# Are the rates of mental health problems in special forces soldiers high **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 5, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-rates-of-mental-health-problems-in-special-forces-soldiers-high/527745 "2010-02-05T00:59:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-rates-of-mental-health-problems-in-special-forces-soldiers-high/527745/21 "2010-02-08T16:08:23Z")
But when you look at historical battles from pre-firearms days, you find certain things: - casualty rates were WAY below what we have today - many of the infantry-square-vs.-infantry-square battles essentially became shoving matches, with surprisingly little death or injury, even at the front of the square - most of the battle casualties (as opposed to disease-caused casualties, which were the biggest factor) occurred when an opponent was fleeing. Like dogs chasing a running victim, people seem a lot more instinctually able to kill fleeing foes than ones that face them head-on. Cavalry wasn’t so deadly because it could break apart infantry squares—in fact, it was lousy at that, since horses aren’t stupid and won’t run straight into a wall of pikes. But cavalry was GREAT at getting forces behind an enemy–and the psychological impact of being “surrounded,” even if, realistically, the cavalry might not pose a deadly threat to a disciplined infantry square, is terrible. Once forces got behind you, soldiers were much more likely to break ranks and flee–and then, the cavalry did their best work, which was slaughtering fleeing soldiers. [ETA: This was directed at ivn and thirdname’s posts] ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-rates-of-mental-health-problems-in-special-forces-soldiers-high/527745/22 "2010-02-08T17:08:58Z")
Lt. Col. Grossman’s claims about psychopathy and elite military units have to be examined very closely. From an [interview](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/interviews/grossman.html): > [@](#): > > Q: You have statistics in your book. … Talk to me about the 2 percent statistic and what that means. > > Naturally speaking, there’s 2 percent who after 60 days of continuous day-and-night combat are not driven insane. And this 2 percent keeps bubbling up. Two percent of all fighter pilots in World War II killed more than the rest put together, something along those lines. This 2 percent keeps bubbling up. > > And it’s really not a percent. It’s not a yes or no. It’s a continuum. It’s the old bell-shaped curve. [At] one end of the bell-shaped curve there’s people, at the tail of it, with great capacity for violence. [At] the other end there’s people over here with no capacity for violence. And there’s most of the people right in between. But you can choose to go one way or another. Israel is a nation that has shifted their bell-shaped curve. Israel is a nation who’s chosen a warrior path. > > Q: So what’s happening in the psychology of those 2 percent? > > Well, those 2 percent are people with a capacity for aggression. And then they divide into two parts. _Those who have the capacity for aggression and an absence of empathy, we call those psychopaths, sociopaths, aggressive sociopaths. Those who have a capacity for aggression and empathy for their fellow citizens, we call those warriors, heroes, cops, soldiers, Marines, spec ops._ Emphasis mine. Grossman is stating that soliders who are willing to kill seem to share some characteristics of aggression with what some would consider a psychopathic personailtiy, not that our elite combat units are literally filled with clinical psychopaths. True psychopaths are much more likely to steal a jeep and go AWOL than they are to distinguish themselves in combat, and more likely to be found in Leavenworth than in special forces. Dr. Robert Hare gives this bit about true psychopaths in combat in his book _Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us_: > [@](#): > > The Dirty Dozen is a classic movie that glorifies a long standing Hollywood myth: turn a psychopath inside out and you find a hero. The plot of the movie concerns a choice given to a handful of the roughest, toughest criminals: volunteer for what amounts to a suicide mission, or stay in prison. The task involves the capture of a castle in which the elite command of the German army is ensconced. Needless to say, the dirty Dozen succeed in the capture. And needless to say, they are honored as heroes, to the apparent gratification to several generations of audiences. > > Psychiatrist James Weiss, author of “All But Me and Thee,” tells a very different tale. His book recounts an investigation conducted during World War II by Brigadier General Eliot D. Cook and his assitant, Colonel Ralph Bing. They started at the end point - the Army East Coast Processing (Detention) Center at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod - and worked backwards to company level to determine how the more than two thousand inmates had wound up there. > > The story, as Weiss remarks, was “the same sad tale” told over and over again. Knowing the company was going into a fight, the soldier volunteered for supplies and was never heard from again. Or the soldier went from stealing food to stealing a truck, totaling it on a joyride. Completely unresponsive to the interests of their fellow GI’s and more attuned with instant gratification than to the fundamental rules of caution in combat, these fellows had a much greater chance of getting shot - “Peterson…stuck his head up when everyone else had theirs down and a German sniper put a bullet through the middle of it” - than of accomplishing an act of heroism that involved planning, cunning, and actions rooted in conscience. > > The Dirty Dozen might ook squeaky clean by the time Hollywood gets through with them, but in real life, as Weiss concludes, “conversion by combat seldom if ever happens.” ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-rates-of-mental-health-problems-in-special-forces-soldiers-high/527745/23 "2010-02-08T23:01:46Z")
ok so who are we going to believe - the long history of mass armies or the claims of some guy with an anti-military agenda? How about the existence of street gangs where you go and kill somebody to rise above a certain rank? How about the similar institution among Spartans [Crypteia - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypteia) where reputedly every young man at some point went out and killed some defenseless peasants, if you want to look at the more pathological examples? To me the claims of this guy sound like an attempt at medicalizing a fairly normal human behavior. First lets announce that ability to perform a soldier’s duties effectively is evidence of mental illness, then lets start giving them extra “counseling” and surveillance. Maybe even declare them potential extremists and a danger to the State, while we are at it. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-rates-of-mental-health-problems-in-special-forces-soldiers-high/527745/24 "2010-02-09T00:43:18Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > No they don’t, not from what I know. I don’t think you really can’t ask someone to have a high degree of empathy for person X but no empathy for person Y. > > You can feed them propaganda about what a horrible person person Y is, but I think many would see through that. You are reading too much into this. It is really just basic psychology and sociology. Humans are pack animals. The part where the sociopathic notion breaks down is assuming that people in lots of situations that may end in violence is that that most people don’t want anyone to get hurt but they are thrown into a situation where they can stand neutral, stand up for who they know in their pack, or let themselves and those they know to be hurt or killed themselves. This could be as simple as a schoolyard confrontation, a bar fight, or an all out war where people get killed. I was reading Chuck Yeager’s biography last night. He was an extreme war hero and an Ace several times over. He didn’t like killing people but it was either he or them and sometimes they simply threatened his friends in their planes. He wanted to kill as many ‘Krauts’ as possible, not because he hated Germans as a whole, but because he loved dogfighting and wanted to protect his pack and his country and there was no way that he would sacrifice even one of his friends for five German deaths. I have never met you in person **Wesley** , but I know you from this board and, if we ever got together at a pool hall or something and someone threatened you, I would be willing to go down to the mat for it without a formal judge and jury hearing. That is just the way human psychology and alliances work at every single level. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-rates-of-mental-health-problems-in-special-forces-soldiers-high/527745/25 "2010-02-09T01:48:01Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I have never met you in person **Wesley** , but I know you from this board and, if we ever got together at a pool hall or something and someone threatened you, I would be willing to go down to the mat for it without a formal judge and jury hearing. That is just the way human psychology and alliances work at every single level. I, on the other hand, will be attempting to save **Shagnasty**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-rates-of-mental-health-problems-in-special-forces-soldiers-high/527745.md?page=1)