Quoted: can't confirm this, but someone on the radio yesterday said that the 70yo was a Marine |
That wouldn't suprise me at all. There are degrees of killing and traumatic effects and most ppl cannot handle the close quarters battle (knife, head lock choke to death...) because of the tramatic effects during and after, one of the main causes of PTSD. On the far other side of the spectrum is long distance killing; bombing runs, naval gun fire support, etc.
If you want to read more about the subject, recommend a very good read:
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Dave Grossman.
This guy in Costa Rica was something else. Dave Grossman says there are only a very small percentage of ppl in the world who can kill without psychological effect. Criminals who have this (or don't, if we're talking about conscience) are called psychopaths. Others who protect while killing cannot be grouped with those killers because they maintain discipline and are trained to do good.
He lectures to LE and military and I was lucky enough to watch a DVD of one of his presentations. Captivating.
And of course he wrote:
On Sheep, Wolves, and SheepdogsHis take on killing is that humans do not have a propensity to kill. It can be taught mostly through specialized training (silouette targets vice bulls eye, reactive targets - action / response etc.
The statistics from the ratio of soldiers who actually killed the enemy, even only shot "in the direction" of the enemy during the Civil War, then WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf I, II will surprise you. You can see the vast increase in those who killed, attempted to kill the enemy drastically increase through the more recent wars / conflicts, based mainly on modern training techniques; silouette / man like targets vice bulls eyes, etc. Civil war battle fields where hundreds of muskets were found loaded, unshot, loaded with 2, 3, 4, multiple rounds found laying on the battlefield. Were these soldiers only going through the motions and could not bring themselves to kill? Most of the casualties were from long distance killing anyway, cannon artillery.
I really cannot do justice to his work / his findings, but read "On Killing" if you get a chance. Great read for LE, military, or anyone interested.