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I don't really want to get into detail because it's a traumatic memory... But I was once in a life-threatening situation where I was preparing to have to fight and possibly kill someone to save myself. Thank god it didn't come to that. But in that moment, I felt something in myself I'd never felt before.
Some people freeze in those sort of situations, but I felt intensely focused and ready to act. I was totally fearless and felt no emotion, almost like being a robot or something. That's adrenaline I guess.
I don't think it would change my life in a bad way if I had to kill someone in a situation like that. I'd do it and I wouldn't be sorry, either. This is how I know I will survive the zombie apocalypse! lol
A bigger fear for me is killing someone on accident, like in a car wreck or something. THAT I think would destroy me.
It's always interesting to see how people describe their situations.
For me, there were some similarities (feeling no emotion), but some differences. In my case, it was during the Panama invasion. Some of us had done a barracks run to get some supplies (we were bunkered in our comm site) when the sergeant leading us got word on the radio that the PDF were practically at our barracks.
The sergeant had us taking defensive positions on the ground, and I remember feeling sort of....the best way I can describe it is as if my 'essence' was part in, part out of my body. Like if you'd drawn two outlines of me, one to represent the physical and one to represent the spiritual, and then shifted them so they didn't quite line up exactly. I was aware of hitting the ground and locking and loading. I was aware that my elbow had stuck the sharp edge of a rock and was still resting on that rock, but I couldn't 'feel' it, exactly. It was more like I sensed the pressure, but couldn't absorb anything more than that. And I remember seeing one of the guys quietly spazzing out--he was still standing up, M-16 slung over his shoulder, and clutching his laundry bag--it was sort of like I was watching him on TV, somehow. And I heard my sergeant hissing at me (and he was so quiet, but I could hear him over *everything* else) to do something about the guy (I was closest to him). And I remember blinking at the sergeant and thinking a flat, "Huh," before looking at the guy again. And then my arms just shifted themselves to move my M-16 so I could do a buttstroke to the ankle. I could feel the 'tap', but it felt....'muffled' somehow. (For the record, I doubt it was a very hard tap--I'd been supporting my upper body weight on my elbows and the guy was just far enough away that I had to stretch over a bit to make contact.) And it did thankfully work, the tap caused the guy to just....'snap in' and drop and lock and load himself. And I know I didn't consciously think to do that. My body acted of its own accord. I don't know honestly that I *would* have thought to do that. And I remember getting my M-16 back into position, and focusing on a glare of sun on the flash suppressor. I remember thinking that it was oddly rather pretty, the way the sun was hitting it.
I've always wondered if this was my brain's way of protecting me mentally from what might happen. (It didn't. After about 20 minutes, the sergeant got hailed again and told that the PDF had gone off another direction.) Obviously, my body was doing what needed to be done, but my essence seemed to be taking a backseat and being just an observer. Dunno if that makes any sense to anybody else. ::shrug::
It's weird. This is the first time I've ever talked about this. Friends, family, and therapist have never heard this story. I wonder if being 'anonymous' (so to speak) helped.
Well, I spent three years in the good ol’ US Army some years back, and the purpose of much of my training was how to kill other humans. A lot of it was also about how to prevent other humans from killing me.
I didn’t end up in a combat unit, so I never had the experience of killing someone else, but I do believe I could and would, depending on the circumstances of the moment. I hasten to add that it isn’t my desire to kill anyone else (or any animals at all, for that matter), but if my continued existence or my loved ones were threatened, and I could prevent that by killing someone else, well then, I don’t think I’d hesitate.
But ya really never know until the situation actually arises, do ya?
Well, I spent three years in the good ol’ US Army some years back, and the purpose of much of my training was how to kill other humans. A lot of it was also about how to prevent other humans from killing me.
I didn’t end up in a combat unit, so I never had the experience of killing someone else, but I do believe I could and would, depending on the circumstances of the moment. I hasten to add that it isn’t my desire to kill anyone else (or any animals at all, for that matter), but if my continued existence or my loved ones were threatened, and I could prevent that by killing someone else, well then, I don’t think I’d hesitate.
But ya really never know until the situation actually arises, do ya?
Agreed. And even if you were to do it once, there's no guarantee you'd be able to do it a second time (if you ever had to.)
As a spoiler, most people cannot easily kill people. Most soldiers can't either. In most studies of war the soldiers did not aim for the enemy. In Vietnam it was something like 90,000 bullets for each death...which should give you some idea of how soldiers view it.
Currently in our "wars" it's about 250,000 fired for each insurgent death.
Are you sincerely trying to conflate firing from cover, firing into jungle brush of Vietnam with no clear view of enemy combatants, with a naive belief they just spray and pray to not hit what they're aiming at?
Or are you under the impression wars are fought like they were in the 1600s, where everyone except for mounted calvary stands in line and fires volley after volley at each other across a field?
Because I have news for you, combatants, insurgents, whatever it is you desire to label them, do not stand still and do not stand out in the open...
Concealment + moving = plenty of rounds sent down range finding no intended target.
If you're under the impression soldiers and Marines lack the fortitude and/or marksmanship to tag an enemy combatant you are mistaken.
Factor in Concealment, Cover, and environmental conditions in which wars are fought, will equal high round count especially when an enemy combatant is not stationary.
Be it in a jungle, be it in an urban environment, be it in a forest, be it in mountains, be it in desert.
There's also this thing called suppressive fire... you may know where the incoming fire originated from, have a good idea of where abouts it came from.
That's when belt feds are dispatched and fire upon that location. Until mortars or air support comes in to really break that party up.
This is kind of a ridiculous poll. I feel like my answer has to be yes, because I can't definitively say that there is no circumstance whatsoever that I wouldn't kill someone. My initial instinct is to answer "no" because I'm horrified by the idea of killing another human being, and I think the act of extinguishing that life would be psychologically traumatic for me.
But what if you told me that this person raped my sister, or mother, or was in the attempt? I would see red, and it's hard for me to say what might happen then. And what about self defense?
I don't see how someone could answer anything but yes given the variety of situations that might force a person to kill, namely defense of self and defense of others.
Having just finished a couple books on exactly the subject being discussed, it should be mentioned that this type of killing doesn't even exist any longer in war...and, in fact, didn't hardly exist from WWI onward. So even those slaughters rarely involved such killing. The number of bayonet deaths, even in WWI, was extremely tiny.
I'll fall back on my "what ifs" video game fantasies. If people were as angry as you suggest then it wouldn't be 100,000 bullets to one death in Vietnam...where the enemy was certainly shooting at your loved ones (and you too!)...
That free book should inform well on the basic subject. It's no secret that we'd all do a lot of things in anger...BUT, that madness might make us accidentally kill our own family member (by mistake)....so discussion of it seems a moot point, especially for a political forum.
I didn't need a book to understand a real world personal experience. Never played a video game in my life. Never accidentally shot a family member. Come outside and take a look at what really happens in real life.
No one knows until they’re in a situation where they’re forced to act.
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