Posted on 08/24/2013 5:19:43 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
Of course there is no innate resistance to killing other humans. All history and all prehistory is evidence to that.
No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
George S. Patton
Of course, like the other apes, we are tribal and kill less often our own tribe.
I finally found a word that's even dumber than ufology.
Free *pdf download:
Looking for “On Combat” *.pdf download...
SLA Marshall’s dubious research is well known in military history circles, but he did have experience as a combat infantryman in World War I. Dave Grossman, on the other hand, has had no combat experience as near as I can tell. He throws around his rank and his Ranger School experience, but without any combat experience, I find his credibility suspect.
My own experience is that training is essential to making effective combat soldiers, but training is not about overcoming their reluctance to kill, training teaches them how to effectively use their equipment, including weapons; it teaches them how to work together as a combat unit, and it give them confidence that they can do the job. Couple that training with good leadership and soldiers will perform well in combat including killing the enemy.
This is a bunch of psychobabble from some guy who wants everyone to believe that he is a real warrior. He is a trained soldier, but his lack of combat experience is a glaring hole in his resume.
My Dad was older when he went of to Normandy..34. He lead a platoon of solders across France and he said some of the same things. It was hard to get his troops to fire and probably only a quarter of them were doing the shooting.
They were only ever exposed to skirmishes..no pitch battles until they were in Belgium, but it hardly changed.
I have always found Dave Grossman’s claims to be dubious. People have been very effectively killing others outside their group for all of human experience.
It is possible for humans to integrate feelings of goodwill toward strangers, but mostly that would be Christian experience or a philosophy that is taught them.
The historical and archeological evidence is that men kill strangers very easily.
I highly recommend War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage
http://www.amazon.com/War-Before-Civilization-Peaceful-Savage/dp/0195119126
At Cannae Hannibal’s army had 50,000 men. 2% of that would be 1000 men. Apparently this 1000 killed the 70,000 or so Romans who died there.
Their arms must have gotten awful tired.
Dittos to the book recommendation. It is an excellent read.
Something that gets left out of this is the flinch factor, fear, I read once that in a firefight, the advantage often goes to the side that first gains the upper hand, because it is difficult for men to force themselves to expose their face to the incoming bullets and violence to return aimed fire, and take control of the situation, when that control is already the other side’s.
The advantage in quality troops or elite troops, is that individually they are more able to force themselves to face the enemies dominance and incoming bullets, to assert the return fire necessary to take away that dominance, and to force the switch-over to get the enemy cowering and losing control over the situation.
I can see how in some situations, troops just get overwhelmed at the beginning with the result that many just hunker down, and have a low rate of return fire, (at least effective return fire).
Having lived that situation, I would say that what you read is correct. But that is not driven by some psychological barrier to killing enemy soldiers, it's driven by fear and also by uncertainty about what to do. Training and leaders are the remedy. When soldiers understand what you want them to do, they do it. Returning fire immediately, building up a volume of fire quickly, and then reacting with fire and maneuver are characteristic of trained and aggressive units. Such units usually take far fewer casualties than their opponents.
wow..........
You need to do a little more research. Try this:
He had been in that heightened state of awareness some soldiers enter into when engaged in close combat. Some say that when they’re in this state, all their senses are focused on killing the enemy. Their senses are magnified to the point their vision can detect and identify the smallest detail; they can hear a leaf fall out of a tree at a hundred meters and identify the type tree it fell from; they can smell the enemy’s breath and identify what they ate for their last meal, and their physical strength is magnified three fold. Soldiers have been shot through the heart while in this heightened state and have continued to fire, empty a magazine, change magazines, empty it again and throw a grenade before their body falls down and dies. Some call this heightened state an “adrenalin high,” and some simply call the state “Berserk.” What it really is I don’t know, but I do know it exists.
http://www.projectdelta.net/wrong_valley.htm
“Patriots always talk of dying for their country, but never of killing for their country.”
– Bertrand Russell
He was such a typical lying Pinko.
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
George S. Patton
Thanks, I will hunt this book down.
You are expressing a claim that all soldiers, are always the same, and equally engaged in every fire fight, because it is a firefight, I disagree, you also used in your description, elite soldiers.
I have never bought that Marshall stuff, it didn't make sense, and just wasn't credible, nor did it fit countless battles or human nature.
When I was in high school, I spent part of a summer living with MG HWO Kinnard’s family at Ft. Benning. SLA Marshall was a house guest during that summer and I got an opportunity to meet him and to talk with him about his books and about his combat interview techniques. I later used his techniques in Vietnam and found them quite useful, especially in identifying soldiers who were deserving of valor awards.
But, my combat experiences were very much at odds with his Men Against Fire book and the discussions that I had with him. I chalked it up to our improved training, especially TrainFire and Quick Fire (BB guns). I also knew Roger Spiller, who is the guy who really figured out that Marshall’s data was mostly made up.
My own experience was that even carrying 300 rounds per man, much more than was carried by most WWII infantrymen (they had heavier ammunition), our concern very early in every gunfight was ammo resupply, or at least redistribution. No one was shy about firing their weapon, and although seeing enemy soldiers was somewhat rare, when we did catch them in the open, they paid the price.
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