Learning to Kill / Combat Training – UPDATED

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FACTS

Humanity, in general, is averse to killing another individual. Dehumanizing the ‘enemy’ is the basis of military training. Huns, japs, gooks, slant-eyes, rag heads, hajjis, all of these stereotypes enforce that concept. This is essentially fostering the hate of others at a time in a person’s development when their brain hasn’t yet fully formed. Often, a defining moment in basic training is bayonet practice, then marching to a cadence of “blood makes the grass grow green.” It has been estimated that learning to kill is against the inner moral fiber of roughly 80% of the population.

For example, in WWII, only 15% of men were willing to fire their weapons. In Korea it rose to 50%; in Vietnam, due to ‘advanced training techniques,’ the American military was able to persuade 90% of combat troops to fire on the enemy. 40 years after Vietnam, an ex-Marine who had participated in Vietnam’s Operation Phoenix under CIA control would still choke up and cry when he remembered what he was forced to do. At the time it was a matter of “do what you’re told or maybe not make it back.” I.e., there are many opportunities on the return to camp for an ambush or friendly fire.

The definitive work on how the military achieved this feat in described in “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society”  by Lt Col. Dave Grossman, a West Point psychology professor, Professor of Military Science, and an Army Ranger.

Interviewing an ex-Army and an ex-Marine, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, told of their respective patrol operations procedures. The Marines hated taking a patrol area after the Army, because they knew they’d be hit by IEDs. An Army patrol, when hit, would respond with the order to “light it up,” which simply meant that everything in sight or even moved would be killed in an effort to suppress and intimidate. The Army automatic response generated many reasons for the local resistance to hit them again and again, while using that response as a recruiting tool. A Marine patrol, when hit by an IUD would simply “pack it in,” retrieve their dead or wounded and carry on, rarely to be hit on a patrol again. ~ Don Chapin)

Newton’s 3rd Law states: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A spiritual equivalent is something like “You provide energy to that which you oppose, i.e, merely by focusing on that concept, you are providing energy to it… recognition and emotion.

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Example Military Training Chants