paracowboy:
Thanks for contributing the great piece by Grossman. Driving my car this morning, alone with my thoughts, I realized that I didn't do Grossman justice with my earlier comment. He goes talk about right and wrong, moral and immoral, but he does so (as far as I've read) as he does in this story/fable--which is to say, at a rather abstract level. Even when he discusses killing at a personal level (e.g., the story in On Killing about a Panama vet having the recurring nightmare of this victim asking h im, why did you kill me?) he doesn't examine the issue from the perspective of morality.
Make no mistake about it, Grossman is the pioneer of killology, and I just try to complement the approach by arguing for and providing a moral justification for the killing that Grossman (and all of us, I suspect) says is necessary lest evil men prevail.
To add my $.02 to the more recent comments today, I think it's important that we recognize the distinction between combat stress/fatigue and PTSD. Combat stress. shell shock, etc refers to a condition among soldiers who cannot fight anymore, if only temporarily. They just can't face more combat. PTSD, on the other hand, refers to soldiers who cannot re-integrate into civil society. Combat stress strikes close after the trauma and can usually be addressed at the tactical level; PTSD shows up months or years after the trauma, usually after there's been time for reflection.
I know some people who have been absolute heroes in the fight yet suffer from PTSD after redeployment.
Thanks for contributing the great piece by Grossman. Driving my car this morning, alone with my thoughts, I realized that I didn't do Grossman justice with my earlier comment. He goes talk about right and wrong, moral and immoral, but he does so (as far as I've read) as he does in this story/fable--which is to say, at a rather abstract level. Even when he discusses killing at a personal level (e.g., the story in On Killing about a Panama vet having the recurring nightmare of this victim asking h im, why did you kill me?) he doesn't examine the issue from the perspective of morality.
Make no mistake about it, Grossman is the pioneer of killology, and I just try to complement the approach by arguing for and providing a moral justification for the killing that Grossman (and all of us, I suspect) says is necessary lest evil men prevail.
To add my $.02 to the more recent comments today, I think it's important that we recognize the distinction between combat stress/fatigue and PTSD. Combat stress. shell shock, etc refers to a condition among soldiers who cannot fight anymore, if only temporarily. They just can't face more combat. PTSD, on the other hand, refers to soldiers who cannot re-integrate into civil society. Combat stress strikes close after the trauma and can usually be addressed at the tactical level; PTSD shows up months or years after the trauma, usually after there's been time for reflection.
I know some people who have been absolute heroes in the fight yet suffer from PTSD after redeployment.