On Killing

Best Book I've Read in Years

Howdy,

I’m nearly done with Lt Col (ret) Dave Grossman’s incredible work On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Grossman, who was a prior-enlisted Army Ranger, is a trained psychologist who published this tour de force in 1995. I had been eyeing it for decades, but never pulled the trigger (pun intended). Sometimes books appear in your life at the perfect time. This is one of those times.

I’m not going to do a complete book review on this magnificent study. Instead, I want to point out a few things that really resonated with me.

In the middle of the book, Grossman has a sparse chapter entitled, “Killing at Sexual Range: The Primal Aggression, the Release, and the Orgasmic Discharge.”

Let me quote him here:

Many men who have carried and fired a gun—especially a full automatic weapon—must confess in their hearts that the power and pleasure of explosively spewing a stream of bullets is akin to the emotions felt when explosively spewing a stream of semen.

This will likely startle many who’ve never been in combat, killed, or fired a weapon. The pleasure of killing is a very real thing. It is, indeed, orgasmic.

Here is a quote from a Vietnam combat veteran of six tours:

Killing can be like sex. You can get carried away with it; it can consume you just like sex can.

‘Amen. This book is a G*d send. For so many decades, I struggled with the exhilaration from killing. Again, I’m not some modern day Rambo. I’m not combat arms. This is not an attempt to tell you how much of a bad ass I am. I’m definitely not.

Regardless, for those who’ve killed up close, from across a dry river bed, in the air, or from a drone, I can assure you that most of them, at some point in the process, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here is author Jack Thompson in “Hidden Enemies” discussing “combat highs”

This combat high is like getting an injection of morphine—you float around, laughing, joking, having a great time, totally oblivious to the dangers around you. The experience is very intense if you live to tell about it.

Let me show you a picture from Afghanistan

This was taken on 6 June 2008 —about 3 minutes after a very intense firefight. My buddy, CPT Casey McCausland (RIP), snapped it. I returned the favor. We were having the G*d damn time of our lives.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that there’s not remorse. In fact, Grossman discusses the remorse stage of killing. It absolutely exist, in certain circumstances. Grossman hypothesizes, and I agree, that the closer the kill, the harder it gets, especially if you catch your enemy doing something very human, like peeing on a bush.

The problem I had, and many vets do too, is that they think something is wrong with them for enjoying such things. But it’s just not true.

Here’s Grossman again:

It is vital that future soldiers understand that this (pleasure in killing) is a normal and very common response to the abnormal circumstances of combat, and they need to understand that their feelings of satisfaction at killing are a natural and fairly common aspect of combat.

As some of you know, I spent a month in the looney bin for combat PTSD, Moral Injury, and TBIs. My floor was filled with combat veterans. Nearly all of them had seen more combat than me.

After we left emotionally intense group sessions, we would inevitably return to war stories. Now most of us were full of sh*t, but we all reveled in our stories. The fun we had. The pleasure of it all.

Let me tell you, people, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen an A-10 do close air support (CAS) on a building that has pinned you down for an hour. That sound. It is so G*d damn sexy. As I write this, I have an enormous grin on my face.

The lovely Charity often hears me say something like this when I’m talking about Hamas, Al Qaeda, etc, “These motherf*ckers are a pleasure to kill.”

I bring this is up because if we’re going to have any chance at truly bridging the civ-mil gap then civilians need to understand that many of us actually enjoyed killing our enemies. We need to feel confident that when we bring this up that we don’t get the “holy sh*t who is this lunatic” look. I’ve seen it all too often when someone asks for the real truth about war.

War is a crime. War is a horrible, horrible thing that robs people of so many things. It is also the most exciting, exhilarating, and pleasurable action man can engage in.

That’s the paradox.

Until next time.