dying, these stages are generally sequential but not necessarily universal. Thus, some individuals may skip certain stages, or blend them, or pass through them so fleetingly that they do not even acknowledge their presence.
Many veterans have told me that this process is similar to — but
The processes may be similar, but the emotional impact of these stages and the magnitude and intensity of the guilt involved in killing human beings are significantly different.[35]
The Concern Stage: “How Am I Going to Do?”
US Marine Sergeant William Rogel summed up the mixture of emotions. “A new man… has two great fears. One is — it’s probably an overriding fear — how am I going to do? — am I going to show the white feather? Am I going to be a coward, or am I going to be able to do my job? And of course the other is the common fear, am I going to survive or get killed or wounded?”
Holmes’s research indicates that one of the soldier’s first emotional responses to killing is a concern as to whether, at the moment of truth, he will be able to kill the enemy or will “freeze up” and “let his buddies down.” All of my interviews and research verify that these are deep and sincere concerns that exist on the part of most soldiers, and it must be remembered that only 15 to 20 percent of U.S. World War II riflemen went beyond this first stage.
Too much concern and fear can result in fixation, resulting in an obsession with killing on the part of the soldier.[36] This can also be seen in peacetime psychopathologies when individuals become fixated or obsessed with killing. In soldiers — and in individuals fixated with killing in peacetime — this fixation often comes to a conclusion through step two of the process: killing. If a killing circumstance never arises, individuals may continue to feed their fixation by living in a fantasy world of Hollywood- inspired killing, or they may resolve their fixation through the final stage, rationalization and acceptance.
The Killing Stage: “Without Even Thinking”
Two shots. Bam-bam. Just like we had been trained in “quick kill.” When I killed, I did it just like that. Just like I’d been trained. Without even thinking.
Usually killing in combat is completed in the heat of the moment, and for the modern, properly conditioned soldier, killing in such a circumstance is most often completed reflexively, without conscious thought. It is as though a human being is a weapon. Cocking and taking the safety catch off of this weapon is a complex process, but once it
Being unable to kill is a very common experience. If on the battlefield the soldier finds himself unable to kill, he can either begin to rationalize what has occurred, or he can become fixated and traumatized by his inability to kill.
The Exhilaration Stage: “I Had a Feeling of the Most Intense Satisfaction”
Combat Addiction… is caused when, during a firefight, the body releases a large amount of adrenaline into your system and you get what is referred to as a “combat high.” This combat high is like getting an injection of morphine — you float around, laughing, joking, having a great time, totally oblivious to the dangers around you. The experience is very intense if you live to tell about it.
Problems arise when you begin to want another fix of combat, and another, and another and, before you know it, you’re hooked. As with heroin or cocaine addiction, combat addiction will surely get you killed. And like any addict, you get desperate and will do anything to get your fix.
Jack Thompson, a veteran of close combat in several wars, warned of the dangers of combat addiction. The adrenaline of combat can be greatly increased by another high: the high of killing. What hunter or marksman has not felt a thrill of pleasure and satisfaction upon dropping his target? In combat this thrill can be greatly magnified and can be especially prevalent when the kill is completed at medium to long range.
Fighter pilots, by their nature, and due to the long range of their kills, appear to be particularly susceptible to such killing addiction. Or might it just be more socially acceptable for pilots to speak of it? Whatever the case, many do speak of experiencing such emotions. One fighter pilot told Lord Moran:
Once you’ve shot down two or three [planes] the effect is terrific and you’ll go on till you’re killed. It’s love of the sport rather than sense of duty that makes you go on.
And J. A. Kent writes of a World War II fighter pilot’s “wildly excited voice on the radio yelling [as he completes an aerial combat kill]: ‘Christ! He’s coming to pieces, there are bits flying off everywhere. Boy! What a sight!’”
On the ground, too, this exhilaration can take place. In a previous section we noted young Field Marshal Slim’s classic response to a World War I personal kill. “I suppose it is brutal,” he wrote, “but I had a feeling of the most intense satisfaction as the wretched Turk went spinning down.” I have chosen to name this the exhilaration phase because its most intense or extreme form seems to manifest itself as exhilaration, but many veterans echo Slim and call it simply “satisfaction.”
The exhilaration felt in this stage can be seen in this narrative by an American tank commander describing to Holmes his intense exhilaration as he first gunned down German soldiers: “The excitement was just fantastic… the exhilaration, after all the years of training, the tremendous feeling of lift, of excitement, of exhilaration, it was like the first time you go deer hunting.”
For some combatants the lure of exhilaration may become more than a passing occurrence. A few may become fixated in the exhilaration stage and never truly feel remorse. For pilots and snipers, who are assisted by physical distance, this fixation appears to be relatively common. The image of the aggressive pilot who loves what he does (killing) is a part of the twentieth-century heritage. But those who kill completely without remorse at close range are another situation entirely.[37]
Here again we are beginning to explore the region of Swank and Marchand’s 2 percent “aggressive psychopaths” (a term that today has evolved into “sociopaths”), who appear to have never developed any sense of
