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Time plays a factor that may not be well controlled for here. As you get older the actions you have taken and the events you have participated in can impact you

Time plays a factor that may not be well controlled for here. As you get older the actions you have taken and the events you have participated in can impact you in new ways.

SoftTalker 2y ago
Yep, fairly common to hear about old veterans who will not discuss what they did in combat, one could guess because they don't want to resurface those memories.
- monetus 2y ago
  My grandfather was in the Pacific theater during WW2, but only the military knows why he had nightmares.
- kstenerud 2y ago
  They won't talk to you about it because you can't understand, and talking to you about it would just make them feel more isolated and alone. Only others like them could understand.
  - jmward01 2y ago
    I think there are a lot of different reasons. The thought that other person may not understand could be one, but also that you just don't understand well enough what to say and the mixed emotion of being proud of doing something at a high level with the changing understanding of what actually resulted from those actions.
ty6853 2y ago
The risk perhaps not so much moral injury, but that combat and war is almost like a drug. Imagine going back home to a toddler raging about the wrong color cup, a narrow set of civil rules, and flipping burgers after living a life out the back of a pickup truck with nothing but a rifle and your buddies keeping you alive. Fucking boring. But I'm no killer, just a guy who spent a few months in a civil war, and met a lot of people who met the Hemingway quote: "Those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never care for anything else thereafter."
- vasco 2y ago
  Whenever you have these feelings, go watch actual real life combat footage. A great recent one is a knife fight to the death where one soldier admits defeat and asks the first one to leave him to die https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/tAUwd2MWqT https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/tAUwd2MWqT Watch that and tell me if you think it's still cool and normal life is boring. I find that it snaps me right back out of "Hollywood war" thinking and makes my stomach turn.
  - ty6853 2y ago
    A lot of the guys I met in the YPG had seen way more combat than that and still yearned for it. One of them was retired foreign legion that did this as his retirement. When we were getting shot at one of the older guys would get viscerally excited and joyful, and he had seen many dead. Junky is a good description of what they were. They wanted another taste. I can't imagine after 5+ years of that life how you would detox from that, not easily I imagine.
    - jwilber 2y ago
      See also My War Gone By, I Miss It So - a book about the author’s time as a war correspondent in Bosnia during the Yugoslavian War. After the war, he became addicted to heroin for lack of the excitement that the war brought. https://septemberpublishing.org/product/my-war-gone-by-i-miss-it-so-2/ https://septemberpublishing.org/product/my-war-gone-by-i-mis...
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      I think you have to distinguish between militant groups filled with highly motivated ideological volunteers and state militaries which are often primarily filled with people from poor families who have graduated high school and then don't know what to do with their lives. In war time it's an even uglier picture where you may have armies filled with people who were literally dragged kicking and screaming off the streets and then beat into obedience or death.
  - foolfoolz 2y ago
nirui 2y ago
I don't think it's the time. Morality only exists in people who has it. Some already do, some are growing, some never will. Funny thing is, the individuals who never had morality maybe more mentally healthy than the others, since the consequences of their action never entered their brain. Gankers are happier than the ganked, I guess. Maybe that's why the armies around the world loves to hire dumb people into their ranks, never think, never thought, and thus ruthless and don't cost much.

Time plays a factor that may not be well controlled for here. As you get older the actions you have taken and the events you have participated in can impact you in new ways.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Yep, fairly common to hear about old veterans who will not discuss what they did in combat, one could guess because they don't want to resurface those memories.

monetus 2y ago
My grandfather was in the Pacific theater during WW2, but only the military knows why he had nightmares.
kstenerud 2y ago
They won't talk to you about it because you can't understand, and talking to you about it would just make them feel more isolated and alone. Only others like them could understand.
- jmward01 2y ago
  I think there are a lot of different reasons. The thought that other person may not understand could be one, but also that you just don't understand well enough what to say and the mixed emotion of being proud of doing something at a high level with the changing understanding of what actually resulted from those actions.

ty6853 2y ago

The risk perhaps not so much moral injury, but that combat and war is almost like a drug. Imagine going back home to a toddler raging about the wrong color cup, a narrow set of civil rules, and flipping burgers after living a life out the back of a pickup truck with nothing but a rifle and your buddies keeping you alive. Fucking boring. But I'm no killer, just a guy who spent a few months in a civil war, and met a lot of people who met the Hemingway quote: "Those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never care for anything else thereafter."

vasco 2y ago
Whenever you have these feelings, go watch actual real life combat footage. A great recent one is a knife fight to the death where one soldier admits defeat and asks the first one to leave him to die https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/tAUwd2MWqT https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/tAUwd2MWqT Watch that and tell me if you think it's still cool and normal life is boring. I find that it snaps me right back out of "Hollywood war" thinking and makes my stomach turn.
- ty6853 2y ago
  A lot of the guys I met in the YPG had seen way more combat than that and still yearned for it. One of them was retired foreign legion that did this as his retirement. When we were getting shot at one of the older guys would get viscerally excited and joyful, and he had seen many dead. Junky is a good description of what they were. They wanted another taste. I can't imagine after 5+ years of that life how you would detox from that, not easily I imagine.
  - jwilber 2y ago
    See also My War Gone By, I Miss It So - a book about the author’s time as a war correspondent in Bosnia during the Yugoslavian War. After the war, he became addicted to heroin for lack of the excitement that the war brought. https://septemberpublishing.org/product/my-war-gone-by-i-miss-it-so-2/ https://septemberpublishing.org/product/my-war-gone-by-i-mis...
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    I think you have to distinguish between militant groups filled with highly motivated ideological volunteers and state militaries which are often primarily filled with people from poor families who have graduated high school and then don't know what to do with their lives. In war time it's an even uglier picture where you may have armies filled with people who were literally dragged kicking and screaming off the streets and then beat into obedience or death.
- foolfoolz 2y ago

nirui 2y ago

I don't think it's the time. Morality only exists in people who has it. Some already do, some are growing, some never will. Funny thing is, the individuals who never had morality maybe more mentally healthy than the others, since the consequences of their action never entered their brain. Gankers are happier than the ganked, I guess. Maybe that's why the armies around the world loves to hire dumb people into their ranks, never think, never thought, and thus ruthless and don't cost much.