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Killing in Combat:The Decision to Kill in Legitimate Combat Situations (a topic

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Killing in Combat 1
Running Head: KILLING IN COMBAT
The Decision to Kill in Legitimate Combat Situations
Janine Peterson Wonnacott
Catholic University of America

Killing in Combat 2
Topic Paper Approval
The Catholic University of America

Department of Psychology
Name: Janine Peterson Wonnacott
M.A. Program: MA Psychology
Title of Paper: The Decision to Kill in Legitimate Combat Situations
Approved: __________________________ ______________

Advisor Date
__________________________ ______________
M.A. Program Director Date
Killing in Combat 3
Abstract
The new field of killology examines the factors affecting man's ability and desire to kill
other human beings, as well as the resulting mental trauma of having killed. This paper
focuses on killing in combat, though other state-sanctioned killing is also mentioned. The
paper demonstrates that the decision to kill is difficult and often drawn-out, while the
results of killing can be traumatic, often causing PTSD and the resulting symptoms of
nightmares or suicidal ideation. Since the decision to kill is difficult, many men in
combat do not kill. The study of killing in combat is the study of decision making under
extreme circumstances, and it considers extreme responses to demands for killing in
studies of authority, obedience, peer pressure, desensitization, framing and
dehumanization, and training (the shaping of instincts and reflexes). Opportunities for
psychologists in this field include the chance to study (i) decision making in extreme
situations as well as (ii) possible therapies/treatments to help overcome the detrimental
effects of trauma and PTSD in those who kill with the permission and encouragement of
the state and society.
Killing in Combat 4
What is Killology?
People naturally resist killing. War represents the extreme of a decision to violate
this resistance. Even in combat, some people will not or cannot kill. “Perhaps many men
on the front line chose not to kill simply because they don’t have to” (Brookes, 2004).
The decision to kill is the decision to take a deliberate action that can have the immediate
consequence of ending the life of another human being who has been cast as the enemy.
But killing in war is acceptable, encouraged, or even required, and still results in some
people declining to kill. The decision to kill is difficult, and a person facing this decision
may face trauma in its aftermath, regardless of the path chosen. The field of killology
looks at the decision itself as well as the potential for trauma in those who kill and those
who do not kill.
Grossman (1996) founded the field of killology as a study of a person killing
another person. For the purposes of his own studies he has excluded criminal homicide,
and for the purpose of this literature review, it is again excluded. Euthanasia and suicide
are excluded as well. This paper focuses on what research has been done regarding man's
ability to kill in combat situations and focuses almost exclusively on military personnel
and police officers. Grossman also limits his studies to American and European styles of
war and Judeo-Christian culture, excluding the Moslem martial arts and traditions as well
as Asian martial arts and the strong Japanese tradition of budo. Grossman focuses his
research on military service members and police officers, though he acknowledges that
legitimate civilian self-defense, criminal homicide, and state-sanctioned executioners
would all make interesting and correlating studies.

Killing in Combat 5
Grossman questions whether scholars, even military scholars and former Army
Rangers like himself, can understand what it means to kill without having killed
personally, as he questions whether a virgin can truly understand sex beyond the physical
and biological aspects. How can those who have never killed understand killing, the
choices, and the aftermath? This question may be unanswerable, but Grossman attempts
to formulate understanding based on interviews with veterans who have killed or avoided
killing and thereby lays the foundation of a new branch of study comparable in
importance to the newly identified fields of sexology and suicidology.
One important finding in the field of killology is that killing a person during war
can cause trauma. MacNair (2005) demonstrated that being the perpetrator of trauma,
even socially acceptable trauma like killing in war, can in turn cause trauma and anxiety
disorders like PTSD in the perpetrator.
In combat, a decision to kill can be examined in two parts: before the decision to
take action is made and after whatever action or inaction occurs. The mindset of a soldier
can be examined before shooting and after shooting. Each part is influenced by the many
facets of the situation and is of varying durations for each soldier and each subsequent
decision. This paper examines the decision to kill made during conflict or combat. The
decision is affected by figures of authority and peers, proximity to the victim, familiarity,
training, stress, and a host of other factors. These influence both parts of the decision-
making process in ways that are often not predictable and are often counter-intuitive to
the researchers.
Humans are reluctant to kill other humans

Killing in Combat 6
People working in the field of killology, or in similar fields before killology was
founded, have amassed direct report, experimental, survey, anecdotal, and archeological
evidence of innate human resistance to killing other humans.
Evolutionary Evidence
There is evidence in nature studies that when fighting the same species, an
organism will posture instead of fight (Grossman, 1996). There are evolutionary reasons
for this behavior, of course. No species could survive if it spent all its time killing other
members of its own species. (Culling the weakest and eugenics are different and may be
adaptive. However, these topics are outside the scope of this paper). Most animals show
similar resistance to killing their own kind, as elk butt heads and piranhas swat each other
with their tails.
Lorenz (1963) makes the case for aggression within a species. He quotes
Darwin’s expression, “the struggle for existence” as “sometimes erroneously interpreted
as the struggle between different species. In reality, the struggle Darwin was thinking of
and which drives evolution forward is the competition between near relations” (1963, p.
20). In modern times, with humankind largely dominant on earth and divided into so
many different countries, religions, and cultures, it is not hard to imagine “near relations”
applying to different cultures of the species homo sapiens. Another reading into Lorenz’s
observation is the tendency to dehumanize the enemy and to make the enemy out to be
something of another species, so that the competition between “near relations” becomes a
competition to determine who is the most capable homo sapiens. This may allow man to
be aggressive against man. Further, “All social animals are ‘status seekers,’ hence there
is always particularly high tension between individuals [or groups] who hold immediately
Killing in Combat 7
adjoining positions in the rank order; conversely, this tension diminishes the further apart
the two animals are in rank” (1963, p. 41). War may be a natural expression of group
aggression in humans.
Historical Evidence
The desire for posturing over killing within a species may have led to the rise of
gunpowder weapons, for despite their relative lack of accuracy, they were loud and
smoky. They helped men posture and act more frightening despite their inaccuracy, and
the weapons also represented the possession of an industrial base for production. Despite
their lessened lethality compared to longbows or trebuchets, guns became a powerful
psychological weapon through posturing even though they were weaker combat weapons.
“Gunpowder’s superior noise, its superior posturing ability, made it ascendant on the
battlefield” (Grossman, 1996, p.9). A man with an accurate longbow is intimidated by
the man with the inaccurate but loud musket. Grossman says that muzzleloading muskets
were “inferior at killing, [but] they were not inferior at psychologically stunning and
daunting an opponent” (2004, p. 65). (The silent accuracy of the sniper is also scary, but
snipers have little play in a standard battle). Du Picq’s surveys of French officers offers
confirmation of the appeal of the firearm over the bow, of noise over accuracy (cited in
Grossman, 1996). It is easy to follow this to the invention of bombs and machine guns,
even those of middling accuracy. A modern, larger, example of the psychological effects
of noise and explosions is the “shock and awe” tactic used by the US against the country
of Iraq (Grossman, 2004). Posturing provides an easy explanation for non-firers as those
who do “other combat duties that were amply dangerous” (MacNair, 2005, p.3). The men
who could not shoot could still act as support.

Killing in Combat 8
Archeological evidence suggests humans limit the accuracy or frequency of their
attacks against other humans when given the opportunity. The evidence is largely
circumstantial. Many hunter/gatherer tribes deliberately weaken their weapons before
fighting other men. For example, individuals in warring New Zealand tribes remove
feathers from their arrows, lessening their accuracy. Duels in early America were
displays of bravery, not attempts to kill the other party. Historically, man has taken steps
to avoid killing even in war. Half of the muskets found after the battle of Gettysburg
were found loaded, many five or six times. One had been loaded 23 times and never
fired (Grossman, 1996). The behavioral interpretation is that the soldier would load his
musket, aim it, but just pretend to shoot, despite what du Picq called the “’mutual
surveillance’ of authorities and peers” (Grossman, 1996, p. 23). The silence of a single
musket would go unnoticed as the rest of the soldiers fired. Gabriel says, “in
engagements the size of Waterloo or Sedan the opportunity for a soldier not to fire or to
refuse to press forward the attack by merely falling down and remaining in the mud was
too obvious for shaken men under fire to ignore” (1987 p. 68). At the Battle of Rorkes
Drift, British soldiers fired upon a large band of Zulu warriors who surrounded them
several men deep (Holmes, 1985). Twelve out of every thirteen British bullets missed, at
a range Brookes describes as “nearly point blank” (Brookes, 2004). The temptation of
not killing is so great that soldiers avoid even the risk of killing when they have the
opportunity to avoid it.
Survey / Experimental Evidence
There is evidence found by Marshall that only 25 percent of troops would fire
their weapons when given an enemy target and a legal opportunity to shoot. “The 25
Killing in Combat 9
percent estimate stands even for well-trained and campaign-seasoned troops. I mean that
75 percent will not fire or will not persist in firing against the enemy and his works.
They will face the danger but they will not fight” (Marshall, 2000, p. 50).
Grossman claims that Marshall’s findings have been replicated so thoroughly,
“there are compelling data that indicate that this singular lack of enthusiasm for killing
one’s fellow man has existed throughout military history” (1996, p. 16). From du Picq’s
studies of French soldiers in the 1860’s, Keegan and Holmes’ study of soldiers
throughout history in Soldiers, Holmes’ work on the Falkland Islands War in Acts of War,
and Paddy Griffith’s studies on the low killing rates in Battle Tactics of the Civil War,
researchers have found a pattern of low accuracy and lower than expected mortality from
direct combat (Grossman, 1996). The low accuracy can also be explained by fear and
stress. Soldiers in combat are often scared and exhausted, and fear affects fine motor
skill and accuracy. However, low accuracy does not account for simply not shooting in
the first place.
Unfortunately, scientifically valid studies and surveys only tangentially address
killing. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey, filled out by returning
Vietnam veterans, asks only about combat experience, particularly proximity to combat.
The soldiers returning from Iraq fill out the DD-2796 form, which asks questions about
their combat experience. Only two questions approach the issue of killing: “During this
deployment, did you ever feel that you were in great danger of being killed?” and “Did
you see anyone wounded, killed, or dead during this deployment? Mark all that apply”
(Baum, 2004). No question is asked about personal kills. So unfortunately, many
inferences about the history of decision to kill must be approached indirectly.

Killing in Combat 10
The Decision to Kill
Despite the military’s attempts to make obedience automatic, soldiers still have
free will and can respond independently to an order to kill. They can argue about the
order, refuse to shoot, pretend to shoot, shoot and deliberately miss, or shoot with intent
to kill. What people ultimately do depends on their ideology, the effects of authority, and
relations to peers. Since the decision to kill is difficult and counter to nurture if not
nature, many men in combat do not kill. Some choose not to kill before combat begins.
Some decide instantaneously as the opportunity appears, without conscious thought.
These men are called non-firers. There is a role for non-firers in combat, though
problems can occur if non-firers do not self-identify or are not somehow filtered out from
people expected to fire. It is important to note that war is different than self-defense
fighting, because one’s personal safety may or may not be at stake at a particular
moment.
War has changed. Hand-to-hand fighting, or at least fighting when one can see
one’s opponent, has the longest history in war. The changes in war include changes in
distance, both physical and psychological, and changes in training to make soldiers kill
with less effort or risk. The definition of combat is broader than simply infantry battles,
and killing in combat is becoming more frequent. Thus more people experience the
trauma of killing but not the necessity of self-defense to avoid an imminent threat.
Overcoming Natural Resistance
The resistance to killing is so strong that Grossman reports soldiers dying before
overcoming it. One major goal of military training is to overcome this resistance through
conditioning, strengthening the force of authority, and recognizing the "non-firers." Non-
firers can still serve in the military in positions like that of a medic, who can be brave
under fire without having to kill, in non-combat roles, or in positions around group-fired
weapons, where the social pressure is greater to act.
Marshall, a veteran of WWI and a military historian during WWII, wrote Men
Against Fire (2000) and changed the methods of military training forever. He wanted to
change the methods of training to better teach killing, and he may have exaggerated the
number of non-firers, overstating the problem to sell his solution (Chambers, 2003). He
wrote his book to focus the military on its major failing: not teaching men to kill reliably.
Training was too dissimilar from battle. He was the first to bring up the issue of ratio-of-
fire (the percentage of soldiers in a battle who actually fire weapons), and in his book he
takes care to emphasize that he was not insulting the courage of troops. These men faced
danger, willingly, but their training did not enable them to fire their weapons in a combat
situation or to kill others in order to save themselves or advance their cause. Drilling and
perfection in drilling, what he calls "fighting," seemed unrelated to "soldiering" in battle.
He laments, "We are reluctant to admit that essentially war is killing, though that is the
simplest truth in the book" (Marshall, 2000, p. 67). This reluctance leads the military to
focus on transporting supplies and commanding troops rather than training men to get
over the reluctance to kill, often to the detriment of the troops. Human beings are simply
reluctant to kill, and reasoning with them ("Kill or be killed”) may not affect their actions
in the heat of battle.
Marshall proposed that men in battle rarely fired their weapons. Specifically, he
claimed that given a target of an enemy soldier, only one in four American troops even
fired their weapons, regardless of whether they were aiming at the enemy or not (2000).
Men working at group-fired weapons fired more reliably, probably because of the
presence of peer observers, and men with a commanding officer nearby were more likely
to fire. These men were not malingerers, he maintains. However, only a small
percentage were willing to attack using rifles, grenades, bazookas, or other weapons of
war. Most men simply were not prepared to attack and were not ready to kill. Soldiers
are trained to shoot at paper, not men, and under very different conditions than in mud
and foxholes. Soldiers needed the "presence of another soldier rather than the knowledge
that he is taking appropriate action" (2000, p. 65). Marshall knows that American troops
are social creatures who need the presence of another person taking the same actions they
are, the approval of a peer, more than the assumed approval of a distant officer. Peer
acceptance matters.
Personal ideology. In order to convince men to fight, governments have generally
resorted to pleas of ideology. In order to convince men to kill, military officers have
inspired strong bonds of brotherhood between enlisted men. Soldiers join the military for
ideology; they fight and kill for their friends. The ideology that inspires people to join
the military generally involves a desire to keep their values alive. Evolutionary
psychologists have used the word “meme” as a cultural version of the genetic “gene.”
Animals are driven to provide for the survival of both their species and their values.
Engaging in modern combat is driven by the desire to preserve memes for posterity.
People want to survive, but they also want their values to survive. There is
always an ideology behind military-backed killing. Mead described several types of
American foreign policy that can inspire war and men to war. The populist “Jacksonian”
style inspires near fervor and defense of the nation (2002). If Americans believe in what
they are fighting for, then there is no stopping them. Mansfield describes a soldier who
“needs a moral vision, a confidence that he killed in the service of good, no matter the
horror and no matter the price” (2005, p. 5). Americans are both extremely religious and
militarily powerful. Invoking both powers inspires the most determined actions, and
once America becomes convinced of something, she is difficult to un-convince. America
as a fighting power has moved beyond the religious and national origins of its
immigrants, though it has maintained the traditional warlike tendencies of, for example,
its Scotch-Irish roots (2002).
Mead’s analysis may not apply to other cultures and countries. Israel, the other
country most covered in this paper, was created by fiat after World War II, and its
citizens, the world’s Jews, did not have a visibly recent warrior history. The Holocaust
was the event closest to the minds of those creating Israel. But Israel quickly proved
itself in a series of wars against its warlike neighbors, displaying strength and bravery
against vastly outnumbering forces. But the history of the Jews, if not the pre-history of
the recent state of Israel, has often depicted the Jews as willing and able fighters, fighting
to the death to preserve their culture and religion both at Masada and in the Warsaw
Ghetto. Countries, like people, have selectively positive memories about their pasts
(Pennebaker, 1997).
Peer Pressure. Men fight for their friends, the men to their right and to their left.
They fight not to destroy the enemy, but so they do not let down their fellow fighters
(LeShan, 2002). Despite high numbers of psychiatric casualties, men close to combat
generally want to be on the front lines, or at least with their comrades. LeShan describes
men breaking out of hospitals to return to their units, abandoning safety for (in many
cases) severe injury.
Men often shoot or do not shoot depending on the actions of their peers.
Nadelson explains, “Soldiers are always reluctant to risk the exposure necessary for
returning fire against a visible enemy, but there were additional reasons behind
Marshall’s findings. Soldiers wanted to survive, but they also resist killing. Despite the
constant exhortation to return fire, many did not. Soldiers have fired their weapons partly
because that is what they were commanded to do but mainly because their comrades were
firing” (2005, p. 42).
Proper manipulation of peer pressure on the part of officers can encourage
soldiers to fire their weapons. “Try to imagine going to war with strangers at your side!
Do they know what they’re doing? Can you trust them? Will they care what happens to
you?” (Shay, 2002, p. 208). He quotes du Picq, “’Four brave men who do not know each
other will not dare to attack a lion. Four less brave, but knowing each other well, sure of
their reliability and consequently of mutual aid, will attack resolutely’” (p. 208). Peer
support helps men attack, just as peer pressure through guilt can push them into attacking.
A very recent study by Ahronson and Cameron (2007) looked at peer relations
and group cohesion in the Canadian military. They examined both individual attraction
to the group socially and individual attraction to a given group task. Individual attraction
to the group in terms of both social and task-orientation correlated significantly with the
individual’s psychological well-being. However, individual attraction to the task and
group integration in accomplishing the task were the only factors that correlated with job
satisfaction. How well the group cohered in relation to its duty correlated with individual
job satisfaction. In other words, “work team cohesion is critical to the operational
effectiveness” (2007, p. 23) of the military. Lorenz takes the concept further, saying,
“Man is not a killer, but the group is” (1967).
The American military has, over the past century, learned how important peer
relations are. Units of soldiers fight best when they are trained, deployed, and rotated
together. World War II fighters knew they were in the war until it ended, one way or
another. They often came from the same geographic region. They developed closer
bonds to fellow troops, and to a great extent, they remained in touch throughout the years.
The duration of individuals’ roles in WWII compared to the Vietnam War made
psychiatric adaptation different. Army policy during Vietnam was to change individuals
and keep units in the field. Vietnam fighters knew when they were coming home and
could utilize repression until then. Men arrived and left independent of their units. There
was no "safe zone" like there was in other wars. Newcomers were considered a threat to
the survival of the unit. After a few months, the new arrival learned the ropes, made a
few friends, and became an asset to the survival of the unit instead of a liability. His
friends left him via helicopter or death, and finally he became only concerned with
getting home alive. And, with luck, he would leave. Soldiers in Vietnam did not become
as attached to each other and to their units. Now, however, the military keeps units
together through training and deployment. Since the military is volunteer, the geographic
peer pressure is significantly less powerful (in World War II, the entire eligible male
population of a town might become a single military unit (Kershaw, 2003), yet there are
still similarities in geographic origin, political leanings, and religion that allow the
soldiers to be stronger peers.

Authority. Barring peer pressure, direct commands from an authority figure can
make men shoot. Marshall quotes a lieutenant colonel, "'When I ordered the men around
me to fire, they did so. But the moment I passed on they quit. I walked up and down the
line yelling, ‘God damn it! Start shooting!’ But it did little good. They only fired while I
watched them or while some other officer stood over them'" (2000, p. 72). Studies of
Vietnam veterans show the same. One survey found soldiers are more likely to fire in
response to a direct order than when fired upon (Kilner, 2000). Direct command could
induce desired behavior. On the other hand, logic was not persuasive.
An officer in combat is typically authorized to use force to gain obedience. Many
British troops in World War I were executed for displaying combat trauma and refusing to
shoot at the enemy. Further, a man in combat has a history and a future with his
commander. A criticism causes more than embarrassment. It could haunt him
professionally or cause him to receive a dishonorable discharge (or even cause his
execution). There are explicit and long-lasting consequences to refusing to obey a
superior officer.
There are many other mechanisms of enforcing or encouraging obedience.
Training can increase confidence in the leadership, independent of the quality of training
(Shalit, 1988). Discipline increases confidence in self and leadership (Nye, 1986).
Punishment rarely works well, however, and often creates resentment toward leadership.
Men will obey orders more easily if the orders fit into the men’s current ideology about
killing in general and the current conflict in particular. For example, men may obey
orders to kill when they believe in the cause but will not obey orders they see as foolish.
Israeli soldiers would throw themselves on barbed wire at the command during battle but
were routinely brought to a court martial for refusing to wear uniform hats (N. Milgram,
1986).
Authority is a powerful psychological pressure on troops to kill. S. Milgram
(1974) has already demonstrated the ability of ordinary people to commit acts of harm
bordering on murder when asked by an authority figure they would never see again. One
can only assume that if the demand from authority carried the weight of a lost job or loss
of one's own life (after a court martial, for example) that the weight of authority would be
stronger. Grossman calls upon authority figures to justify the killing to the killer (1996).
Based on the guilt expressed by the participants from S. Milgram's study, when no one
was actually harmed, one can imagine the potential guilt felt by the killer when the victim
is actually dead.
It is interesting to note that even in the military, a refusal to kill does not always
mean punishment or execution. The British killed non-firers in WWI, despite evidence
they were suffering from documented war-trauma disorder, shell-shock (Shepherd, 2001).
They feared “degeneration” of recruits (p. 17). But despite immediate risk to life, “Some
small number [of men] will not fire even when threatened by death” (Nadelson, 2005, p.
42). Arendt quotes documents from the Nuremberg trials that "not a single case could be
traced in which an S.S. member had suffered the death penalty because of a refusal to
take part in an execution" (Arendt, 1964, p. 91). A witness at Eichmann's trial stated that
"It was possible to evade a commission by an application for transfer. To be sure, in
individual cases, one had to be prepared for a certain disciplinary punishment. A danger
to one's life, however, was not at all involved'" (p. 91). Eichmann always believed
obedience to authority was a virtue, and during his trial he accused his superiors of
"abusing his 'obedience'" (p. 175).
Authority figures also affect peer pressure by choosing and manipulating peer
groups. On a micro level, they choose men who are willing to fire to work individual
weapons instead of team weapons, as Marshall notes. On a macro level, they choose who
will be in the military at all. Nye (1986) discusses “good” soldiers and “bad” soldiers –
those who readily obey orders and those who smoke pot while shirking duties. In many
cases, this involves aggressively policing recruits and even discharging men in time of a
shortage of manpower. Nye describes a captain explaining the process of developing a
positive peer atmosphere. The captain identifies three types of men: good soldiers,
slackers, and borderliners. He made it his mission to convert the borderliners into good
soldiers, and he believed that meant getting rid of the bad influences, blocking
promotions and encouraging discharges. Nye quotes the captain, “’Why pursue this so
aggressively when the Army is short of manpower? I did it because the Army is short of
manpower and you have to get the most out of what you have. If a few soldiers are
allowed to remain in the unit while they refuse to clean their weapons, smoke pot and get
stoned while on guard, and push dope to new soldiers, the borderliners will join them and
the good soldiers will become cynical and quit working’” (as cited in Nye, 1986, p. 42).
Enlisted men in the military can easily become more loyal to peers than to
officers, especially if leaders seem to be removed from combat, unseen and out of danger
(Shay, 1996, p. 12). Betrayal by officers, or even perceived betrayal, can lead to moral
indignation and psychic injury or trauma (p. 20). At its extreme, it can lead to mutiny,
including intentional killing of officers by distrustful and angry enlisted men (p. 127).
Betrayal by superiors can take other forms, such as substandard weapons, equipment
maintenance, or lack of proper combat training (Hackworth, 1989).
Becoming Resistant to Killing
Many factors affect the ease of killing. For example, the closer the killer is to the
killed, the more intimate the kill, the more traumatic the event. Seeing people die is
especially traumatic. Length and intensity of combat matter: the longer or more intense
the combat situation, the more likely one is to develop PTSD (Hart, 2000).
Specific factors from previous US wars identify other factors affecting stress and
likelihood of PTSD: a) length and intensity of combat, b) group solidarity, c) the presence
and important affect of ritual parades and medals, etc. upon return, d) remaining in
contact with fellow troops after the war, e) dehumanization of the enemy, and f) public
acceptance of the war and the tactics.
Training
Marshall notes that "no sustained experiments have ever been made during
combat to see whether and how a group of non-firers can be converted to willing use of
the rifle" (2000, p. 76) and believes that such an experiment must be conducted during
combat to have any benefit for training purposes. Training needs to emphasize the act of
firing over marksmanship (p. 81). Training should emphasize action and the ability for
action rather than the capability of it. One attempt to achieve this was after WWII, when
the US military made a transition from paper circle targets to silhouettes and cabbages
filled with ketchup for target practice. The goal was to desensitize soldiers to the
imagery of a successful kill.
Dehumanization
Dehumanization of the enemy is another tool that helps men kill other men, by
representing the opponent not as a man but as something subhuman. The commonly held
belief that, in WWII, Americans fought more viciously against the Japanese than the
Germans because it was easier to dehumanize the Japanese, to see them as more un-
American based on race, color, and culture, does not seem to be confirmed by statistics
about attacks on civilians of both countries. During WWII, Americans killed 900,000
Japanese civilians (not counting the atomic attacks); this is twice the combat deaths the
Americans suffered in all their wars. But more Germans died in the three-night bombing
of Dresden than American soldiers died in WWI; the bombing of Dresden may be the
largest killing of civilians in a single place since Genghis Kahn. Of course, Germans and
Japanese killed American civilians when presented with the opportunity, though the
theaters of war and limited projection technologies prevented mass slaughter. In the
Korean War, Americans probably killed 30 North Korean civilians for every American
soldier killed. There were probably eight Vietnamese civilian deaths for each American
soldier killed. These numbers, however, are almost certainly outweighed by the German
slaughter of civilians during WWII and the Japanese slaughter of civilians during WWII
and the years preceding. Civilians die in war, and Americans, while not innocent of
killing civilians, do not seem to be the most lethal. In addition, their killing of civilians
does not seem to reflect on the race of civilian but on the style of conflict, and during the
Korean and Vietnamese conflicts, the increase in the use of technology.
Desensitization
Grossman describes several techniques used in boot camp to desensitize troops to
killing. The vocabulary used to describe the enemy is fundamental. It is harder to kill a
human than a target, object, or racial slur. Having trainees chant "Kill! Kill!" can help
desensitize them to the act and the thought of killing (Grossman, 1996) as well as keep
them from arguing back. Combining dehumanization and desensitization, cadets at West
Point are ordered to “Kill Ivan!” when training against old Cold War equipment. Even
Russian cadets are so ordered, and they obey as eagerly as Americans (Ruggero, 2001),
suggesting that racial slugs are not intended to be racist but morale-boosting. Realistic
training, whether making troops train through exhaustion or making troops shoot at
cabbages filled with ketchup instead of paper targets, is also a way to condition men to
the conditions of battle. Keeping troops in good physical condition can also stave off
psychological illness (Nye, 1986, p. 84).
Distance from target is very important. Killing at a distance can seem “like a
game” (Holmes, 1985, p. 376) and not like the killing of a human being. “Hand-to-hand
fighting is rarer,” Holmes says (p. 377), and men are reluctant to use their bayonets as
stabbing weapons, preferring to use their rifles as clubs (1987). Grossman would
consider the attack less intimate without the thrust of the blade. When surrendering, in
addition to coming close to the enemy, the surrendering men sometimes hold photographs
of loved ones or food to humanize themselves to the enemy, as Germans did surrendering
to British troops at the Battle of the Somme (Holmes, 1987).
Still, it seems killing is rare and performed by a small subsection of the combat
unit. Dyer calculates that one percent of U. S. Army Air Corps fighter pilots account for
40% of all kills (Dyer, 1985). Grossman cites a World War II study by Swank and
Marchand that noted 2% of soldiers are unaffected by killing and could kill as a matter of
routine (Grossman, 1996). This small number of soldiers does most of the killing.
Choosing Not to Kill
Some people decide in advance not to kill. Some people do this legitimately by
taking non-killing roles, and others train to kill but never follow through. Some people
delay deciding so long that the decision can no longer be made: either the situation passes
or they themselves are killed. There is a role for non-firers in combat, though problems
can occur if non-firers do not self-identify or are not filtered out of people expected to
fire before combat begins.
Marshall recognizes the fear that occurs during combat, and he advises a solution
to this fear: action (2000). There should be no time to think and no time to be scared.
This explains why medics and chaplains are not paralyzed by fear despite being unarmed
and often being targeted above regular troops. If the troops are frightened, he advises
putting them to work digging foxholes or doing other important non-combat tasks. The
action will allay their fears. Marshall's recommendations included putting non-firers
among firers, so that social pressure can do its work, or putting non-firers on crew-
manned weapons, for the same reasons.
The resistance to killing in some individuals is so strong that Grossman reports
soldiers dying before overcoming it. A great deal of training is devoted to overcoming
this resistance through conditioning, strengthening the force of authority, and recognizing
the "non-firers" and putting them in positions like that of a medic, who can be brave
under fire without having to kill, or in positions around group-fired weapons, where the
social pressure is greater to act.
Legitimate Decisions – Medics and Chaplains

The desire not to kill does not stem from a desire to be safe - medics perform acts
of heroism, taking many of the same risks of injury or death as the common infantry but
they do not kill or cause harm, and they suffer less psychiatrically. Officers are in a
similar position – they order the killing without doing it themselves (Grossman, 1996).
There is popular belief that being a medic is actually more dangerous than being a
fighting soldier in some situations. Medics are forbidden by the Geneva Conventions
from carrying weapons. James Bradley claims that Japanese fighters were trained to kill
the medic or “corpsman” before a regular fighter (Bradley, 2001). One young American
pastor, Chuck Poling, was told “that chaplains have the highest mortality rate of all[.] As
a chaplain you’ll have the best chance in the world to be killed. You just can’t carry a
gun to kill anyone yourself.” (Mansfield, 2005, p. 75).
Authority Figures Order But Do Not Lead
The authority figures do not seem to develop these symptoms. To look at an
extreme example, take Adolf Eichmann, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Nazi SS whose job it
was to organize the mass deportations to labor and concentration camps, mostly for Jews.
While not personally responsible for anyone’s death, he introduced the efficiency
required for the Nazis to catalogue, gather, transport, kill, and dispose of ten million
people. Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963)
begins with a series of psychological examinations to see if Eichmann is fit to stand trial
as well as to study his conscience. Six different psychologists described him as "normal,"
one saying, "'More normal, at any rate, than I am after having examined him" and another
found his general outlook and specifically his attitude toward family and friends "'not
only normal but desirable'" (1963, p. 25-26). Eichmann did his job and the only evidence
of stress over what he was doing came during a visit to the camp Kulm (Chelmo), where
he was shown Jews walking onto a gas truck (used there instead of the more common gas
chambers), heard screaming, and saw the bodies dumped into a waiting ditch, where a
civilian was ready with pliers to pull out teeth. He refused the invitation to look into the
truck while the Jews inside died, and afterward he insisted on leaving the camp
immediately and did not speak for hours. He attended few other mass killings and never
watched. His response to seeing these camps was simply to refuse to see the camps again
(with the exception of Terezin, where he led members of the Red Cross through the
"showcase" camp and continued his job. He loved the distancing euphemisms that were
common in the SS and Nazi party when referring to the medical torture and the mass
executions of millions of people, and which were developed to prevent the association of
the current actions with murder. Like many bureaucrats who order men into combat, he
never saw combat and cringed at the sight of blood (1963). The SS executioners,
however, did have psychological stress reactions, and at least a few ultimately committed
suicide out of guilt (MacNair, 2005).
Identifying Disobedience
Despite a much stronger air of authority than a heretofore unknown generic-
looking scientist, men in combat are ordered to kill by commanders they have known for
weeks, months, or years. They have been in the military chain of command. They have
drilled to obey. They have trained to act. They are aware of consequences of not acting.
And still, many disobey direct orders to fire weaponry.
We do not know what to make of these men who are acting naturally but who are
dangerous to themselves and their fellow warriors and who are very difficult to identify
ahead of time. At Gettysburg, men leveled their muskets and fired simultaneously. It is
obvious to anyone watching if a man does not load or level. In the thunder and cloud of
smoke, it is not easy to determine who, if any, held their fire. In controlled conditions,
the matter would be a simple one: examine the muskets for presence of heat and residue.
In combat, there is no time. In the trenches of World War I at Christmas, 1917, men on
opposing sides agreed to aim away from each other (Weintaub, 2002). In this case, the
officers had no way to find and prove which men deliberately botched their shots.
Cooperation was evident on a large scale. In controlled conditions, the angle of the barrel
and three-dimensional modeling of each individual rifle would determine who correctly
aimed their fire. In combat, there were neither the tools nor the time.
A predetermined decision not to kill can have negative consequences on one’s
unit. Mansfield describes a corporal who has made a decision based on ideology that she
will not kill. However, “Her commanders assume she will stand her post and fire when
ordered. But she says privately that she will not, and lives will be risked” (2005, p. 69-
70).
The decision to kill or not to kill reportedly causes more disobedience and more
mental trauma and stress than any other factor in combat. It is routinely described as the
most fearful or stressful part of a soldier’s life. It is also one of the most overlooked areas
of study.
Obedience
Classic Studies in Obedience
Studies suggest that men do not always obey orders, even legitimate ones from
respected authority figures, and they do not always obey the specific order to kill an
enemy. By necessity, however, these studies have approached this question with other
questions, trying to approach one question that cannot be studied experimentally: how do
men react to a legitimate authority figure ordering them to kill?
Killing in combat, even firing a weapon in combat, is rare (most people in the
military have desk jobs or analyze satellite photos, for example), so the pool of potential
subjects is small for a post-event study. Survey work is difficult to perform during war,
and memory may be imperfect afterward (this is a main criticism of Marshall’s work).
Experimentation is either unethical or contrived.
Measuring obedience is also difficult, even in less important matter than a kill-no
kill decision. Marshall’s studies on firing relied on first-person, after-event reports, and
his studies’ faults will be looked into. Milgram’s studies were stilted in that many
subjects knew their obedience was being recorded. In a known experiment, people tend
to alter their behavior if they know they are being observed. So measuring obedience is
messy, in part because of the need to operationalize obedience (Nye, 1986).
S. Milgram’s studies showed that, with exceptions based on the exact situation,
men will obey orders to administer painful electric shocks to another man over screams
of pain and implications of death (1974). Milgram experimented with factors
contributing to this obedience: proximity of the authority figure, appropriate costume of
the authority figure, and distance of the victim were all positively correlated with
continuing to obey and administer shocks. This paper seeks to understand the
relationship between the subjects and the authority figures who order them to kill or risk
killing.
Milgram concluded that men would kill at the simple order of a superior officer or
at the order of a person who appeared to be above the subject in rank or position, though
they did often agonize about the decision. He did not examine whether subjects would
obey if there was doubt about whether the subject’s action would be reported to the
superior. Marshall said that only 25% of American soldiers would fire when presented
with a legitimate target and when they were capable of firing (2000). Military men like
Shalit are skeptical of this finding. Shalit, for example, believes that simply shooting
would be a powerful and cathartic response (1988) though men may not fire at the enemy.
However, Shalit, like many of Marshall’s critics, is not a combat soldier. Shalit serves in
the Israeli military as a psychologist; though he has witnessed combat once, he has never
participated (he asked to be allowed to follow along on a mission, but he did not act in a
combat role). He has never faced the choice of firing in combat. Like many people, he
has merely imagined what he would do. Believing the act of shooting to feel cathartic, he
assumes men will at least shoot away from the enemy for the sake of shooting. He does
not seem to realize that, even if shooting can be made harmless to the enemy, the act can
be tactically dangerous to oneself and one’s companions, giving away one’s position.
Shooting is not a neutral act.
Milgram studied simple obedience to authority. When Milgram had a generic
scientist order subjects to deliver painful electric shock to a confederate, subjects did,
initially. When it appeared that the confederate was experiencing a great deal of pain,
even claiming to be dying and apparently losing consciousness, most subjects continued
delivering shocks. They expressed their concern verbally, they sweated and appeared to
experience stress, but when they were told to continue and that they had no responsibility
for their actions (because the researcher explicitly claimed all responsibility), they
continued. Milgram examined this obedience to authority under many different
conditions. He observed that obedience rose in correlation with proximity of the
authority figure. Obedience also rose when more than one person was seeming to receive
the orders to shock, demonstrating a peer pressure effect similar to Marshall’s findings
about crew-manned weapons firing more reliably than individual weapons.
Critiquing Milgram
There were two holes in Milgram’s work. He did not examine the effect of the
perfect knowledge of the authority figure; the authority figure knew whether the subject
administered the shock, and the subject knew that the experimenter knew. In the real
world, actors may not know who is or is not observing or recording their actions.
Milgram also did not test the effect of incrementalism, for example, by asking a subject to
start with a strong shock rather than always starting with a weak shock. Theory suggests
that both effects are strong.
Milgram did not look at obedience under doubt that the authority figure knew
obedience was occurring. Put differently, the subject always believed (correctly) that the
scientist knew whether or not the subject was delivering the shock. The subject was
always in communication with the experimenter, and in some trials, the experimenter was
in the same room as the subject (Milgram, 1975). There was no way to feign obedience,
no way to collude with the confederate, no way to slip away unnoticed. Marshall also did
not look at the effect of the authority figure’s ability to verify obedience (though the type
of weapon fired often affected whether verification could occur: loud, crew-manned
weapons or flame-throwers, for example, are easy to verify on sight whether they are
being used while a single rifle in an entire company firing on an order is impossible).
The military changed its training programs to desensitize troops to killing enemy
troops. Methods included things like replacing the traditional paper targets with cabbages
with the top shaved off and the body of the vegetable filled with ketchup to show men
what it looked like when they actually killed someone (Grossman, 1996). Firing rates
increased to 60% in the Korean War and 90% in the Vietnam War. This statistic does not
represent accuracy, only firing rates. Needless to say, these statistics are easily
misinterpreted. Modern weapons are easier to fire, machine guns and fully automatic
weapons are more ubiquitous, and troops are encouraged to use ammunition.
American troops in the current Iraq conflict expend 250,000 rounds for every
rebel killed (Buncombe, 2007). In Vietnam, American troops fired 50,000 rounds for
every enemy killed. Much of this fire is likely cover fire, the result of weapons set to
automatic (so more than one round can be fired at each trigger pull), or intended to
distract rather than kill. The 250,000 figure is misleading, however, as it includes rounds
spent during training as well as combat, and the number of rebels killed is difficult to
verify (Buncombe, 2007).
Simultaneously, the American Army snipers in Vietnam prided themselves on
their low ratios of fire. With a stated goal of “one shot, one kill,” these snipers averaged
1.39 rounds fired per kill. A kill was only confirmed once an American soldier could
physically touch the dead target (Grossman, 1996). Snipers were and are of different
minds than regular infantry. They are more capable of dispassionate and confirmable
kills.
In combat, men can believe their superiors will have no way to know whether or
not they are obeying. Penalties for disobedience, however, range from chastisement to
execution by court martial. Milgram took care to avoid any suggestion of coercion,
making the exit door accessible and paying the subjects in advance. Milgram’s scientist
not only had perfect knowledge of the subjects’ behavior, which is the crucial factor, he
also lacked any credible enforcement tool. A subject who refused to administer shocks
was allowed to refuse three times on any given shock lever. Each refusal was met with a
scripted request to continue. Then the subject was allowed to leave. The Nazis in charge
of executing Jews and other undesirables were never coerced with threats against their
lives or livelihood, and many asked and were reassigned (Arendt, 1963).
Healing Trauma Caused by Killing
What is trauma?
Many aspects of war are traumatic. This paper focuses on the idea of killing in
combat as a traumatic experience. According to the DSM, a person has been exposed to a
traumatic event if both of the following were present:
1. the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that
involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical
integrity of self or others
2. the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: In
children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior
(http://www.psychologynet.org/ptsd.html, quoting the DSM-IV)

Cyrulnik's book The Whispering of Ghosts: Trauma and Resilience (2005)
attempts to create a working definition of trauma as it applies to abused children. Many
of his observations can be applied to adults as well, and the trauma can apply to aspects
of war. Trauma is by definition overwhelming and out of the scope of one's normal
experience. The experience, not the event, defines the trauma – what one person finds
traumatic may not be traumatic to another. One definition of trauma states that
“[psychological] trauma is a ‘painful experience, or shock, often producing a lasting
psychic effect’” (Neufeldt, 1988, p. 7). Fear is not trauma; and trauma generally must be
personal to be devastating. (Grossman, 2000).
How unusual does an event need to be to qualify as a trauma for purposes of
PTSD diagnosis? Davidson repeats the criteria from the DSM as an event “outside the
range of usual human experience” that is “markedly distressing to almost anyone.” He
lists three questions related to this definition: “which events are outside human
experience and markedly distressing to almost everyone?…There is no normative data on
how to categorize events….In defining unusualness it is important to distinguish between
societal and individual perspectives” (Davidson, 1991, p. 346). Shay (2002) asks, is war
too common? Is rape? Car accidents happen daily, though they may be rare to the
specific people involved. Genocide occurs daily. Some evidence shows PTSD
symptoms in divorced people, in abortion providers, and in animal researchers. Often,
only one killing out of many is eventful enough to be remembered and count as an
individual trauma. Are these events unusual enough to qualify as trauma? The DSM is
unclear, but if we assume that “unusual” refers to the events in a single person's life rather
than humanity as a whole, then war, divorce, and car accidents can be traumatic. Though
each is a daily world occurrence, a single person does not experience, for example, a car
accident every day. Further, McNally warns of “bracket creep” as the DSM broadens the
definition of trauma (2003, p 231). Trauma can be experienced second-hand by hearing
stories about an event. McNally warns that the diversity of events dilutes the usefulness
of the diagnosis and its standard treatment (2003).
Davidson reports that for some people, a divorce may lead to PTSD, and he
questions the elements of the DSM III’s definition of a traumatic event. He explains the
resulting dilemma: “On the one hand, we recognize that persons who manifest PTSD
symptoms must receive treatment regardless of how such symptoms were induced. On
the other hand, there is legitimate concern that the loosening of Criteria A [the definition
of traumatic event] may lead to widespread and frivolous use of the concept” (Davidson,
1991, p. 347).
Trauma in War
Being in war is undeniably stressful, as evidenced by recorded rates of psychiatric
casualties. A psychiatric casualty is “a combatant who is no longer able to participate in
combat due to a mental (as opposed to physical) debilitation” (Grossman, 1999). During
World War II, the US had more psychiatric casualties than men killed in action (Baum,
2004).
During WWI, almost two million Americans were sent to Europe to fight. Over
116,000 were killed in battle. Over 204,000 were wounded. And 106,000 were admitted
to hospitals for psychiatric reasons, with almost 70,000 unable to return to combat. Over
36,000 were hospitalized for weeks or months. Several hundred were executed for
cowardice that may have actually been PTSD (Brenan, 2006).

In WWII, over 1,393,000 men suffered debilitating psychiatric symptoms that
required them to be away from their posts and hospitalized for some period of time. In
the Army alone, 504,000 men were permanently removed from combat for psychiatric
reasons. Another 596,000 were gone for weeks or months but eventually returned to
combat. Witnessing combat was not a necessary factor to becoming a psychiatric
casualty. During the four years of war, no more than 800,000 ground soldiers saw direct
combat. Of these, 37.5% were permanently discharged while 74% were lost for weeks or
months for psychiatric reasons but eventually returned to combat. The overlap accounts
for soldiers who were treated but ultimately discharged. “It was not only the ‘weak’ or
the cowardly that were cracking under the strain of war,” Gabriel concludes in his
summary of the statistics (1987, p. 74).
The Korean War produced fewer psychiatric casualties, probably due to the
deployment of medical psychiatric teams to battle zones and stable battle lines. Still,
more men were admitted to psychiatric hospitals (over 48,000) than were killed by the
enemy (over 33,000), and almost half of the number wounded (over 103,000). Of the 1.5
million men who served in Korea, only 198,000 men saw combat. While 17% were
killed, 24% required psychiatric treatment for some duration of time. In Vietnam, 16% of
the combat force was killed while 13% became psychiatric casualties (p. 75-6). Gabriel
claims between half a million and 1.5 million service members of the total 2.8 million
service members who served in Vietnam have PTSD. Early in the Vietnam war,
psychiatric evacuations accounted for 6% of medical evacuations, but by the end
accounted for 50% (Gabriel, 1987) (What changed? Social acceptance, most likely).
On the whole, psychiatric casualties were fewer during Vietnam because of the
shorter duration of tours and the fact that soldiers could utilize repression until back home
(McNally, 2003). McFall also notes that veterans are at increased risk for suicide and
substance abuse the more combat exposure they had (1991). It is unclear whether these
men are risk takers and thus sought both combat and drugs or if one led to the other.
Psychiatric debilitation manifests as extreme mental or physical fatigue. It can
progress to psychotic dissociation, conversion hysteria (an inability to function, often
accompanied by amnesia and convulsions), anxiety, obsession and compulsion, and
character disorders like depression, anxiety, schizoid traits, isolation, and so on, possibly
culminating in a complete alteration of the soldier’s personality (Gabriel, 1987).
Compared to other professions, veterans suffer PTSD at a rate similar to others in
“at risk” roles. Cobb and Cobb summarize some recent studies:
• 20% of firefighters suffer PTSD,
• 25% of the victims of violent crime and rape,
• 25% of American combat soldiers in the Vietnam War,
• 65% of soldiers in the heaviest combat,
• 50% of prisoners of war,
• 50% of wartime refugees, and
• 60% of those who survive catastrophic natural disasters
(Cobb and Cobb, 2005).
In addition to combat intensity, killing correlated positively with PTSD. MacNair
explained the results of the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment study for the
question, “did you ever kill or do you think you might have killed someone in or around
Vietnam?” She found “soldiers who said they had killed seemed much more likely to
suffer psychological harm than those who said they had not, regardless of the battle
intensity both groups had experienced” (Paynter, 2004).
Experiences are varied. Wessely (2005) says, “War provides an exaggerated,
perhaps extreme, version of the entire range of human experience … There is no single
‘experience of war’” (1999, p. 495). At the same time, the elements of war are very
different for different people. The Vietnam War had very different effects on the men in
the Pentagon compared to the men in the rice paddies. The war was different even for the
base camp compared to outposts. At least one study concludes that bodily injury is a risk
factor for PTSD, though perceived threat is also predictive of the disorder (Koren, 2005).
Stress occurs more permanently if killing is internalized as traumatic. If the
killings are not legitimized, then immediate combat stress reaction or PTSD has a greater
chance of occurring. Betrayal by authority figures can destroy social trust and compound
the problems of PTSD and other combat trauma disorders (Shay, 2002). Much of this
betrayal is housed in a lack of “un-training;” in the words of one combat medic,
“Psychologically and socially…’many of us aren’t home yet’” (Shay, 2002, p. 1). This
removal can be shocking, and as discussed, it was more shocking for Vietnam veterans
than for WWII veterans. Shepherd quotes, “When men return home, ‘the military code
and superimposed group conscience, which gave permission to kill and destroy under
certain circumstances, was quickly dissipated and replaced by the civilian morale and
conscience, which places sharp limits on such impulses. Under such circumstances,
conflict and guilt were quickly generated and difficult to master’” (2000, p. 371).
Diagnosable stress disorders can develop, particularly PTSD, which is a
lengthened and intense anxiety state that lasts long after the troop is removed from
combat. But there are no standard criteria, so most war-related psychic injuries are
labeled “combat stress reactions” (N. Milgram, 1986, p. 106) at least in the Israeli
military, and there is little reason to think things would be different in other Western
military cultures.
Shay proposes that killing as trauma occurs largely as a result of betrayal of
individual or ideological values by the military authorities. The betrayal of values and
the lack of training to accomplish ordered tasks are both failed responsibilities of the
authority figures (Shay, 2003). He points out that “Psychiatric and physical battle
casualties rise and fall together. The more war wounds in the body, the more mind
wounds. This has been observed among American troops in World War II and among
Israelis in the Yom Kippur War” (Shay, 2002, p. 205).
Exposure to combat correlates significantly with PTSD, according to McFall et.
al. (1991). Combat exposure was measured with the Revised Combat Scale, a test with
high internal consistency and external validity, which asked Vietnam veterans about
combat experiences, from the less risky “flew aircraft over Vietnam” to the more risky
“engaged the enemy in a firefight” (1991, p. 34). Veterans with combat exposure scored
more highly on measures of PTSD. This variable was more critical in predicting PTSD
than age of the experience, duration of service, and physical injury. Unfortunately, this
study did not ask about kills, only combat experience. Still, the single most traumatic
aspect of combat seems to be the act of killing.

I can speculate as to the lack of questions about killing. Grossman theorizes that
not killing is something soldiers would want to hide. He does not go so far as to agree
with British field marshal Evelyn Wood that “in war only cowards need lie” (1996, p.
31). An American Army staff sergeant in the current Iraq conflict was disturbed by the
sight of a dead body and asked to return to the US. He was charged with “cowardly
conduct,” though the charges were later dropped (Baum, 2004). Grossman does not
consider all non-firers cowards. But among the general population, and even within the
military, there is a general sense that not to kill is to yield to cowardice, and perhaps a
reluctance to force individuals or institutions to face this has lead to a dearth of questions
about individual kills.
Trauma of Killing
The overwhelming evidence, from surveys of men currently in combat,
archeological evidence post-combat, and VA psychological patients, implies that the
largest trauma is killing. Tony Patterson, a 15-year police officer, says, "Pulling the
trigger is the easy part. It's making the decision to shoot that's hard" (as cited in Artwohl,
1997, p. 139). Rare is the person who brags about killing, even among those who avoid
PTSD. Sociopaths are rare and are shunned in nearly all social environments.
Training for military and police seems to avoid the issue of killing, so the
"instructors talk about shooting people, but they don't really talk about it. No one tells
you what it's like to thrust a gun at a human being, feel the steel explode in your hand,
and watch the human crumple to the floor. No one tells you what it's like to see him
writhe and scream and bleed and die. No one tells you what it's like to know that you
caused that" (emphasis in original, Artwohl, 1997, p. 3).

And killing is easier when one does not see the people killed - pilots are less
likely to report symptoms of PTSD than ground troops. It seems that the trauma from
killing comes from the social factors involved, specifically, how close and humanized the
killing victim is to the killer, physically and socially. The closer they are, the more
intimate the kill, the more traumatic the event. Grossman claims psychiatric casualties
among naval combatants are almost nonexistent because the sailor rarely sees the people
he kills. Conversely, medics typically do not suffer psychiatrically even though they take
many of the same risks of injury or death as the common infantry, because they are not
obligated to do harm (1996). Gabriel showed that during both world wars, prisoners of
war did not suffer psychiatric casualties from artillery attack, but their enemy guards did
(1987). The guards were in a position of responsibility, while the prisoners were not.
Grossman cites this (1996) and explained that the prisoners had no control over their
situation; their living or dying was up to the guards. The guards, meanwhile, were
crushed under the burden of responsibility of their own, their companions', and their
prisoners' lives. Self-selection may also account for this correlation.
Post-Trauma
An end to the trauma itself is not enough to cure the damage done. Meaning must
be assigned to it so the mind can go on functioning, and that meaning can either be
appropriate and healthy or inappropriate. After the initial trauma, removal from the
situation can exacerbate the symptoms or it may leave them constant, but removal from
trauma is not enough to treat combat stress. Cyrulnik references Vietnam veterans
returning to the US and being "rejected" and called "shameful criminals" (2005, p. 43).
This can turn the trauma the soldiers had experienced in combat into a recurring, mental
trauma, especially if figures representing authority do not offer support to counter this
ostracism.
Cyrulnik claims that the initial trauma must be healed (if the trauma is physical),
and then the "representation" of the trauma, the memory of the trauma, must be addressed
and healed. And when this secondary healing does not seem to happen fast enough, the
victim may be blamed by those trying to help him or her. Behaviors that were adaptive
during the trauma can become maladaptive. Soldiers may develop symptoms of hyper
arousal or obsessive compulsive behavior. Defense mechanisms can be constructive or
destructive, both during the initial trauma and dealing with the trauma afterwards. One
societal defense mechanism is to create heroes to be venerated in order to "legitimate
violence" (sic) so that those living can believe they are fighting for something greater
than themselves (Cyrulnik, 2005, p. 131). The horrors a soldier has gone through are
made into something positive.
Finally, Cyrulnik notes that most cultures have some sort of "initiation" rite as a
child passes into adulthood. Combat can serve as this rite of passage and often does, in
many cultures. But if the remembrance of the trauma or combat is changed by internal or
external forces, the initiation can stop suddenly, leaving a person between life stages and
often thus suffering mental distress of some sort. As part of combat is the return home,
this event aborted can be evidenced in many modern wars. For example, when Vietnam
veterans returned home alone (not with their units), they developed maladaptive coping
strategies, and they were denied the closure of the initiation rite.
Killing Can Cause PTSD

Fontana has published a series of studies looking at psychological effects of
traumatic exposure during war. He is unique in that, in most of his studies, he separates
killing or perpetrating the trauma from other kinds of trauma like witnessing death or
coming under enemy fire. He points out that being the target of an attack or attempted
killing makes a person significantly more likely to develop PTSD (Fontana, 1992).
However, the same study showed that attempting to kill or actually killing made a person
significantly more likely to develop general psychiatric distress and attempt suicide. He
focuses on the degree of personal responsibility. He determined that being a perpetrator
of an attack or failing to protect fellow troops made larger, more significant contributions
to negative psychiatric measures (hyperarousal, intrusion, PTSD, and general psychiatric
distress) than being a target or observer of war violence. In particular, being an agent of
injury or death or failing to prevent the injury or death of a comrade is more significantly
correlated to suicide than experiencing war more passively. Passive trauma, Fontana
concludes, is more likely to lead to PTSD alone, while active war trauma leads to more
general distress and suicide (1992). A later study confirmed the important role of killing
in the development of PTSD. This study even suggested that killing had a significant role
in PTSD while committing wartime atrocities did not (1999).
Another study of veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam contains this
simple statement: "This role [the act of killing] was related significantly to all [negative]
symptom categories in all cohorts, suggesting that responsibility for killing another
human being is the most pervasive, traumatic experience of war" (Fontana, 1994, p. 30).
Less intense but still significant are the experience of being a target of killing and
participating in abusive violence. Being a target of violence is the only role found to
have no significant relation to attempted suicide. Hedges, on the other hand, claims
suicide is a natural desire after combat, though he cites no statistics and no discussion of
combatants versus observers (2003). Estimating and counting suicides are nearly
impossible tasks, though Shay believes that twice as many Vietnam veterans have died by
suicide than were killed by the enemy (Shay, 2002). He blames the lack of social
cohesion among veterans after the war that made coping with war-related trauma
difficult.
Prevalence of Treatment
Veterans with PTSD are not getting the treatment they need. Iverson, et. al.,
(2005) look at the treatment experiences of returning British personnel from the Iraq
conflict and found that, while one third of the sample self-reported psychiatric difficulty,
only half of those reported seeking help. Of those seeking help, 72% were being treated
by a primary care physician while only 7% were being treated by psychiatrists. “Those
with alcohol dependence (70% in treatment) and PTSD (73% in treatment) were less
likely to be treated than those with depression (76%)” (p. 483). Further, PTSD is often
comorbid with other disorders like depression or anxiety disorders (Iverson, 2005).
McFall notes that 60-80% of Vietnam veterans have PTSD coupled with substance abuse
problems. McFall also notes that PTSD, not combat exposure, is a more significant
predictor of substance abuse (1992).
Further, the VA seems to try to avoid the issue of what men do during war.
Grossman notes Marin and other have observed what he has, namely that the VA treats
“the vet’s problems in adjustment” rather than deeper issues such as guilt (1996, p. 96).
Most importantly, the VA often does not offer treatment until acute trauma has developed
into full PTSD. Baum spoke with the wife of a soldier returning from Iraq. She claims
the VA told her that readjustment would be difficult and possibly violent: “They had a
lady come from the psych ward, who said – and I’m serious – ‘Don’t call us … unless he
actually chokes you, unless you pass out. He’ll have flashbacks. It’s normal’” (Baum,
2004). Hopefully, this story exaggerates the VA’s attitude toward soldiers developing
PTSD. But trauma ignored and untreated can develop into mental illness. There is a role
for preemptive intervention.
Responsibility of authority
The military must convince its men to kill and should take responsibility to teach
them how to come to terms with killing. In not doing so, in teaching men to kill but not
to cope with the consequences, the military may be inflicting a great deal of psychiatric
damage on these troops. “Training which drills soldiers on how to kill without explaining
to them why it is morally permissible for them to do so is harmful to them, yet that is the
current norm,” (Kilner, 2000). This damage and guilt can manifest itself through PTSD
and PITS or as more generalized stress disorders. It might be possible to prevent
psychiatric casualties through training and inoculation. Kilner believes that military
leaders need to justify killing to their soldiers, and that this justification will prevent the
guilt that can cause so much hurt (Kilner, 2000).
Sometimes the effects emerge later as posttraumatic stress disorder. PTSD is a
lengthened and intense anxiety state that lasts long after the soldier is removed from
combat. PTSD is more common when the trauma is intense and caused by humans,
especially if one can see the humans causing the trauma.

Overreacting to a one-time (or brief) trauma is the root of PTSD – a person
continues to feel the unwanted and now unnecessary arousal associated with the situation,
and he responds by repressing memories or avoiding thoughts and places associated with
the traumatic memory. Personal control over a situation can help prevent PTSD. This
control fails periodically, resulting in nightmares and unwanted thoughts. But if a person
is immunized against the trauma, if he knows what to expect and how to cope in situ, the
trauma does not have the chance to become PTSD. Even though much of the process is
automatic, Grossman has devised ways to, for example, control physical arousal by
controlling breathing. His method of breath control, now taught to SWAT teams and
police departments as well as Green Berets, keeps the automatic arousal from occurring
and thus inoculates a person against PTSD. Grossman credits Calibre Press and Gary
Klugiewicz for developing and communicating the tool (2004, p. 322), and he reports a
great deal of anecdotal praise for the technique from SWAT officers and Green Berets he
has trained.
Unlearning Killing
Unlearning killing is not a subject often taught by the military, but it should be.
Just as soldiers learn how to act when deployed, they can be trained in how to return
home to civilian life. Veterans returning home need to unlearn aspects of combat training
like hypervigilance as well as deal with the trauma and stress they may have witnessed
and experienced. This may require a paradigm shift in military training, but the change
will be no greater than the change encouraged by Marshall, who made soldiers more
reliable and thus more effective riflemen. End training could be provided like basic
training, as a reverse boot camp or halfway house. The Israeli military has found this to
be effective (Gabriel, 1987).
Debriefing has been shown to be purifying and to decrease the likelihood of
PTSD, particularly group debriefing (Grossman, 2000). Grossman says counseling
works for two main reasons: “you are only as sick as your secrets” (2001) and “pain
shared is pain divided” (1996, xxxi). Debriefing is a kind of group counseling. Most
societies have a kind of purification ritual after killing or after combat before welcoming
the person back. Debriefing can serve that purpose, and the military should work to
discover the best way it can be implemented.
Many veterans who kill are unwilling to talk about it. Grossman relates a
discussion with one such veteran who “talked freely about his experiences and about
comrades who had been killed. But when I asked him about his own kills, he stated that
usually you couldn’t be sure who it was that did the killing. … ‘But the one time I was
sure…’ and then his sentence was stopped by a little sob… And he would not speak of it
again” (Grossman, 1996, p. 89). Another claimed that half of the worst of Vietnam was
killing; the other half was coming home and “nobody understood” (Grossman, 1996, p.
250).
Reintegrating into society
Grossman (1996) claims that increased killing rates comes at the cost of the
psychiatric health of the troops, and MacNair (2005) notes that perpetration-induced
PTSD is largely ignored in the psychological community. The intense psychological
preparations that are necessary and mandated for war now are impossible to simply shrug
off when a service member flies home. Having only been taught to kill and not how to
cope with the killing, the trauma remains, especially when the soldier knows he or she is
responsible for the killing.
Gabriel observes that “Societies have always recognized that war changes men,
that they are not the same after they return . . . When soldiers are denied these
[purification and homecoming] rituals, they often tend to be emotionally disturbed”
(Gabriel, quoted in Grossman, 1996, p. 272). Although society denied soldiers the open
homecoming rituals for Vietnam veterans, the ultimate responsibility for absolution lies
with the authority figures that sent the soldiers to war. Grossman quotes Army Chaplain
Maj. Mark Nordstrom, “[The soldiers] want to know what they’re doing is right, and why
it’s right. I thought soldiers had already made up their minds on that. But I guess when
you kill enemy soldiers by the hundreds, they want to make sure’” (Grossman, 2003).
Opportunities For Psychologists
Opportunities for psychologists in this field include the chance to study decision
making in extreme situations as well as the need to help overcome the detrimental effects
of trauma and PTSD in those who kill with the permission and encouragement of the
state and society.
A great deal of data could be gathered about related fields such as decision
making, stress, emotion and predicting emotion, obedience, responses to authority, and
real life game theory on micro and macro levels. More obviously, military psychologists
could benefit from a better understanding of trauma of killing, both to encourage military
personnel to kill when appropriate and to heal psyches broken by the potential for trauma.
Grossman points to similarities between modern military training and simulation-war
video games that lack the “safeguards” the military put in place, like the obedience to
superior officers and instruction not to kill civilians, and he suggests a causal relationship
between perpetrating violence in video games and perpetrating violence in real life (1996,
p. 260).
Obedience Studies
The order to kill a human being is perhaps the most dramatic order one can
receive. It is, then, the ultimate test of obedience to see if a man will obey. There is an
understandable absence of data on the question of man killing man. Social scientists can
fill this void with survey work. Men who kill are often traumatized by the event or at
least want to pretend to society that they are not practiced killers. Society does not
condone killing, except in very constrained situations, and prefers to pretend killing
occurs reluctantly, quietly, and cleanly. Studies are difficult to conduct. However, N.
Milgram claims that, given the huge numbers of people involved in the large number of
wars even in the past century, “There is only a lack of scientific interest and motivation
on the part of scientists and universities and in the nonmilitary sector to raise the
questions and to search for answers” (1986, p. xxiv).
Aggression
One can imagine little behavior more aggressive than killing, especially killing
during war. Wars are aggressive and defensive. But few studies of aggression have
tackled behavior during war. Sociologists have studied entire militaries, and geographers
have traced which countries control which lands and which times, but little work has
been done to study the act of individuals in combat, and whether what appears to be
aggressive governmental action filters down to individuals or whether individuals are
made aggressive by the live-or-die situation.

Decision Making
Given that men fire weapons more easily when pressured by peers or authority
and tend not to fire when alone or unwatched, what are the implications for freedom of
choice? Game theory explains much of the behavior of WWI soldiers in the trenches
during the Christmas Truce (Axelrod, 2006). Game theorists will benefit from more
knowledge about how people act when they design players for their games.
A Better Understanding of Trauma of Killing – PTSD and PITS
MacNair (2005) identified the diagnosis of Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress
disorder and is actively encouraging its adoption into the DSM. PITS requires the subject
to have been active, not passive, in the traumatic stressor. MacNair admits this disorder
is still in the “hypothesis” stage (2005, p. 1).
Practically, this diagnosis would allow many veterans with traumatic stress
disorders to receive treatment despite not falling under PTSD diagnostic categories.
More research should be done to determine the legitimacy of this disorder and what
practical effect it would have both on the fundamental understanding of trauma (can
trauma be perpetrated or only received?) and on the medical treatment of veterans.
Improving Military Training
Current training does not address traumatic stress, and current debriefing does not
address post-traumatic stress. Further research, with military access, could identify these
weaknesses and potentially immunize service members to certain types of expected
trauma. Or debriefing could be made more effective, so acute stress does not become
chronic.
There have been limited attempts to do so. At least one Marine chaplain is
encouraging distribution of the book Courage After Fire (2005) as a tool for dealing with
post-traumatic stress. Others have tried to raise money to distribute the book Down
Range: To Iraq and Back (2005). However, efforts like these have been grassroots
(personal email, 2007). Some people are concerned about helping veterans reframe
PTSD as a normal reaction to combat and not an illness (Blackfive.net, 2007)
Psychologists have largely stepped up to give post-trauma counseling to people
grieving after September 11, Hurricane Katrina, and even the 2004 election (Powers,
2004); psychologists should also help men and women who have faced the decision of
killing in service of their country. However, the effectiveness of such intervention is
unclear and may actually make people more traumatized. Wessley says there is no
evidence that a “single-session psychological debriefing” does any good and in fact
seems to cause harm (2005, p. 462). He suggests that the quick and routine response of
mental health professionals to disaster sites “impedes the normal ways in which we deal
with adversity… and instead professionalizes distress” (p. 462). But intervention of
longer duration can and should be refined with further practice and study.
Improving Untraining
War is an unfortunate but seemingly permanent part of human existence.
Psychology owes its expertise to the men and women who serve, particularly those who
suffer psychiatric damage as a result of their service. Psychology can offer much to
improve the training and the “untraining” of warriors. But first, the field of psychology
needs to better understand these warriors and the training and experiences they have been
put through. Much of the research described above is incomplete and not as rigorous as
the science should demand.
In addition, this decision of whether to kill an unknown person at the request of an
authority figure is intriguing from the viewpoint of so many aspects of psychology. This
question seems to be the extreme example of obedience, authority, stress, trauma, and
social psychology. Studying war does not mean advocating war. Psychology has studied
uncomfortable, politically charged topics before, and still remained impartial, with the
goals of understanding humans and improving lives.
The ugly aspects of war are not a deterrent; rather, people affected by war need
the expertise and the steady eyes of psychologists more than ever. With such high rates
of PTSD in veterans, veterans seem an ideal population, for example, to study the nature
of trauma, especially since the traumatic stimuli (war) is already known and identifiable,
though pre-existing conditions in soldiers will still need to be controlled for.
Further, developments in this area can also apply to other people who show signs
of perpetration-induced trauma, like police officers, abortion providers, and animal
researchers. There is evidence that people who euthanize animals in shelters and
laboratories can display perpetration-induced stress (Rohlf and Bennett, 2005). Women
who have abortions may develop a kind of PITS currently called Post Abortion
Syndrome, and providers may suffer traumatic stress as well (Shockley, 2005). One
study of PITS in battered women found that those women who ultimately kill their
abusers are more likely to suffer traumatic stress than those who do not kill their abusers
(Hohnecker, 1995). All of these studies, even collectively, are far from conclusive, and
the subject becomes very politically charged. Perhaps the agency of the sufferer is
irrelevant. Perhaps, however, agency is a key component of the trauma that must be
addressed in treatment. Only future research will tell. I must note, again, that perpetrated
trauma is not necessarily bad; that abortion doctors suffer PITS is not a clear call to bar
abortion, and that infantry servicemen suffer PITS is not a clear call to wage war only
from 40,000 feet in an insulated airplane. If PITS is as widespread as it seems, benefits
of developing a treatment are great indeed.
Conclusion
The field of killology is vast and understudied, but its importance is rapidly
coming to bear. Current geopolitical conflicts mean many men and women will see
combat and face the decision to kill or not to kill. Governments will always seek to use
their citizens as pragmatically as possible. Psychology researchers and mental health
experts can step in to both learn more about the human mind and to prevent, as much as
possible, psychic trauma from occurring, and then healing the trauma that remains.
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Killing in Combat:The Decision to Kill in Legitimate Combat Situations (a topic

Thesis · January 2007

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Running Head: KILLING IN COMBAT

The Decision to Kill in Legitimate Combat Situations

Janine Peterson Wonnacott

Catholic University of America

Topic Paper Approval

The Catholic University of America

Name: Janine Peterson Wonnacott

M.A. Program: MA Psychology

Title of Paper: The Decision to Kill in Legitimate Combat Situations

Approved: __________________________ ______________

who do not kill.

Grossman (1996) founded the field of killology as a study of a person killing

legitimate civilian self-defense, criminal homicide, and state-sanctioned executioners

would all make interesting and correlating studies.

importance to the newly identified fields of sexology and suicidology.

disorders like PTSD in the perpetrator.

Humans are reluctant to kill other humans

evidence of innate human resistance to killing other humans.

with their tails.

Darwin’s expression, “the struggle for existence” as “sometimes erroneously interpreted

their lessened lethality compared to longbows or trebuchets, guns became a powerful

battlefield” (Grossman, 1996, p.9). A man with an accurate longbow is intimidated by

who could not shoot could still act as support.

Archeological evidence suggests humans limit the accuracy or frequency of their

circumstantial. Many hunter/gatherer tribes deliberately weaken their weapons before

opportunity to avoid it.

Survey / Experimental Evidence

Grossman claims that Marshall’s findings have been replicated so thoroughly,

the first place.

Unfortunately, scientifically valid studies and surveys only tangentially address

(Baum, 2004). No question is asked about personal kills. So unfortunately, many

inferences about the history of decision to kill must be approached indirectly.

The Decision to Kill

Some decide instantaneously as the opportunity appears, without conscious thought.

Overcoming Natural Resistance

weapons, where the social pressure is greater to act.

perfection in drilling, what he calls "fighting," seemed unrelated to "soldiering" in battle.

in the heat of battle.

Personal ideology. In order to convince men to fight, governments have generally

always an ideology behind military-backed killing. Mead described several types of

once America becomes convinced of something, she is difficult to un-convince. America

its Scotch-Irish roots (2002).

cases) severe injury.

firing” (2005, p. 42).

Proper manipulation of peer pressure on the part of officers can encourage

individual’s psychological well-being. However, individual attraction to the task and

“Man is not a killer, but the group is” (1967).

soldiers to be stronger peers.

An officer in combat is typically authorized to use force to gain obedience. Many

commander. A criticism causes more than embarrassment. It could haunt him

execution). There are explicit and long-lasting consequences to refusing to obey a

There are many other mechanisms of enforcing or encouraging obedience.

Authority is a powerful psychological pressure on troops to kill. S. Milgram

"It was possible to evade a commission by an application for transfer. To be sure, in

"abusing his 'obedience'" (p. 175).

shortage of manpower. Nye describes a captain explaining the process of developing a

maintenance, or lack of proper combat training (Hackworth, 1989).

Becoming Resistant to Killing

acceptance of the war and the tactics.

imagery of a successful kill.

Approved: ____________