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No doubt, and all the more reason to think long and hard about making the decision to enter into war in the first place. With so many already stuffing this war down the memory hole, the cries to start the next one continue.
I mean when the Cpl. Jeremy Morlock's and sergeant, Calvin R. Gibbs run around collecting human body parts as trophies doesn't even raise an eyebrow, let alone outrage, what does this say about us as a people?
We are only beginning to see the costs of this war on our society. This includes the overall war on terror. We are swallowing the compromises and the allowances for our "safety" far too readily. While we accept that war is terrible we do not have to accept that we compromise values that have defined us.
Part of the tragedy here is that this need not ever have been if those in charge of overseeing the health of our soldiers were doing their job. But do you really expect them to step up and take responsibility? And we cannot say its just an abrigation when body parts are being held as trophies. We also can't just punish those who killed and saved trophies and say we did our job. Because we should never have let it go there and we should also own up to that.
If we can't it doesn't say much that's good about us as a people. Currently asleep at the wheel...
There is a big reason such a story will not see the light of day on a MSM media outlet like CNN a more liberal outlet like MSNBC or a right leaner like Fox . The story represents an inconvenient truth and gums up the type of spin they want to put on any war story. It's not a feel good story about winning the gratitude of Afgans (i.e. Hearts and Minds story) or a story that we are killing the terrorists and the enemy (known in Vietnam as the Body Count story). It might cause some Americans to feel a twinge of conscience and feel sad for our country. We can't have that now can we?
I went back this morning and read the piece in the NY Times again in order to let it sink in. War is hell and these things just happen when people are put to the limits of human physical and mental endurance, but what I find even more disturbing is how often this has actually occurred and the ease in which these types of events are cast aside as simply, "The fog of war".
We are only beginning to see the costs of this war on our society. This includes the overall war on terror. We are swallowing the compromises and the allowances for our "safety" far too readily. While we accept that war is terrible we do not have to accept that we compromise values that have defined us.
Part of the tragedy here is that this need not ever have been if those in charge of overseeing the health of our soldiers were doing their job. But do you really expect them to step up and take responsibility? And we cannot say its just an abrigation when body parts are being held as trophies. We also can't just punish those who killed and saved trophies and say we did our job. Because we should never have let it go there and we should also own up to that.
If we can't it doesn't say much that's good about us as a people. Currently asleep at the wheel...
A lot of this simply need not have ever happened, at the very least in Iraq, our war of choice. (poor choice)
This is an aspect of having a professional military that isn't often discussed. the small number of people who engage in war are removed from the other 99.5% at home. Of those, most simply don't want to know.
Recently an interview with one of the 12 soldiers, Jeremy Morlock aired on ABC news. In the following clip, one of the soldiers apparently contacted several military officials but was told it was just one persons word against another and dropped it. When the soldier was allegedly forced to participate in a civilian murder with the group, he later found himself charged with murder himself.
The following short clip describes how they picked people at random. What struck me as rather chilling was this person seems oddly detached and at ease with the events that took place.
After several weeks, it is still pretty amazing just how little media exposure this has gotten and while it seems obvious as to why, one might ask why has the more liberal media aired this story with greater frequency?
Well I'm certainly in favor of bring them home now, but I have to wonder how many soldiers as detached as Jeremy Morlock appears to be are struggling to reintegrate into normal social conditions at home. In light of the recent Wiki leaks documents, I'm willing to bet there are more than a few. Lets just hope the government treats these vets better than they treated Vietnam vets.
While I agree with your sentiment, there is no draft and these kids volunteered to go to war.
I don't have near the compassion that I did for draftees.
They're not being treated any better than Nam vets; I could site many examples that I know of, but I won't. I will say that a lot of family member abuse of the system takes time away from what can be allocated to returing soldiers. (Example, misusing the system by going to the free doctor for a child's runny nose, or the kid didn't sleep the night before, basic boredom that their spouse is deployed and they have nothing in their lives).
Also soldiers need to step up and ask for help; but if they do, they're shunned or viewed as weak.
It's a no win situation.
Also soldiers need to step up and ask for help; but if they do, they're shunned or viewed as weak.
It's a no win situation.
There's a lot you don't seem to understand about soldiering and war. It's not so cut and dried.
The detachment other posters have mentioned is a psychological defense, a hiding place for the emotions, generated by what a soldier sees, does and experiences in combat. It is an involuntary reaction. Without that emotional withdrawl, he would go insane. Some do. All will sooner or later if they can't get away from it. Every man's bottle fills at a different rate, but all bottles fill eventually.
The problem for the soldier, and the returning Veteran, is that he doesn't recognize his need for help so he is unlikely to ask for it. It has little to do with appearing weak or public embarrassment.
That emotional distancing where his mind finds refuge rapidly becomes normal and unremarkable. His daily routine of death and dismemberment, and his reaction to it, becomes as mundane and commonplace for him as a trip to the store for a jug of milk is for you. How often do you ruminate on the psychological fallout of your daily life? I'd guess not much. Well, neither does the soldier. It is what it is and he's comfortable in his new skin and, in fact, rarely even recognizes that he's undergone a metamorphsis. Like the butterfly which emerges from the cocoon, the transition from feeling, loving human being to cold, unemotional killer is a process which does not leave a memory of the cocoon. The butterfly is a butterfly, not a former larvae; the soldier is a soldier, not a former civilian.
So long as he stays in that environment, he's usually fine. It's when he's removed from it that trouble starts. No longer surrounded by his everyday support group, he no longer fits, is no longer a part of something which has become very important to him, though he may not even recognize that. Left adrift in what is now a strange and alien world, peopled by those with whom he no longer has much in common, he's alone and confused. In his eyes, everything has changed but him.
If you think things are bad now, just wait. Over the next 20 or 30 years, it will get worse for them, though you're not likely to hear about it. They will suffer in their individual, personal hell for the rest of their lives. Most will function on the surface just fine, but inside they'll forever be different.
As for those soldiers in Afghanistan? What they apparently did is far more common than you might think, though it isn't usually this bold. For every innocent killed and called a murder, there are a hundred innocents killed and called something else: collateral damage, another dead Haji, the enemy, an unavoidable statistic. Death is unremarkable in combat and becomes more so as that combat is sustained. It's not something to take any particular note of. Dead bodies produce about the same emotional reaction in the soldier as does that dead possum in the road on your way to the store for that jug of milk--"Poor bastard."
I'm not defending what they did, just pointing out that combat has an effect on people which those who have not done it cannot ever understand. Without the ability to view their actions through the prism of their experiences, they look like monsters, but that's applying our real world moral standards onto their real world.
There's a lot you don't seem to understand about soldiering and war. It's not so cut and dried.
The detachment other posters have mentioned is a psychological defense, a hiding place for the emotions, generated by what a soldier sees, does and experiences in combat. It is an involuntary reaction. Without that emotional withdrawl, he would go insane. Some do. All will sooner or later if they can't get away from it. Every man's bottle fills at a different rate, but all bottles fill eventually.
The problem for the soldier, and the returning Veteran, is that he doesn't recognize his need for help so he is unlikely to ask for it. It has little to do with appearing weak or public embarrassment.
That emotional distancing where his mind finds refuge rapidly becomes normal and unremarkable. His daily routine of death and dismemberment, and his reaction to it, becomes as mundane and commonplace for him as a trip to the store for a jug of milk is for you. How often do you ruminate on the psychological fallout of your daily life? I'd guess not much. Well, neither does the soldier. It is what it is and he's comfortable in his new skin and, in fact, rarely even recognizes that he's undergone a metamorphsis. Like the butterfly which emerges from the cocoon, the transition from feeling, loving human being to cold, unemotional killer is a process which does not leave a memory of the cocoon. The butterfly is a butterfly, not a former larvae; the soldier is a soldier, not a former civilian.
So long as he stays in that environment, he's usually fine. It's when he's removed from it that trouble starts. No longer surrounded by his everyday support group, he no longer fits, is no longer a part of something which has become very important to him, though he may not even recognize that. Left adrift in what is now a strange and alien world, peopled by those with whom he no longer has much in common, he's alone and confused. In his eyes, everything has changed but him.
If you think things are bad now, just wait. Over the next 20 or 30 years, it will get worse for them, though you're not likely to hear about it. They will suffer in their individual, personal hell for the rest of their lives. Most will function on the surface just fine, but inside they'll forever be different.
As for those soldiers in Afghanistan? What they apparently did is far more common than you might think, though it isn't usually this bold. For every innocent killed and called a murder, there are a hundred innocents killed and called something else: collateral damage, another dead Haji, the enemy, an unavoidable statistic. Death is unremarkable in combat and becomes more so as that combat is sustained. It's not something to take any particular note of. Dead bodies produce about the same emotional reaction in the soldier as does that dead possum in the road on your way to the store for that jug of milk--"Poor bastard."
I'm not defending what they did, just pointing out that combat has an effect on people which those who have not done it cannot ever understand. Without the ability to view their actions through the prism of their experiences, they look like monsters, but that's applying our real world moral standards onto their real world.
They are not the same worlds.
You make excellent points.
This is an aspect of engaging in long term conflict with a professional military that we simply don't know the eventual effects. Soldiers deployed to front line duty for multiple tours of 12-15 months and in a good number of cases, their end objective isn't all that clear.
There was another recent documentary done that studied the effects of our military's method of training soldiers how to engage in combat. I believe it was WWII, that the average soldier actually hit something for every 20-30 shots fired as with only a few weeks training, folks just pointed their weapons in the general direction of the enemy and fired. In Vietnam this improved but the military was still adapting its training to improve hit ratios of their soldiers. Any video footage you might see from say, the Tet offensive, you will see soldiers ducked behind a wall holding their rifle over the top and firing in order to remain under cover. Since then the military has altered its training method to make shooting an instinctive thing where the soldier reacts much faster to a threat, but at the cost of lowered threat analysis times. This has greatly improved hit ratios but often soldiers are left to actually think about what they fired at only at the end of the day. If they made a mistake, they now are left pondering as you point out, for the rest of their lives and this is common practice used by many militaries today.
We take a young man out of our civilized society, train him to fire and kill instictually, place him in a war zone where the combatants aren't simply labeled "bad guy", then place a set of rules of engagement while they are getting shot at from every direction, then allow these people to remain in combat for years under these circumstances and at some point then try to enter civil society again after all this and I suspect the results aren't going to be pretty.
This is an aspect of engaging in long term conflict with a professional military that we simply don't know the eventual effects. Soldiers deployed to front line duty for multiple tours of 12-15 months and in a good number of cases, their end objective isn't all that clear.
There was another recent documentary done that studied the effects of our military's method of training soldiers how to engage in combat. I believe it was WWII, that the average soldier actually hit something for every 20-30 shots fired as with only a few weeks training, folks just pointed their weapons in the general direction of the enemy and fired. In Vietnam this improved but the military was still adapting its training to improve hit ratios of their soldiers. Any video footage you might see from say, the Tet offensive, you will see soldiers ducked behind a wall holding their rifle over the top and firing in order to remain under cover. Since then the military has altered its training method to make shooting an instinctive thing where the soldier reacts much faster to a threat, but at the cost of lowered threat analysis times. This has greatly improved hit ratios but often soldiers are left to actually think about what they fired at only at the end of the day. If they made a mistake, they now are left pondering as you point out, for the rest of their lives and this is common practice used by many militaries today.
We take a young man out of our civilized society, train him to fire and kill instictually, place him in a war zone where the combatants aren't simply labeled "bad guy", then place a set of rules of engagement while they are getting shot at from every direction, then allow these people to remain in combat for years under these circumstances and at some point then try to enter civil society again after all this and I suspect the results aren't going to be pretty.
The Army's BRM training (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) underwent a sea change in the years after WWII. I can't say for sure if the other services did the same thing, but I think they did.
Based upon what we now know was a flawed assessment of combat shooting, done by S.L.M. (Slam) Marshall, the Army adapted psychological principles into it's weapons training. Marshall had reported that fewer than 1/4 of combat soldiers ever fired their weapons during actual combat and the most common reason given (after not being able to acquire a target) was the soldier's natural reluctance to take a life. The Army took that study to heart and set about creating killers, rather than marksman.
As an example, during WWII, trainees shot at paper targets in the form of an old fashioned bullseye. Beginning in the lat 50's and early 60's, they began using human silouhette targets instead. It's a subtle difference, but one which teaches the mind to accept shooting at a human shape. It goes much deeper than that, but those firing range targets are a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
The result was the the percentage of soldiers in the combat arms (specifially, the Infantry) who actually fired their weapons at the enemy rose to nearly 100% in Vietnam. That percentage has held steady now through all our wars since then, including this one. Coupled with improved target acquistion training, better battle-space awareness (via technologies), the psychological BRM training has produced the desired results. Soldiers are not afraid to take a life.
However, the blow back is that soldiers are less able, and less likely, to distinguish between legitmate targets on the battlefield and illegitimate targets. If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn't move, shoot it anyhow. Our troops have been deliberately trained to instantly meet any threat with lethal force, an inclination corroborated and re-inforced in actual combat. Soldiers don't have the time to differentiate between threats, so the instinctive reaction is to kill them as quickly as possible.
For the Army, whose mission is to win wars, and for the individual soldier, whose mission is to come home alive and in one piece, it's a very, very effective method of training. In fact, it is an essential either for the service or the soldier. It meets the needs quite admirably and I would not be among those to advocate changing it. I'm convinced that the rapid reduction in the number of troops killed in action or seriously wounded is a direct result of this training (and other things, such as improved medical care, body armor, tactics and doctrine, etc). The bottom line is that, though we don't often win wars any more, our soldiers are far, far less likely to be killed or grievously injured than in previous conflicts.
But...the problems arise when that soldier is removed from a combat situation, whether that be by rotation back to the states or by leaving the service. There is no corresponding re-training to prepare him for living in a non-combat enviornment where the rules have changed. He's still programmed to do what kept him alive in combat, but now that programming doesn't fit the reality of not being in a state of perpetual threat of death. All of his training, all of his programming, all of his experiences tell him extreme violence is the answer to any threat, but he's now in a situation where that is inappropriate and, in most cases, illegal. Who would wonder why he feels disconnected and out of place?
I can't fault the Army for not deprogramming them between deployments. If they did that, they'd have to re-program him before his next mission overseas and that would entail some major changes to his up-training environment which would be detrimental to him and to the Army's mission. It just isn't either desirable or cost-effective. During those off-cycle periods, though, the soldier will be left in flux and prone to making major mistakes which the criminal justice system simply cannot ignore.
Nor can I fault the Army for not de-programming those leaving the service, though it would be easy. One would think they'd recognize the problem and do something about it. They do recognize the problem but, frankly, that's not in their brief. Their mission is to break things and kill people, not to look after the psycholodical health of their soldiers. One should never forget that the primary focus of military medicine (including mental and psychological) is to return the soldier to duty as rapidly as possible. They are not tasked, and probably shouldn't be tasked, with ensuring the overall well-being of their people. They have enough to do already and there are civilian disciplines which can handle everything else.
No, the fault lies with their civilian command authority which does not emphasize getting the soldiers ready to return to the civilian world. However, that's not surprising as most of those in positions of influence in that civilian chain of command have no military experience and even fewer have actual, direct combat experience. They simply don't know. Moreover, it's more politically advantageous to be seen as "tough" on the enemy and in being supportive of the troops than it is to address the downside of all that flag-waving.
Now...I said all that to say this in regards to those young men soon to be on trial: Their leaders at company level (which is the only level where such problems can be identified) are themselves going through the same thing. The officer corps at company level are as inexperienced at warfare as are the Privates. Officers at that level are the most junior of officers without any more training than the Privates have and, incidently, the same kind of psychological training. How can they be expected to identify problems they themselves are having?
In the past, we've relied on our senior NCO corps to watch out for the welfare of the troops, but even those in ranks above paygrade E-7 did not have practical combat experience before this war, as a general rule. In other words, they didn't know either! Worse yet, since the war has gone on so long and the cycles of deployment to close together, a huge number of senior NCO's left the service, leaving their slots to filled by junior NCO's who have been elevated in rank. A good many of those who are now Platoon Sergeants and First Sergeants began this war as junior enlisted people and junior NCO's and have numerous deployments behind them. Since they are dealing with the same issues as the troops, how is it logical to presume they are the answer?
It's really something of a Catch 22 for our troops and it's exacerbated by the very, very small numbers of troops who are actually fighting the war. With no draft, which George Bush could have had on Sept. 12, 2001 without a whimper from us, the war is basically being fought by the same people, over and over and over again, without any real influx of outsiders with a civilian mindset.
It's a tragedy of the first magnitude and anyone who studies the whole thing would not be surprised that things like what happened in Afghanistan go on, nor would they be surprised at the high number of suicides, murders and anti-social behaviors which our Veteran's are demonstrating.
What IS surprising is that it's not worse than it is.
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