I take this little snippet to be the tip of the offensive arrow, no? It lacks only one word indicated by my bold insertion (heh) to stabilize it and send back over to the side of Truth, Justice and the American way.
Of course his later comment in that thread:
is quite possibly the most ignorant thing I’ve read pertaining to military training. I’m not sure where Buster Tea-Time got his military training, or in what era, but I recall nothing like being taught to abandon a lifetime of social conditioning. Nor, specifically, to kill my fellow man.
I recall being taught, indirectly, to suppress emotion in time of need and to kill enemy combatants when necessary and take prisoners when killing was not necessary. Essentialy no different from the civilian “Self-Defense” plea except that military folks tend to get put into an awful lot of situations requiring “self-defense.” But I’d hardly describe someone who aims a weapon at me as my “fellow man.” Now if that enemy combatant is willing to drop his weapon and come over for tea and cookies and debate rationally which of us will surrender, well I’d be open to that. Of course, when playing offense one has to assume that the other guy isn’t willing to give up or he would already have done so during the Air Force battlefield prep–Air Force–now those guys are the murderers!
Stick to what you know, Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor, my friend.
And you’d think, FinnAgain, using that logic, that that would show up in the income figures, the unemployment figures, and the incarceration figures as well. Yet they don’t, amazingly enough. Veterans do better than the general population in all of these measures as a group.
Goddamn, Hentor and associated types, you are going to the defense of some lunatic that believes ‘Heaven will punish our nation for this vile war’ and that returning vets are psycho killers waiting to happen?
WTF? Do you feel some spiritual need to defend every lefty out there, even the obviousloy insane ones? Bosda is a fucking loon if he actually believes the things he has said (and something else if he does not), and you aren’t doing yourselves any good trying to defend his fucked-up statements.
Actually, I wouldn’t think that, at all.
I would think that those who suffer from PTSD would have a harder time adjusting. The statistics for the entire military, however, would include that vast majority who do not suffer from PTSD, and thus, figures for the military in civlian roles would still show a general positive trend.
Erunh? Is this a woosh?
People in the military aren’t trained to kill? Those rifles shoot flowers and love?
Society is based around the monopolization of force by the state and we are specifically trained not to take the law into our own hands. The civilian response is to call the police, the military response is to pick up a rifle and fire it when ordered. These are, obviously, two very different reactions.
A lot of people associate veterans with homelessness because damn near all homeless people lie about being veterans. Especially now that there’s a war going on I can’t remember the last time I saw a homeless guy holding up a sign that didn’t say ‘Veteran’ on it.
They used to come up to my brother and his friends while they were in civvies out in San Diego - and I can vouch because I was with him a few times - and they would all claim veteran status but not know a damn thing about the military.
I’m assuming what Mr. Moto means by this:
Is that the percent of homeless people who are veterans is about the same as the percent of non-homeless people who are veterans which, last time I checked at least, is not 100%.
Because, I don’t think that Bosda was making the point that you’re arguing against. In other words, from reading your OP, I got the sense that Bosda was talking in general terms about trends within the military, not all soldiers. In other words, I feel that the inclusion of ‘some’, as Inigo made, is what Bosda was trying to say. YMM(O)V
My tummy is doing pretty good actually, although I sure could use a reuben…
You know, it’s not often I agree with Brutus, so I have to enjoy the moments when I do.
I have a hard time believeing anyone takes Bosda seriously on these boards. He’s simpleminded, constantly refers to himself in the third person, almost never has anything remotely interesting to say and his posts are written like a ten year old who first discovers the font and type color options on Word.
I would think that standards of debate, proof, and logic would compel one to discuss issues and substance rather than attempting to get out of a debate by smearing another poster.
Evidently, you would disagree, at least in the Pit.
Or: Of course you felcher of rotting squid, why should we take anything you say seriously?
I’m not quite sure what his case is, other than that, as I read it, some soldiers have problems upon return to society, and many mercs probably will. This is a position which, I believe, has enough factual support to have its veracity supported.
You big old crazy, yer just trying to get me all fired up
Your average GI Joe isn’t given an anatomy & physiology course so he can better understand where to aim & what structures will kill when damaged. Those rifles shoot bullets, sure enough, and no they don’t fire the bullets on their own–they require a trigger squeeze (in the absence of mechanical malfunction, but we can agree that that’d be a nitpick). I was just pointing out that, while some additional conditioning may be obtained by the soldier which allows him to do what most of us would not, it by no means constitutes abandoning “a lifetime of social conditioning, & kill his fellow man” and all the inhumanity that is implied by that assertion. For a cite I’d refer you to any of the Rangers or Special Forces dudes I’ve ever run into–some of the bad assest, killinest, bloodstained warriors ever shat into civilization by an angry god, and model citizens off the battlefield. Hardly examples of blood drinking beasties that have abandoned a lifetime of social conditioning. Shucks, I’d go the other way with it and say they’ve developed the conditioning we’ve all had from watching football, cop shows, and cartoons. A soldier has merely overcome the inner conflict of “thou shalt not kill” and “Kill & Kill again.” And in fairness to Bosda, sometimes it blows their minds and they either become so unstable that they can’t function normally in society, or they like it too much and becom mercenaries (shameless and irresponsible generalization of mercenaries).
As for your example–Soldiers are not civilians, just as the cops aren’t. If a civilian or national interest feels threatend, the police or military are summoned, respectively, to sort out the problem. Sometimes killing is needed, cops & soldiers kill people; sometimes merely a show of force is sufficient, I draw your attention to Clinton’s armada to Haiti in the mid 90s.
Hey! I’m a little young crazy, I’ll have you know!
Soldiers are trained for fire for the center mass, yes? This maximizes the chance of a ‘kill shot’, right?
I don’t see it as saying someone is ‘inhuman’, simply outside the bounds of society. I don’t view that as a slur, most of the greatest writers and artists throughout history stood outside the bounds of normality. The fact is, most civilians, if handed a rifle and told to kill someone, would disobey, or at least think about it. Military indoctrination is designed in order to reduce or nullify this response. "When I say jump you say ‘how high?’ "
One can stand outside the bounds of convention without being a monster. Having people trained to kill most certainly contrasts with those not trained to kill. That doesn’t mean trained killers go berserk when they get home.
Blood drinking monsters, naw… but they have abandoned the societal conditioning which says killing is wrong.
“I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”
So, absolutes don’t help us, they’ve abandoned some-but-not-all societal conditioning.
Eh, I disagree. The examples you’ve given are supposed to be safe expressions of violence in order to channel it away.
I’ve heard, but don’t currently have cites, that there is a merc company (I use that in the economic sense) that pretty much exclusively hires ex special forces personel. Now, that’s neither here nor there… but yes, obviously some-but-not-all soldiers snap under the pressures involved in the taking of life.
True enough. But, as Bush reminded us, a soldier’s job is to fight and win wars. In other words, to kill. Police officers, on the other hand, are supposed to uphold the laws of society. There is, I believe, a functional difference between someone trained to support the interests of the US via killing, and someone who is trained to follow and enforce the laws of the US, preferably without killing.
The difference, I believe, is that police officers are still taught that killing is wrong, and that lethal force should only be used as a last resort. This is hardly the thinking that is required for a soldier under hostile fire. If one’s job is to fight in a war zone, they’ve already accepted that it’s not a ‘last resort’ but the order of the day.
Again, I do believe that this acceptance of violence is outside the bounds of societal convention, but not necessarily monsterous.
Not semantics at all. If I wanted to kill someone for sure, I’d shoot them in the head with a rifle bullet. They’ll be filling a hole soon enough then.
The head is a lot easier to miss, though. And even if someone is merely wounded by hitting them elsewhere, they may well then be in a position not to be shooting at you any more.
And all this nitpicking with me is missing a pretty important point. I gave Bosda a chance to clarify or retract his remarks, to state definitively that he wasn’t slandering the military with his posts. He passed on that opportunity quite explicitly, which is why I started this thread.
Now, you may be charitable and read into his remarks a more conciliatory attitude. I think the attitude shown by Bosda overall demonstrates that this is wishful thinking.
I have to disagree with somethings you are saying and this has nothing to do with the pitting. You may find this information interesting.
Dave Grossman, a man with 25 years of experience in the miltary as an infantry officer, paratrooper, ranger and a West Point Psychologist wrote a very interesting article called “Teaching Kids to Kill”. In it, he stipulates that there is a natural aversion humans have to killing each other just like many other species in nature.
During WWII the Army discovered that only 15-20% of soldiers would fire at an exposed enemy soldier. However, between WWII and Vietnam, the Military adjusted their training program to incorporate new techniques that served to make killing more mechanical and to undermine the natural inhibition that exists to not kill. Henceforth, by the end of the Vietnam War the number of soldiers who would shoot at an exposed enemy was 90%.
He writes about how they accomplished this by using Brutalization, Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning and Role Models. For example, they brutalize new recruits by stripping recruits of as much individuality as possible utilizing tactics that adjust their sense of self. They are trained relentlessly in a total immersion envirnment. In addition, they used operant conditoning such as using human targets popping up instead of bullseyes, as well as the establishment of very aggressive, violent and disciplined role models.
I am bringing this up not to say that this happened to you, but this man was a psychologist for West Point and he did indeed say that military training methods are used to override natural inhibitions to kill.
Does this mean that soldiers are more apt to kill when they return home? I do not have the data or knowledge to assess that, but I felt that this information may shed some light on this particular aspect of the debate.
