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edit: Thank you for sharing this, btw. It is really interesting. Military culture, especially elite special forces, breeds an extremely fascinating brand of hu

edit: Thank you for sharing this, btw. It is really interesting. Military culture, especially elite special forces, breeds an extremely fascinating brand of human. Tough, practical in a basic sense, experience of human condition at a visceral level, extreme stress, indoctrination to violence and causing death, and a required level of training that you can interpret as supreme confidence. The lessons you can learn from these extremes are imminently applicable to day to day life if you read between the lines. I completely get the desire to want to be a part of a special forces team. The sense of belonging, elite physical conditioning and knowledge that you are actually the best at something without the usual asterisk we all place on ourselves and skills. There are tons of negatives as you have mentioned. Divorce rates are extremely high as you mentioned. What makes you good at being an elite soldier makes you really bad at being a companion to other humans that aren't also an elite special forces soldier serving along side you. We ask a lot of these folks, mostly men. Interestingly most special forces men self select and are what I consider "fully developed" (age 25+). They have usually been in the military since they were adults. Young kids just joining the army often lack the life skills to cope with things. I suspect if you could not join the military until you were 25 there would be a lot less PTSD as 25 year olds have time to develop life coping skills in more humane environment. So special forces men (at least for us forces) really WANT to be there and have had time to get out. Regardless of the politics behind it these guys mostly stay in because they believe in their country and their brothers in arms. They often vehemently disagree with the politics of many situations. No apology here for the jingoism and all the negative things that come with a militaristic culture, but it is fascinating to study these people and the extremes of training and conditioning they endure and what that can ultimately teach you about life. Heavy reading between the lines required, but the hacker crowd often dismisses these guys far too quickly because of all the negatives and militarism surrounding these guys. This culture exists, isn't going anywhere, and can teach a lot. Anyway, I guess this was all to say, I share your dual fascination/repulsion with this culture. It is just interesting, and as hackers we should always learn about interesting stuff, even if we disagree with it.

phd514 9y ago
I agree with much of what you say, but I do take issue with the idea that "what makes you good at being an elite soldier makes you really bad at being a companion to other humans that aren't also an elite special forces soldier." Certainly the time required to develop and maintain elite fighting skills takes away from the time one could spend on personal and familial relationships, but there's nothing intrinsic to the makeup of an elite soldier that detracts from one's ability to relate to other people. I have a family member who is retired from a special forces unit with all that entails (lots of deployments, medals, injuries, lost comrades, etc.) who is a good husband and father, patient, calm, resourceful and helpful, and generally the kind of guy you'd like to have as a neighbor. I think he had some advantages that many special ops guys don't always have such as very strong family ties throughout his deployments and not getting married until after his deployments were over, but he's certainly not the only one from his unit to do well in retirement.
- deleted 9y ago
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- johnny99 9y ago
  I've been friends two former Navy UDT team members (precursor to the SEALs), both of whom were Korean war vets, and one former SEAL. One was an old girlfriend's dad and the kind of person you describe--unassuming, very decent family guy who I liked a lot. I had no idea he'd even been in the military, much less done insane things deep in North Korean territory, until I asked his daughter how he'd come to start a diving services company. The other former UDT vet was my high school writing teacher, a sort of Yoda figure. He covered the clock in his classroom with a picture of the Buddha, so you got a little jolt of patience training every time you snuck a glance at the clock. Whatever small writing talent I have started with him. Third was a friend's cousin who who'd left the service in his mid-thirties. For a while we were drinking buddies. We road bikes together for a while too, but that didn't last long--he was in such phenomenally better shape than me, despite training half as much, it was a mismatch. We were a mismatch in general--he was a bro's bro and I was like his token hippie friend. But we had fun boozing around for a while, and he was in no way damaged goods. Speaking of booze, one amazing thing about Sadler was his ability to write so many potboilers while drinking so hard. I don't drink anymore, in large part because my productivity just went to shit when I was drunk all the time. Maybe it's more feasible to write purple prose than code when you're loaded.
rdiddly 9y ago
I don't go around advocating violence, but neither do I shower it with the contempt that's been fashionable ever since the late 60s when showing up at a Vietnam protest became a viable way of getting laid. (There was even a poster - "Girls say yes to boys who say no!" meaning who dodge the draft. I digress.) I basically just try to understand violence and war as something that's been part of the human condition since day 1. So I flinched a little at the way this writer seems to write off Sadler and his struggles in such a casual and condescending way. And also at his unnecessary use of qua. That is the sine qua non of sanctius quam tu.
- bitexploder 9y ago
  Yeah. It is interesting though. I think the classic PBS documentary "anyone's son will do" is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo I think war in the industrialized world is almost purely political. Wars in the modern day are arranged by old men and politicians and fought by young men. I don't blame the young men, but I think it goes back to some aspects of human biology and how young men see themselves and are manipulated through patriotism and other political forces to volunteer (or be conscripted) into a military to serve political ends. In a time before two tribes could communicate and apply some reason to things, force was the only way to resolve things. Force and violence is still a crude, simple, and effective path to changing human behavior so it of course is used, but if it is ever used between super powers the world is basically over. Anyhow, I digress.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    So then when you're done with your military career, you find yourself on the one hand having mastered yourself and done a lot of stuff you didn't think you were capable of. And on the other hand, some of that stuff is kind of bad, especially with that modern twist you're talking about - I would call it modern disconnection. I don't think there's anything in human nature that hasn't been extracted, distilled, modified and commodified by industrial society, and that leads to a lot of disconnection. Including with war and such. In the olden days, killing someone who was about to kill your family and torch your village etc. (things you felt connected to), was probably a lot easier to reconcile with your conscience, than nowadays killing someone for some faraway, disconnected political goal. Which eventually most of them realize as they get older - those military goals and missions, set by those at the top, are to some extent, arbitrary and capricious. I dunno, I would probably drink a lot too.

phd514 9y ago

I agree with much of what you say, but I do take issue with the idea that "what makes you good at being an elite soldier makes you really bad at being a companion to other humans that aren't also an elite special forces soldier." Certainly the time required to develop and maintain elite fighting skills takes away from the time one could spend on personal and familial relationships, but there's nothing intrinsic to the makeup of an elite soldier that detracts from one's ability to relate to other people. I have a family member who is retired from a special forces unit with all that entails (lots of deployments, medals, injuries, lost comrades, etc.) who is a good husband and father, patient, calm, resourceful and helpful, and generally the kind of guy you'd like to have as a neighbor. I think he had some advantages that many special ops guys don't always have such as very strong family ties throughout his deployments and not getting married until after his deployments were over, but he's certainly not the only one from his unit to do well in retirement.

deleted 9y ago
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johnny99 9y ago
I've been friends two former Navy UDT team members (precursor to the SEALs), both of whom were Korean war vets, and one former SEAL. One was an old girlfriend's dad and the kind of person you describe--unassuming, very decent family guy who I liked a lot. I had no idea he'd even been in the military, much less done insane things deep in North Korean territory, until I asked his daughter how he'd come to start a diving services company. The other former UDT vet was my high school writing teacher, a sort of Yoda figure. He covered the clock in his classroom with a picture of the Buddha, so you got a little jolt of patience training every time you snuck a glance at the clock. Whatever small writing talent I have started with him. Third was a friend's cousin who who'd left the service in his mid-thirties. For a while we were drinking buddies. We road bikes together for a while too, but that didn't last long--he was in such phenomenally better shape than me, despite training half as much, it was a mismatch. We were a mismatch in general--he was a bro's bro and I was like his token hippie friend. But we had fun boozing around for a while, and he was in no way damaged goods. Speaking of booze, one amazing thing about Sadler was his ability to write so many potboilers while drinking so hard. I don't drink anymore, in large part because my productivity just went to shit when I was drunk all the time. Maybe it's more feasible to write purple prose than code when you're loaded.

rdiddly 9y ago

I don't go around advocating violence, but neither do I shower it with the contempt that's been fashionable ever since the late 60s when showing up at a Vietnam protest became a viable way of getting laid. (There was even a poster - "Girls say yes to boys who say no!" meaning who dodge the draft. I digress.) I basically just try to understand violence and war as something that's been part of the human condition since day 1. So I flinched a little at the way this writer seems to write off Sadler and his struggles in such a casual and condescending way. And also at his unnecessary use of qua. That is the sine qua non of sanctius quam tu.

bitexploder 9y ago
Yeah. It is interesting though. I think the classic PBS documentary "anyone's son will do" is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo I think war in the industrialized world is almost purely political. Wars in the modern day are arranged by old men and politicians and fought by young men. I don't blame the young men, but I think it goes back to some aspects of human biology and how young men see themselves and are manipulated through patriotism and other political forces to volunteer (or be conscripted) into a military to serve political ends. In a time before two tribes could communicate and apply some reason to things, force was the only way to resolve things. Force and violence is still a crude, simple, and effective path to changing human behavior so it of course is used, but if it is ever used between super powers the world is basically over. Anyhow, I digress.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  So then when you're done with your military career, you find yourself on the one hand having mastered yourself and done a lot of stuff you didn't think you were capable of. And on the other hand, some of that stuff is kind of bad, especially with that modern twist you're talking about - I would call it modern disconnection. I don't think there's anything in human nature that hasn't been extracted, distilled, modified and commodified by industrial society, and that leads to a lot of disconnection. Including with war and such. In the olden days, killing someone who was about to kill your family and torch your village etc. (things you felt connected to), was probably a lot easier to reconcile with your conscience, than nowadays killing someone for some faraway, disconnected political goal. Which eventually most of them realize as they get older - those military goals and missions, set by those at the top, are to some extent, arbitrary and capricious. I dunno, I would probably drink a lot too.