On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (4 page)

• The techniques that have been developed and applied with tremendous success in
modem
combat training in order to condition soldiers to overcome their resistance to killing

• How the American soldier in Vietnam was first psychologically enabled to kill to a far greater degree than any other soldier in history, then denied the psychologically essential purification X X X

I N T R O D U C T I O N

ritual that exists in every warrior society, and finally condemned and accused by his own society to a degree that is unprecedented in Western history. And the terrible, tragic price that America's three million Vietnam veterans, their families, and our society are paying for what we did to our soldiers in Vietnam

• Finally, and
perhaps most important,
I believe that this study will provide insight into the way that rifts in our society combine with violence in the media and in interactive video games to indiscriminately condition our nation's children to kill. In a fashion very similar to the way the army conditions our soldiers. But without the safeguards. And we will see the terrible, tragic price that our nation is paying for what we are doing to our children.

A Personal Note

I am a soldier of twenty years' service. I have been a sergeant in the 82d Airborne Division, a platoon leader in the 9th (High Tech Test Bed) Division, and I have been a general staff officer and a company commander in the 7th (Light) Infantry Division. I am a parachute infantryman and an army Ranger. I have been deployed to the Arctic tundras, the Central American jungles, NATO headquarters, the Warsaw Pact, and countless mountains and deserts.

I am a graduate of military schools ranging from the XVIII Airborne Corps N C O Academy to the British Army Staff College. I graduated summa cum laude from my undergraduate training as a historian, and Kappa Delta Pi from my graduate training as a psychologist. I have had the privilege of being a cospeaker with General Westmoreland before the national leadership of the Vietnam Veterans Coalition of America, and I have served as the keynote speaker for the Sixth Annual Convention of the Vietnam Veterans of America. I have served in academic positions ranging from a junior-high-school counselor to a West Point psychology professor. And I am currently serving as the Professor of Military Science and Chair of the Department of Military Science at Arkansas State University.

But for all this experience, I, like Richard Holmes, John Keegan, Paddy Griffith, and many others who have gone before me in this field, have not killed in combat. Perhaps I could not be as dispassionate and objective as I need to be if I had to carry a load I N T R O D U C T I O N

XXXI

of emotional pain myself. But the men whose words fill this study
have
killed.

Very often what they shared with me was something that they had never shared with anyone before. As a counselor I have been taught, and I hold it to be a fundamental truth of human nature, that when someone withholds something traumatic it can cause great damage. When you share something with someone it helps to place it in perspective, but when you hold it inside, as one of my psychology students once put it, "it eats you alive from the inside out." Furthermore, there is great therapeutic value in the catharsis that comes with lancing these emotional boils. The essence of counseling is that pain shared is pain divided, and there was much pain shared during these periods.

The ultimate objective of this book is to uncover the dynamics of killing, but my prime motivation has been to help pierce the taboo of killing that prevented these men, and many millions like them, from sharing their pain. And then to use the knowledge gained in order to understand first the mechanisms that enable war and then the cause of the current wave of violent crime that is destroying our nation. If I have succeeded, it is because of the help given to me by the men whose tales are told herein.

Many copies of early drafts of this work have been circulating among the Vietnam veterans' community for several years now, and many veterans have carefully edited and commented on those drafts. Many of these vets read this book and shared it with their spouses. Then those wives shared it with other wives, and these wives shared it with their husbands. And so on. Many times the veterans and/or their wives contacted me and let me know how they were able to use this book to communicate and understand what had happened in combat. Out of their pain has come understanding, and out of that understanding has come the power to heal lives and, perhaps, to heal a nation that is being consumed with violence.

The men whose personal narratives appear in this study are noble and brave men who trusted others with their experiences in order to contribute to the body of human knowledge. Many killed in combat. But they killed to save their lives and the lives xxxii

I N T R O D U C T I O N

of their comrades, and my admiration and affection for them and their brothers are very real. John Masefield's poem "A Consecration" serves as a better dedication than any I could write. The exception to this admiration is, of course, addressed in the section

"Killing and Atrocities."

If in my absence of euphemisms and my effort to clearly and clinically speak of "killers" and "victims," if in these things the reader senses moral judgment or disapproval of the individuals involved, let me flatly and categorically deny it.

Generations of Americans have endured great physical and psychological trauma and horror in order to give us our freedoms.

Men such as those quoted in this study followed Washington, stood shoulder to shoulder with Crockett and Travis at the Alamo, righted the great wrong of slavery, and stopped the murderous evil of Hitler. They answered their nation's call and heeded not the cost. As a soldier for my entire adult life, I take pride in having maintained in some small way the standard of sacrifice and dedication represented by these men. And I would not harm them or besmirch their memory and honor. Douglas MacArthur said it well: "However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind."

The soldiers whose narratives form the heart and soul of this work understood the essence of war. They are heroes as great as any found in the
Iliad,
yet the words that you will read here, their own words, destroy the myth of warriors and war as heroic. The soldier understands that there are times when all others have failed, and that then he must "pay the butcher's bill" and fight, suffer, and die to undo the errors of the politicians and to fulfill the "will of the people."

"The soldier above all other people," said MacArthur, "prays for peace, for they must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." There is wisdom in the words of these soldiers.

There is wisdom in these tales of a "handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould. Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold." There is wisdom here, and we would do well I N T R O D U C T I O N

XXXlll

to listen.

Just as I do not wish to condemn those who have killed in lawful combat, nor do I wish to judge the many soldiers who chose
not
to kill. There are many such soldiers; indeed I will provide evidence that in many historical circumstances these nonfirers represented the majority of those on the firing line. As a soldier who may have stood beside them I cannot help but be dismayed at their failure to support their cause, their nation, and their fellows; but as a human being who has understood some of the burden that they have borne, and the sacrifice that they have made, I cannot help but be proud of them and the noble characteristic that they represent in our species.

The subject of killing makes most healthy people uneasy, and some of the specific subjects and areas to be addressed here will be repulsive and offensive. They are things that we would rather turn away from, but Carl von Clausewitz warned that "it is to no purpose, it is even against one's better interest, to turn away from the consideration of the affair because the horror of its elements excites repugnance." Bruno Bettelheim, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, argues that the root of our failure to deal with violence lies in our refusal to face up to it. We deny our fascination with the "dark beauty of violence," and we condemn aggression and repress it rather than look at it squarely and try to understand and control it.

And, finally, if in my focus on the pain of the killers I do not sufficiently address the suffering of their victims, let me apologize now. "The guy pulling the trigger," wrote Allen Cole and Chris Bunch, "never suffers as much as the person on the receiving end." It is the existence of the victim's pain and loss, echoing forever in the soul of the killer, that is at the heart of his pain.

Leo Frankowski tells us that "cultures all develop blind spots, things that they don't even think about because they
know
the truth about them." The veterans quoted in this study have had their faces rubbed in this cultural blind spot. We are truly, as one veteran put it to me, "virgins studying sex," but they can teach us what they have learned at such a dear price. My objective is xxxii I N T R O D U C T I O N

of their comrades, and my admiration and affection for them and their brothers are very real. John Masefield's poem "A Consecration" serves as a better dedication than any I could write. The exception to this admiration is, of course, addressed in the section

"Killing and Atrocities."

If in my absence of euphemisms and my effort to clearly and clinically speak of "killers" and "victims," if in these things the reader senses moral judgment or disapproval of the individuals involved, let me flatly and categorically deny it.

Generations of Americans have endured great physical and psychological trauma and horror in order to give us our freedoms.

Men such as those quoted in this study followed Washington, stood shoulder to shoulder with Crockett and Travis at the Alamo, righted the great wrong of slavery, and stopped the murderous evil of Hitler. They answered their nation's call and heeded not the cost. As a soldier for my entire adult life, I take pride in having maintained in some small way the standard of sacrifice and dedication represented by these men. And I would not harm them or besmirch their memory and honor. Douglas MacArthur said it well: "However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind."

The soldiers whose narratives form the heart and soul of this work understood the essence of war. They are heroes as great as any found in the
Iliad,
yet the words that you will read here, their own words, destroy the myth of warriors and war as heroic. The soldier understands that there are times when all others have failed, and that then he must "pay the butcher's bill" and fight, suffer, and die to undo the errors of the politicians and to fulfill the "will of the people."

"The soldier above all other people," said MacArthur, "prays for peace, for they must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." There is wisdom in the words of these soldiers.

There is wisdom in these tales of a "handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould. Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold." There is wisdom here, and we would do well INTRODUCTION xxxiii

to listen.

Just as I do not wish to condemn those who have killed in lawful combat, nor do I wish to judge the many soldiers who chose
not
to kill. There are many such soldiers; indeed I will provide evidence that in many historical circumstances these nonfirers represented the majority of those on the firing line. As a soldier who may have stood beside them I cannot help but be dismayed at their failure to support their cause, their nation, and their fellows; but as a human being who has understood some of the burden that they have borne, and the sacrifice that they have made, I cannot help but be proud of them and the noble characteristic that they represent in our species.

The subject of killing makes most healthy people uneasy, and some of the specific subjects and areas to be addressed here will be repulsive and offensive. They are things that we would rather turn away from, but Carl von Clausewitz warned that "it is to no purpose, it is even against one's better interest, to turn away from the consideration of the affair because the horror of its elements excites repugnance." Bruno Bettelheim, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, argues that the root of our failure to deal with violence lies in our refusal to face up to it. We deny our fascination with the "dark beauty of violence," and we condemn aggression and repress it rather than look at it squarely and try to understand and control it.

And, finally, if in my focus on the pain of the killers I do not sufficiently address the suffering of their victims, let me apologize now. "The guy pulling the trigger," wrote Allen Cole and Chris Bunch, "never suffers as much as the person on the receiving end." It is the existence of the victim's pain and loss, echoing forever in the soul of the killer, that is at the heart of his pain.

Leo Frankowski tells us that "cultures all develop blind spots, things that they don't even think about because they
know
the truth about them." The veterans quoted in this study have had their faces rubbed in this cultural blind spot. We are truly, as one veteran put it to me, "virgins studying sex," but they can teach us what they have learned at such a dear price. My objective is xxxiv

INTRODUCTION

to understand the psychological nature of killing in combat and to probe the emotional wounds and scars of those men who answered their nation's call and meted out death — or chose to pay the price for not doing so.

Now more than ever we must overcome our revulsion and understand, as we have never understood before, why it is that men fight and kill. And equally important, why it is that they will not. Only on the basis of understanding this ultimate, destructive aspect of human behavior can we hope to influence it in such a way as to ensure the survival of our civilization.2

S E C T I O N I

Killing and the Existence of Resistance:

A World of Virgins Studying Sex

It is therefore reasonable to believe that the average and healthy individual — the man who can endure the mental and physical stresses of combat — still has such an inner and usually unrealized resistance towards killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility. . . . At the vital point he becomes a conscientious objector.

— S. L. A. Marshall

Men Against Fire

Then I cautiously raised the upper half of my body into the tunnel until I was lying flat on my stomach. When I felt comfortable, I placed my Smith Wesson .38-cahber snub-nose (sent to me by my father for tunnel work) beside the flashlight and switched on the light, illuminating the tunnel.

There, not more than 15 feet away, sat a Viet Cong eating a handful of rice from a pouch on his lap. We looked at each other for what seemed to be an eternity, but in fact was probably only a few seconds.

2 KILLING AND THE E X I S T E N C E OF R E S I S T A N C E

Maybe it was the surprise of actually finding someone else there, or maybe it was just the absolute innocence of the situation, but neither one of us reacted.

After a moment, he put his pouch of rice on the floor of the tunnel beside him, turned his back to me and slowly started crawling away. I, in turn, switched off my flashlight, before slipping back into the lower tunnel and making my way back to the entrance.

About 20 minutes later, we received word that another squad had killed a VC emerging from a tunnel 500 meters away.

I never doubted who that VC was. To this day, I firmly believe that grunt and I could have ended the war sooner over a beer in Saigon than Henry Kissinger ever could by attending the peace talks.

— Michael Kathman

"Triangle Tunnel Rat"

O u r first step in the study of killing is to understand the existence, extent, and nature of the average human being's resistance to killing his fellow human. In this section we will attempt to do that.

W h e n I started interviewing combat veterans as a part of this study, I discussed some of the psychological theories concerning the trauma of combat with one crusty old sergeant. He laughed scornfully and said, "Those bastards don't k n o w anything about it. They're like a world of virgins studying sex, and they got nothing to go on but porno movies. And it
is
just like sex, 'cause the people w h o
really
do it just don't talk about it."

In a way, the study of killing in combat is very much like the study of sex. Killing is a private, intimate occurrence of tremendous intensity, in which the destructive act becomes psychologically very much like the procreative act. For those who have never experienced it, the depiction of battle that Hollywood has given us, and the cultural mythology that Hollywood is based upon, appear to be about as useful in understanding killing as p o r n o -

graphic movies would be in trying to understand the intimacy of a sexual relationship. A virgin observer might get the mechanics of sex right by watching an X-rated movie, but he or she could KILLING AND THE E X I S T E N C E OF R E S I S T A N C E 3

never hope to understand the intimacy and intensity of the procreative experience.

As a society we are as fascinated by killing as we are by sex —

possibly more so, since we are somewhat jaded by sex and have a fairly broad base of individual experience in this area. Many children, upon seeing that I am a decorated soldier, immediately ask "Have you ever killed anyone?" or "How many people have you killed?"

Where does this curiosity come from? Robert Heinlein once wrote that fulfillment in life involved "loving a good woman and killing a bad man." If there is such a strong interest in killing in our society, and if it equates in many minds to an act of manhood equivalent to sex, then why hasn't the destructive act been as specifically and systematically studied as the procreative act?

Over the centuries there have been a few pioneers who have laid the foundation for such a study, and in this section we will attempt to look at them all. Probably the best starting point is with S. L. A. Marshall, the greatest and most influential of these pioneers.

Prior to World War II it had always been assumed that the average soldier would kill in combat simply because his country and his leaders have told him to do so and because it is essential to defend his own life and the lives of his friends. When the point came that he didn't kill, it was assumed that he would panic and run.

During World War II U.S. Army Brigadier General S. L. A.

Marshall asked these average soldiers what it was that they did in battle. His singularly unexpected discovery was that, of every hundred men along the line of fire during the period of an encounter, an average of only 15 to 20 "would take any part with their weapons." This was consistently true "whether the action was spread over a day, or two days or three."

Marshall was a U.S. Army historian in the Pacific theater during World War II and later became the official U.S. historian of the European theater of operations. He had a team of historians working for him, and they based their findings on individual and mass interviews with thousands of soldiers in more than four hundred infantry companies, in Europe and in the Pacific, immediately after
4

KILLING AND THE E X I S T E N C E OF R E S I S T A N C E

they had been in close combat with German or Japanese troops.

The results were consistently the same: only 15 to 20 percent of the American riflemen in combat during World War II would fire at the enemy. Those who would not fire did not run or hide (in many cases they were willing to risk great danger to rescue comrades, get ammunition, or run messages), but they simply would not fire their weapons at the enemy, even when faced with repeated waves of banzai charges.1

The question is why. Why did these men fail to fire? As I examined this question and studied the process of killing in combat from the standpoints of a historian, a psychologist, and a soldier, I began to realize that there was one major factor that was missing from the common understanding of killing in combat, a factor that answers this question and more. That missing factor is the simple and demonstrable fact that there is within most men an intense resistance to killing their fellow man. A resistance so strong that, in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it.

To some, this makes "obvious" sense. "Of course it is hard to kill someone," they would say. "I could never bring myself to do it." But they would be wrong. With the proper conditioning and the proper circumstances, it appears that almost anyone can and will kill. Others might respond, "Any man will kill in combat when he is faced with someone who is trying to kill him." And they would be even more wrong, for in this section we shall observe that throughout history the majority of men on the battlefield would
not
attempt to kill the enemy, even to save their own lives or the lives of their friends.