Many kills in modern combat are ambushes and surprise attacks in which the enemy represents no immediate threat to the killer, but is killed anyway, without opportunity to surrender. Steve Banko provides an excellent example of such a kill: “They didn’t know I existed…but I sure as hell saw them…. This is one f———ed up way to die, I thought as I squeezed softly on the trigger.” Such a kill is by no means considered an atrocity, but it is also distinctly different from a noble kill and potentially harder for the killer to rationalize and deal with.
