Combat Stress

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

Killing is what war is all about, and killing in combat, by its very nature, causes deep wounds of pain and guilt. The language of war helps us to deny what war is really about, and in doing so it makes war more palatable. With very few exceptions, everyone associated with killing in combat reaps a bitter harvest of guilt. Balancing the obligation to kill with the resulting toll on guilt forms a significant cause of psychiatric casualties on the battlefield. History is full of tales of soldiers who have committed suicide or inflicted terrible wounds upon themselves to avoid combat. It isn’t fear of death that motivates these men to kill themselves. Like many of their civilian counterparts, these men would rather die or mutilate themselves than face the aggression and hostility of a very hostile world.

The killer can be empowered by his killing, but ultimately, often years later, he may bear the emotional burden of guilt that he has buried with his acts. Whether the killer denies his remorse, deals with it, or is overwhelmed by it, it is nevertheless there. The killer’s remorse is real, it is common, it is intense, and it is something that he must deal with for the rest of his life.

Photo Credit: Don McCullin

Psychological Inoculation

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

Martin Seligman developed the concept of inoculation from stress from his famous studies of learning in dogs. He put the dogs in a cage that had an electric shock pass through the floor at random intervals. Initially the dogs would jump, yelp and scratch pitifully in their attempts to escape the shocks, but after a time they would fall into a depressed, hopeless state of apathy and inactivity that Seligman termed “learned helplessness.” After falling into a state of learned helplessness, the dogs would not avoid the shocks even when provided with an obvious escape route.

This process of inoculation is exactly what occurs in boot camps and in every military school worthy of its name. When raw recruits are faced with seemingly sadistic abuse and hardship, they escape through weekend passes and, ultimately, graduation. They are being inoculated against the stresses of combat. Soldiers are highly rewarded and recognized [marksmanship badge, three-day pass] for success in this skill and suffer mild punishment in the form of retraining, peer pressure, and failure to graduate from boot camp] for failure to quickly and accurately “engage” the targets – a standard euphemism for “kill”. Today we understand the enormous power of drill to condition and program a soldier.

Physiological Inoculation

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

To understand the intensity of the body’s physiological response to the stress of combat we must comprehend the mobilization of resources caused by the body’s sympathetic nervous system. In combat this very often results in nonessential activities such as digestion, bladder control and sphincter control being completely shut down. This process is so intense that soldiers very often suffer stress diarrhea, and it not at all uncommon for them to urinate and defecate in their pants as the body literally “blows it ballast” in an attempt to provide all the energy resources required to ensure its survival. As soon as the danger and the excitement is over, an incredibly powerful weariness and sleepiness backlash occurs on the part of the soldier.

In continuous combat, the soldier roller-coasters through seemingly endless surges of adrenaline and subsequent backlashes. Unable to flee and unable to overcome the danger through a brief burst of fighting, posturing, or submission, the bodies of modern soldiers quickly exhaust their capacity to energize and they slide into a state of profound physical and emotional exhaustion. A soldier in this state will inevitably collapse from nervous exhaustion – the body simply will burn out. The lack of sleep, lack of food, the impact of the elements, and emotional exhaustion caused by constant fight-or-flight-response activation all conspire to contribute to the soldier’s exhaustion.

Inoculated to Kill

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

Instead of lying prone on a grassy field calmly shooting at a bull’s-eye target, the modern soldier spends many hours standing in a foxhole or crouching behind cover, with full combat equipment draped about his body, looking over an area of lightly wooded rolling terrain. At periodic intervals one or two olive-drab, man shaped targets at varying ranges will pop up in front of him for a brief time, and the soldier must instantly aim and shoot at the target[s]. When he hits a target it provides immediate feedback by instantly and very satisfyingly dropping backward – just as a living target would. Every aspect of killing on the battlefield is rehearsed, visualized, and conditioned.  After training on rifle ranges in this manner, an automatic, conditioned response called automaticity sets in, and the soldier then becomes conditioned to respond to the appropriate stimulus in the desired manner.

The inoculation process in most military schools is specifically oriented towards hate. By understanding the role of hate on the battlefield, we understand the military value of what armies have done for so long and some of the processes by which they have enabled the soldier to physically and psychologically survive on the battlefield.

Improved Kill Rate

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

In World War II, 80 to 85 percent of riflemen did not fire their weapons at an exposed enemy. A firing rate of 15 to 20 percent among soldiers is like having a literacy rate of 15 to 20 percent among proofreaders. Once those in the authority realized the existence and magnitude of the problem, it was only a matter of time until they solved it.

Since WWII, a new era has quietly dawned in psychological warfare conducted not upon the enemy, but upon one’s own troops. Propaganda and various other crude forms of psychological enabling have always been present in warfare, but in second half of the twentieth century, psychology began to have an impact as great as that of technology on the modern battlefield.

As a result of new training techniques, 55 percent of infantrymen were firing their weapons in the Korean War. These training techniques were further perfected, and in Vietnam the firing rate appears to have been around 90 to 95 percent. The triad used to achieve this remarkable increase in killing is desensitization, conditioning, and denial defense mechanisms. This superiority and killing ability in Vietnam, Panama, Argentina, Rhodesia Afghanistan, and Iraq amounts to total superiority in close combat.

Zimbabwe and Mugabe

Zimbabwe Series

The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell, 2010, Excerpts

As early as 1980, when Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, was liberated from Ian Smith‘s fascist regime, Mugabe had offered the white farmers open discussions aiming at finding a peaceful solution to the vital question of landownership. His overtures had been greeted by silence on that first occasion and then many times over the following fifteen years. Over and over again Mugabe had repeated his offer of negotiations but had received no response, only contemptuous silence. His patience finally ran out, and large numbers of farms were handed over to the landless. This was immediately condemned by the West, and protests flowed in from all sides.

At that moment the image of Mugabe was changed from that of a freedom fighter to that of the classical African tyrant. He was depicted just as anti-Semites used to depict the Jews, and this man who had spearheaded the liberation of his country was ruthlessly defamed. Nobody mentioned that the former leaders of the Ian Smith regime, not least Smith himself, had been allowed to remain in Zimbabwe. Mugabe did not send them into the law courts and then to the gallows as the British used to do with rebellious black men in the colonies.

He was constantly and brutally attacked in the Western media. The loud protests from landowners and their newspapers were intended to drown the cries of pain coming from those who were still suffering from torture inflicted by colonialism. It was too simple to place all the blame on Mugabe. The truth was more complicated. Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe were under siege. The sanctions imposed by the West meant that the basic infrastructure of the country was close to collapse.

Zimbabwe sets banks deadline for handing over control

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18693812

03 Jul 2012

Zimbabwe has given foreign banks a year to hand a controlling stake to black Zimbabweans. The government has said they must adhere to the 2007 law requiring at least 51% of shares to be held by locals. The policy has divided the Zimbabwean authorities, with the reserve bank and finance ministry arguing it could damage the economy. The latest deadline also includes hotels and telecommunications firms.

Mugabe threat to nationalize US and UK Zimbabwe firms

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12021324

17 Dec 2010

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe says his country will nationalize all US and UK companies operating in the country unless Western sanctions are removed. "Why should we continue to have 400 British companies operating here freely?" Mr Mugabe said. "Why should we continue having companies and organizations that are supported by Britain and America without hitting back? Time has come for us to [take] revenge." Under Zimbabwe's empowerment laws, black Zimbabweans should acquire 51% of foreign businesses. Western states have imposed travel bans and asset freezes on President Mugabe, his wife and inner circle. Trade bans are also in place against Zimbabwean individuals and companies.

Zimbabwe inflation at 2,200,000%

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7509715.stm

16 Jul 2008

Mr Mugabe denies that he is ruining the economy, laying the blame on international sanctions he says have been imposed against Zimbabwe. The US and the EU have imposed targeted sanctions, such as a travel ban and an assets freeze, on Mr. Mugabe and his close allies.

Mugabe threat to expel US envoy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7419389.stm

25 May 2008

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has threatened to expel the US ambassador, accusing him of meddling in the country's political process. Earlier this month ambassador James McGee warned post-election violence in Zimbabwe was "spinning out of control". "As long as he carries on doing that, I will kick him out of the country," Mugabe said of Mr McGee, a Vietnam War veteran. "I don't care if he fought in Vietnam. This is Zimbabwe, not an extension of America," he said.

PM to boycott talks over Mugabe

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7115205.stm

27 Nov 2007

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he will not attend an EU-Africa summit after Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe confirmed he would be there. “Given the circumstances of the last 10 years and our attempts to give assistance in Zimbabwe, which have been thwarted and resisted, it is not possible for us to attend this summit and sit down with President Mugabe." The collapse of the Zimbabwean economy and society therefore was something for which President Mugabe and his policies have got to take full responsibility, he added.

Huge Rise in Zimbabwe Inflation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6665749.stm

17 May 2007

Critics have blamed President Robert Mugabe's policies, particularly the seizure of white-owned farms, for damaging the once self-sufficient country - in the past described as the bread basket of Africa. President Mugabe, meanwhile, has accused foreign governments of trying to sabotage Zimbabwe's economy and topple him.

Robert Mugabe

Reluctance to Kill

On Killing Series

On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman, 2009, Excerpts

There is a profound resistance to killing one’s fellow man. That the average man will not kill even at the risk of all he holds dear has been largely ignored by those who attempt to understand the psychological and sociological pressures of the battlefield. The soldier in combat resists the powerful obligation and coercion to engage in aggressive and assertive actions on the battlefield, and he dreads facing the irrational aggression and hostility embodied in the enemy. Looking another human in the eye, making an independent decision to kill him, and watching as he dies due to your action, combine to form the most basic, important, primal, and traumatic occurrences of war.

The soldier in combat is trapped within this tragic Catch-22. If he overcomes his resistance to killing and kills an enemy soldier in close combat, he will be forever burdened with blood guilt, and if he elects not to kill, then the blood guilt of his fallen comrades and the shame of his profession, nation, and cause lie upon him. He is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.