Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
I knew the guy about as well as you did. I probably have about the same military training you do as well (none, I assume). I don't know if he was effed up before he joined up or not.
I don't think it's normal behaviour to "keep score", and then write about how many people you killed in a book.
Millions of guys killed millions of other guys in other wars. Generally, it's seen as an admirable trait that they don't talk about it. It's like this guy was bragging about it.
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You're trying to equate sniper mentality and special forces mentality with that of an ordinary soldier, and they are far apart and different.
Snipers absolutely keep track of their kills, they are in a lot of ways like fighter pilots. A lot of the special forces groups track casualty counts because they are expected to have the highest kill ratio in the ground forces. Average soldiers are judged by casualties inflicted, but more along the idea of objectives reached and secured.
Elite troops are entirely different and judged differently, you can't equate with the average infantry man.
As far as being able to build an effective soldier, the first thing that you have to do after you tear down the individual and build them back up as a unit member and a disciplined soldier is that you have to dehumanize the killing aspect of the job.
I remember on my first day of basic training we had an older Warrant Officer acting as our training NCO. He came into the room and sat us down and after the usual gentle speak about how we were lower then the low, that it was amazing that we could figure out how to clean our butts without momma's help, and god forbid that any of us should decide to breed because it would just increase the stupid to smart ratio of the planet, he sat down in front of us and basically stated in a deceptively gentle voice.
You will be asked to do some god awful things in this job at least once and probably more then once. You will probably have to look someone in eyes similar to yours that's about the same age, and looks as terrified as you. At that moment you will have to make a decision on whether you want to live and die and whether your friends want to live and die, because he knows and you know that in order to survive he's going to have to die. Our job is to make it so you can make that decision, and not view it as killing but a necessary decision. At the end of the day if you go to war, at the start of it, its about god and country and all of that bullsh%t, but it quickly comes down to doing whatever it takes to win so that you can go home alive and your friends can go home alive, and your neighbors and friends back home can continue to live the life that they were promised.
Then he made us do pushups til someone puked.