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Molding a person into a soldier ready to kill on command...
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Have to agree with BoberFett here, the OP is one of the most assinine pieces of drivel this side of the P&N that I've read in a long time. No one in basic training in the Army is "brainwashed" or "programmed" to be a killer, no one. Yes, we shoot at targets that bear a human silhouette, however, it's made absolutely clear that killing is a final resort.
Based on your OP, every single person who leaves Army basic training should immediately start killing people over the most minor infractions and that simply does not happen. The armed forces in general likely have a lower murder rate than many other groupings of people that you could compare to.
As a solider, killing is about discipline, NOT brainwashing. It's about protecting the people who have lived a life similar to yours, NOT about some evil, merciless portrayal of an enemy as yelled at you by some mean 'ole drill sergeant as you imply. I suggest you attend basic training or the closest possible thing to it to experience it before you start talking $hit about it.
This is the part where you say, "No one tells me what to do..." or "I could handle it, but I don't want to..." but truth be told, you don't have the stomach for it. It is one of the greatest accomplishments most people will ever live for.
BoberFett
Lifer
Damn straight. I survived - hell, I excelled in BT - and it was one of the best things I've ever done. Ultimately the army and I didn't get along too well and I never re-upped after my initial enlistment, but I'm glad I did it.
Of course, I'm just a brainwashed killing machine now, so what do I know. 😉
FeuerFrei
Diamond Member
Exactly. You have to be disciplined in order to do your job under severe stress and danger. Can't have soldiers freaking out when their buddies die and forget their role. You really do have to be mentally tough in order to survive in conditions where the average person would crumble and start making stupid decisions.
Sometimes you have be prepared to kill for peace. That's all there is to it.
0roo0roo
No Lifer
he's a tad simplistic. you say brainwashed i say prepared. you can't lump the two together though. jihadi suicide bombers are brainwashed. american marines are prepared. just as tiger woods is mentally and physically prepared to perform when required, but he's not "brainwashed". its a tad condescending.
No matter what you think, it's not drivel that I'm just conjuring up. Many people believe this, including members of your own army, members from other armies (N. Korea, China, etc), researchers who join the military for the sole purpose of gathering information, etc.
It is irrelevant that I haven't been through basic training, or held a gun and had someone shooting at me (well, I've been shot at - but not in a war), because there are people from the inside who will/have testify/testified that the things I'm saying are very true.
thirdlegstump
Banned
It's better to love and promote peace than to hurt someone.
And I contest that they went into it with a head filled with ideas already or they simply are not suited for the environment, which happens and is fine with me.
I take exception as well with your claim that you've studied this, otherwise you would know that you're flat out wrong. No one, I mean no one is brainwashed. They are taught discipline and how to follow commands and how to make snap decisions in life or death situations. That's no different than any agency which deals in such matters. Firemen, police officers, construction workers, they all deal with some degree of training and discipline which trains them to make the hard, fast decisions that involve life or death.
Look at it this way, American soldiers (I can't speak for other militaries, I'm not in those) are the best fighting forces in the world because they are permitted to make their own decisions within the parameters given to them. They can even do so without orders or commands because everyone is essentially trained identically. Often times liberal minded people (not necessarily in the political realm) have the belief that if everything was it's own thing, if everything were just allowed to "be" that the world would be harmonious. Truth be told, it would be somewhat chaotic. Order and discipline are necessary in a society to some degree and the military reasons that it's more important where life and death are concerned.
If you want to do some psychology research on the topic, I mean really dig into it, start looking at studies where family members do extraordinary things to save the lives of those they love. Start looking at the physiological effects of extreme stress, physical exhaustion, chemical variations under both circumstances and the relationships involved when those three come together. I've seen people who would absolutely HATE eachother as civilians come together and do extraordinary things through the use of discipline, stress and training. You might infer or otherwise gloss over the achievement and say they were programmed that way, I'm here to tell you that you're absolutely wrong where the American military is concerned and your entire logic on the matter is flawed.
Good researchers immerse themselves in the environment to understand from the inside how it functions before they step outside to take a look, you're standing outside and looking down on something having never seen the inside. That's not to say you should join the military, or that you can't understand it without having served, it simply says that you haven't spent enough time around soldiers to understand. I'll offer you the same gesture I've offered some of the clowns in P&N when they try to generalize about our military members, come visit. My e-mail address in my profile is real. If you're ever out in Kansas and you're driving east on I-70 toward Kansas City, think about e-mailing me for a tour of the installation I work at. I'd be more than happy to introduce you to some of the most intelligent, hard working people you will ever meet, anywhere in this country. They're proud to do what they do, day and night and they don't mind sharing the experience. It's an open offer, really, it is.
Brutuskend
Lifer
I can say that Marine boot camp is a total mind fvck. And you get college psychology credits just for finishing. Is it wrong, IMO yes, but it's also necessary.
No, education can create the problem, too.
What do you think the idiots in class are going to do when they see that they cannot compete with the smarter kids? Do you think they'll sit there and be defeated, or do you think they'll try to win some other way, maybe by beating the other kids up?
Human instinct is to compete and survive by any means necessary. If we can't win one way, we'll adapt and try to win another way. We don't just roll over and accept defeat.
We live in a competitive world, get used to it. Don't fall for the hyper-liberal utopian dream that people are trying to brainwash into kids on California playgrounds... "Don't play tag, it's hurtful!"
Brutuskend
Lifer
I can't speak for other branches of the military, but in the Corps you ARE brainwashed!
First, if I am ever near Kansas maybe I'd stop by. I enjoy meeting new people and it makes trips into new places more exciting and you get to hear insight about the place from real people as opposed to a tour guide or notes in a guide book.
Second, I'm not generalizing to all members in all areas of the military. Generalizations to any extreme tend to not be an accurate reflection of what goes on.
With that said, the military is designed to be able to take a civilian and mould him/her to be able to kill. If you gave someone a gun and told them to kill the Iraqi on the other side of the hill because it was *suspected* he had ties to Al Queda, that person likely couldn't do it. A soldier likely could.
The military trains it's soldeirs to deal with extreme stress and make fast decisions. It's absolutely necessary or people will die in a large panic.
What the military also does is remove the things that can cause a person to feel remorseful and responsible for his actions.
Eg. Everyone is shaved and wears the same uniform. You can say that's about discipline, but another reason for this is it makes people feel anonymous. If a person feels they can't be caught or identified, they are much more likely to be able to do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
I'd also like you to read about this experiment (pay attention to the "Variations" section):
Stanley Milgram Experiment.
The military is designed for complience. That's not to say that the soldiers are ruthless and don't have feelings and morals, but rather they just do as they are told. Because of how they are trained, they are much less likely to disobey due to ethical reasons.
What I'm suggesting in my thread is, if you have to do this in order to have people carry out your orders, is what you're doing really the best thing?
When your objective is to win a war, then yes, it really is the best thing. There are lots of people in the world and only so much food/money to go around. This creates competition. Trying to remove competition from the world is an unrealistic utopian dream. Anyone with half a brain knows that it's not realistic. There will ALWAYS be someone who wants a little more than his neighbor, and at that point you have competition.
The Stanley Milgram Experiment bears little resemblance to a functional military, let's be honest here. I also contest, with real-world experience that a soldier cannot likely be "ordered" to kill someone which represents no real-immediate threat to them or the people they serve to protect. Yours is again a flawed analogy based on little real information. Here's real world account told to me by my brother, an Infantryman who served in the initial assault through Iraq in 2003.
He recounted how one morning they were sitting at their security checkpoint. He was the squad leader, so the checkpoint was essentially run by him. At one point he said an Iraqi man was carrying what was clearly marked as ammunition crates. Do you think based on training or commands that just ANY soldier would have shot and killed the man with little or no apparent threat to them? What, with all the training that an Infantryman has on how to best eliminate an enemy, do you think he and his troops did?
Truth be told, one soldier, who was particularly cruel even before military service was entered (based on his own childhood stories told to my brother and friends), asked my brother point blank, "Can I shoot him? He's carrying ammo." My brother said he just about knocked the kid out cold for asking the question. I know my brother, he's as mean as he has to be but as moral as they come. Did he kill people over there, yes, he did. Did he do it under command? Perhaps, but I know that he killed because it was a circumstance of "him or me" not some combatant commander shouting and pointing to people randomly in the area of battle shouting "KILL HIM!"
You also must realize that our military is more modern and better equipped than any military in the world, hands down. Our soldiers have a different psychological mindset today. They wear body armor which gives them the added luxury of thinking before they shoot for just a fraction longer, because they are confident that the weapon pointed their way at that split second will likely not kill them. The decision making process as a result of the technology they're given today makes them in many ways a smarter force, capable of more sound decisions under the most tense circumstances.
You simply can't point to a study done in the 60's after such a massive societal flux had occurred (Nazi socialism, communism spreading, nuclear proliferation, etc.) and say that that study applies today, it doesn't. Besides, any good psychology professor will tell you as well that ALL such research is flawed in one way or another. The best research is done by observing from within as an unknown collector of data as I stated. Hiring people off the street and implementing controls only injects flaws into the outcome one way or another.
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