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Article is particularly light on the "why soliders get a kick out killing" and effectively says, buried at end of the article, that studies have shown 98 percen

Article is particularly light on the "why soliders get a kick out killing" and effectively says, buried at end of the article, that studies have shown 98 percent of men don't and suffer for it.

run4yourlives 16y ago
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Inflammatory title that isn't even backed up by the article, let alone the research.
JshWright 16y ago
On top of that, the major example he references (the cockpit dialog from the wikileaks video) doesn't really prove his point at all. My impression of their dialog was that it was simply a way to cope with the situation. I spend a fair amount of time in the back of ambulances and fire trucks. I've seen people die in tragic, traumatic circumstances. I've also joked around with other responders about some of those deaths. Making light of extreme situations doesn't mean you enjoy it, it just means your brain is choosing not to deal with the reality of the moment.
- sokoloff 16y ago
  I also watched the wikileaks video, and went Army ROTC to pay for college. I'm not particularly pro-military (though I respect them deeply and thank them everytime I see one), nor bloodthirsty, but if I were in a situation where I honestly believed that insurgents were carrying AK-47s and an RPG and represented a threat to my ground troops comrades, as evidenced by actual small arms fire minutes earlier, I would hope that I would find it within myself to fly the chopper and/or operate the cannon or Hellfire missiles so as to most effectively neutralize the threat to my brothers-in-arms. I don't get the sense that the helicopter crew thinks they did something spectacularly good overall, but rather than they did their jobs and protected the lives of their fellow soldiers on the ground. Even the comment about "well, that's their fault for bringing their kids to a war" has merit, IMO. If you don't want to be shot, don't go where insurgents are openly carrying weapons and firing on US troops... Yes, war is tribal and brutal and messy/disturbing, but the things we ask of our young men and women are precisely those things that we're often unwilling to go to personally do. As a result, I believe we owe them our intellectual, emotional and political support, and when they do something that "we wouldn't have done" from the comfort of our climate controlled and eminently safe offices, that we need to cut them some slack. Watch that wikileaks video; I defy anyone to say that's a camera and not an RPG in the company of those carrying AK-47s in an area where our troops are taking small arms fire. I have a baby daughter and it ripped my heart out to listen to the ground units' reports of the injured children, but that doesn't make the Apache crew monsters. They acted reasonably (in my opinion) and consistently with the rules of engagement. If you have a beef with those RoE, that's fine, but your beef is not, IMO, with the heli crew. (I realize that the immediate parent poster is not saying it's their fault.)
  - mcantelon 16y ago
    As far as I know, the rules of engagement don't allow for the killing of those that are no threat: i.e. the minivan with the kids in it that got shot up when trying to help the wounded. They could have fired a few warning shots and the van would have fled, but instead they murdered the passengers.

Article is particularly light on the "why soliders get a kick out killing" and effectively says, buried at end of the article, that studies have shown 98 percent of men don't and suffer for it.

run4yourlives 16y ago

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Inflammatory title that isn't even backed up by the article, let alone the research.

JshWright 16y ago

On top of that, the major example he references (the cockpit dialog from the wikileaks video) doesn't really prove his point at all. My impression of their dialog was that it was simply a way to cope with the situation. I spend a fair amount of time in the back of ambulances and fire trucks. I've seen people die in tragic, traumatic circumstances. I've also joked around with other responders about some of those deaths. Making light of extreme situations doesn't mean you enjoy it, it just means your brain is choosing not to deal with the reality of the moment.

sokoloff 16y ago
I also watched the wikileaks video, and went Army ROTC to pay for college. I'm not particularly pro-military (though I respect them deeply and thank them everytime I see one), nor bloodthirsty, but if I were in a situation where I honestly believed that insurgents were carrying AK-47s and an RPG and represented a threat to my ground troops comrades, as evidenced by actual small arms fire minutes earlier, I would hope that I would find it within myself to fly the chopper and/or operate the cannon or Hellfire missiles so as to most effectively neutralize the threat to my brothers-in-arms. I don't get the sense that the helicopter crew thinks they did something spectacularly good overall, but rather than they did their jobs and protected the lives of their fellow soldiers on the ground. Even the comment about "well, that's their fault for bringing their kids to a war" has merit, IMO. If you don't want to be shot, don't go where insurgents are openly carrying weapons and firing on US troops... Yes, war is tribal and brutal and messy/disturbing, but the things we ask of our young men and women are precisely those things that we're often unwilling to go to personally do. As a result, I believe we owe them our intellectual, emotional and political support, and when they do something that "we wouldn't have done" from the comfort of our climate controlled and eminently safe offices, that we need to cut them some slack. Watch that wikileaks video; I defy anyone to say that's a camera and not an RPG in the company of those carrying AK-47s in an area where our troops are taking small arms fire. I have a baby daughter and it ripped my heart out to listen to the ground units' reports of the injured children, but that doesn't make the Apache crew monsters. They acted reasonably (in my opinion) and consistently with the rules of engagement. If you have a beef with those RoE, that's fine, but your beef is not, IMO, with the heli crew. (I realize that the immediate parent poster is not saying it's their fault.)
- mcantelon 16y ago
  As far as I know, the rules of engagement don't allow for the killing of those that are no threat: i.e. the minivan with the kids in it that got shot up when trying to help the wounded. They could have fired a few warning shots and the van would have fled, but instead they murdered the passengers.