Expiation for Killing: Young Soldiers Are Taught How to Kill But Not Taught That Killing in Combat Is Okay CONTINUED

In my July 27^th post (http://tinyurl.com/55zq2z), National Guardsman Big Tobacco (www.big-tobacco.blogspot.com) currently deployed in Iraq provided his response to my July 20^th post about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military personnel (http://tinyurl.com/6eu789). In that same July 27^th post I put forth an insight from my husband Mitch about biblical public ceremonies of expiation of guilt for killing in battle.

In my earlier post today (http://tinyurl.com/6nowpc) you can read Big Tobacco’s main response to this July 27^th post. Below you can read the follow-up email Big Tobacco sent about this subject:

Phyllis,

I thought more about what I said and I have more.

I think that it is easier for the officers than the men when it comes to PTSD. They might feel survivors’ guilt but they get over it. How many officers have you seen interviewed about PTSD? Probably none, even if they retired. It's always the Joes.

I can remember my first deployment when there was a suicide bombing at another checkpoint. My checkpoint went to 100 % security and we were ready to be attacked ourselves.

I was in a bunker with my machine gunner when he said: "Sergeant, I don't want to kill anyone." So I told him to get off the gun and go relieve our RTO and he would man the gun. In hindsight, this was a bad idea because freezing up on the radio would have been worse than the gun.

But that was proof right there that fear of killing permeates a soldier's existence, even if he doesn't know it.

Gotta go. Got a mission

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Big Tobacco, Iraq War, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, Mrs. Lieutenant

Expiation for Killing: Young Soldiers Are Taught How to Kill But Not Taught That Killing in Combat Is Okay

In my July 27^th post (http://tinyurl.com/55zq2z), National Guardsman Big Tobacco (www.big-tobacco.blogspot.com) currently deployed in Iraq provided his response to my July 20^th post about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military personnel (http://tinyurl.com/6eu789). In that same July 27^th post I put forth an insight from my husband Mitch about biblical public ceremonies of expiation of guilt for killing in battle.

Here’s Big Tobacco’s response to this July 27^th post:

Actually, I would think that some kind of public display like that would be, in the words of an NCO, "pretty f***in' stupid."

I'm not saying that you are stupid. It's just that I can already see the looks on the faces of my men, who just want to go home, being forced into some kind of quasi-Christian ritual when all they want to do is get drunk and laid.

The one thing I hate is acknowledgement of my service. I hate it when I am in uniform and people come up to me and say: "Thank you for protecting us."

"Yeah, dude. Don't worry, you'll get the bill."

That kind of ritual would be tacked onto all of the "thank you for protecting us" press conferences and parades. The fact is that people back in World War II DID have post traumatic stress; they just drank themselves to death or destroyed their families. And people didn't talk about it.

Also don't forget that A LOT more infantrymen died back then, even from simple wounds. By Vietnam, you had fewer casualties and better medical care (i.e., 30-minute medevac) so there were more people left around to be traumatized.

There is a book by a guy named Dave Grossman, who is a former Ranger and officer who studies "killology." He wrote a book called "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Leaning to Kill.” In this book he theorizes that PTSD doesn't come from exposure to danger, it comes from the physical act of killing itself.

Our society teaches that murder is wrong. Yet we take a high-school kid, cram 10 weeks of training down his throat, and call him a "killer." Sure, he might be physically able to kill, but after the target falls, he feels bad about it. Grossman’s website is at http://www.killology.com .

Take a look at World War II. A study was done after the war and it was found that only 20% of combat soldiers ever fired their rifles. Why? Because they fired at bull-eyes and a human looks nothing like a bulls-eye. The soldiers were not just afraid to kill, they weren't conditioned to kill.

So we changed the training. We started to fire at man-shaped targets. By Vietnam, we got the weapons-firing ratio up to 90%. This is operant conditioning. Think of Pavlov's dogs. Bell rings, dogs salivate. Target pops up, soldier shoots. Stimulus, response, positive feedback. Stimulus, response, positive feedback. Now we taught them how to kill, and they react and do kill, but they are still afraid to kill.

We never teach these kids that killing is OK. So they gear up, go out, and kill. Then their lives are wrecked afterwards. Here's your 30% PTSD disability, kid. Good luck finding a job.

It's better to deal with the nightmares than go through life like that.

Syndicated from www.mrslieutenant.blogspot.com.

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PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, Big Tobacco, World War II, Vietnam, Iraq War, Dave Grossman, killology, Mrs. Lieutenant

Biblical Act of Expiation for Killing in Battle Might Have Helped with PTSD

My July 20^th blog post talked about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military personnel (see http://tinyurl.com/6eu789). I then asked for an opinion from BT, the National Guard infantryman now serving in Iraq who had a guest post here on July 9^th (see http://tinyurl.com/5nahvc). Here’s BT’s reply to me:

I have mixed feeling about the accuracy of PTSD. First off, I think it is way over-diagnosed. Some people get it worse than others.

I used to scan the sides of the roads when I came back the first time, but I stopped doing that after a week or so.

By "over-diagnosed" I kind of mean that there really aren't levels of PTSD. Someone can claim PTSD even if it is mild nightmares. My fear, and one of the reasons that I would be reluctant to go to anyone if I thought I had it, is that I would be marked for life. I might not be able to own a gun or hold a certain kind of job.

I also think that medical units hand out PTSD diagnoses like candy, because it’s easier than treating the problem. So they give them the diagnosis, take two Motrin, wash your hands and move out. When really that soldier just needs three days off, a hot meal and a chance to call his wife.

This topic of PTSD brought forth an interesting idea on the part of my husband Mitch in connection with the Torah portion read at Shabbat morning services yesterday. (Each week Jews read a portion from the Torah – the Five Books of Moses, completing the entire Torah in a year.)

Yesterday the portion was Mattot (Numbers 30: 2 to 32: 42), which talks in part about the offerings made by the warriors of Israel who have returned from fighting and killing the Midianites. The officers make a special additional offering.

Mitch put forth the idea that this offering by the fighting men was a ritual that helped to prevent PTSD. By making a public offering of forgiveness for having killed in battle, these warriors could hope to banish some of the mental demons that resulted from their acts of war.

And – as my husband, a former officer in the U.S. Army, said – of course the officers had to make additional offerings because they would have felt more guilt. They are the ones, my husband pointed out, who ordered their men into battle, saying “Take that hill” and knowing some will die doing so.

Mitch’s theory has a lot of merit. World War II soldiers returned home to victory parades, which are a public ritual. Vietnam veterans returned home to an ungrateful nation, and many suffer PTSD. We can only hope that the welcomes received by soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan help with alleviating PTSD.

Perhaps instead of being treated with psychoanalysis and drugs, combat veterans of all wars would be better off if they could participate in a community-wide expiation ritual, admitting their acts of war and being publicly forgiven for those same acts of war.

I’ll ask BT what he thinks of this idea.

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Episode 7 of Lifetime Television’s ARMY WIVES

Episode 7 of the television series ARMY WIVES had nothing outstanding about the episode. Yet it again reminded me of what I perceive as the strengths and weaknesses of the show:

As always, for me, the parts about the men ring true – Pamela’s husband Chase worried that in combat a team member won’t have his back, Roxy’s husband Trevor insisting it is his duty to return to his unit in Iraq.

And it’s always the parts about the women that don’t ring true for me. I continue to find it hard to believe that the wife of the commanding general of the post is such good friends with an enlisted man’s wife.

If you want to get a different perspective on today’s military forces than that of Lifetime’s ARMY WIVES, you can read blogs by active duty personnel and blogs by their spouses. Go to www.milblogging.com to find these blogs. You can search by top 100, recently updated, by gender, etc.

At random I clicked on the category recently added, and this blog title caught my eye – “PTSD, A Soldier’s Perspective” (http://ptsdasoldiersperspective.blogspot.com). The author of the blog is Scott Lee, who is attending the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville. (How ironic, I thought, as MRS. LIEUTENANT takes place at Ft. Knox, which is south of Louisville.)

Here’s Lee’s description of his blog: We tell a soldier or veteran of war "welcome home" because the battle never leaves us, as we return from conflict everyday of our lives. This is my story and struggle with PTSD, it affects every aspect of my life. I want people to know what a combat veteran goes through after the media and people forget.

And later in his mission statement he says: It is my hope that by reading my story the general public will begin to understand the situation that our Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans will face in the coming years.

PTSD, of course, is post-traumatic stress disorder, and it can happen not only to combat veterans but to survivors of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and other traumas. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs has a website on this disorder at http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/index.jsp

The site includes a guide for military families for when a family member returns from a war zone. Here’s part of the description of this guide:

Reintegration is an adjustment for all involved. This information aims to make this process as smooth as possible and covers:

• A description of the common reactions that occur following deployment to a war zone
• How expectations about homecoming may not be the same for service members and family members
• Ways to talk and listen to one another in order to re-establish trust, closeness and openness
• Information about possible problems to watch out for
• How to offer and find assistance for your loved ones
• What help is available and what it involves

Perhaps the writers of ARMY WIVES could read this guide. Then they might write Roxy’s reaction to Trevor more realistically than they are now doing.

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