt and remorse.[4]
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 physical range provided by the spears of the Greek and Macedonian phalanx provided much of the psychological leverage that permitted Alexander the Great to conquer the known world.[6]
Ultimately the phalanx was only replaced by the advent of the superior posturing and psychological leverage provided by gunpowder projectile weapons.
The second corollary to the distance relationship is that it is far easier to deliver a slashing or hacking blow than a piercing blow.
the resistance to killing with the bayonet is equal only to the enemy’s horror at having this done to him. Thus in bayonet charges one side or the other invariably flees before the actual crossing of bayonets occurs.
universal insight into human nature. First, the closer the soldier draws to his enemy the harder it is to kill him, until at bayonet range it can be extremely difficult, and, second, the average human being has a strong resistance to piercing the body of another of his own kind with a handheld edged weapon,
One hundred per cent of the casualties might be caused by musketry, yet the bayonet could still be the instrument of victory.
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 most effective firing and killing occurred when the enemy had begun to flee the field.
way, there appears to be a chase instinct in man that permits him to kill a fleeing enemy.
instances the presence of the hood or blindfold ensures that the execution is completed and serves to protect the mental health of the executioners.
The eyes are the window of the soul, and if one does not have to look into the eyes when killing, it is much easier to deny the humanity of the victim.
Clausewitz and du Picq both expound at length on the fact that the vast majority of casualties in historical battles were inflicted upon the losing side during the pursuit that followed the victory.
He had many personal kills that he was willing to discuss, but it was his one kill with a knife that caused him to have nightmares long after the war was over.
At hand-to-hand-combat range the instinctive resistance to killing becomes strongest.
Yet the procreative act and the destructive act are inextricably interlinked.
“it is in the mythological marriage of Ares [the god of war] and Aphrodite [the god of sex] that Harmonia is born.”
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.
If this kind of obedience could be obtained with a lab coat and a clipboard by an authority figure who has been known for only a few minutes, how much more would the trappings of military authority and months of bonding accomplish?
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
However, veterans listed “being told to fire” as the most critical factor.
More than a century ago, Ardant du Picq found the same thing in his study based on a survey of military officers. He noted one incident during the Crimean War in which, during heavy fighting, two detachments of soldiers suddenly met unexpectedly face-to-face, at “ten paces.” They “stopped thunderstruck. Then, forgetting their rifles, threw stones and withdrew.” The reason for this behavior, according to du Picq, was that “neither of the two groups had a decided leader.”
When the authority figure was not personally present but called over a phone, the number of subjects who were willing to inflict the maximum shock dropped sharply.
This process can be generalized to combat circumstances and “operationalized” into a number of subfactors: proximity of the authority figure, respect for the authority figure, intensity of the authority figure’s demands, and the authority figure’s legitimacy.
