A question for the current or ex-military gentleman here. Does military training prepare soldiers for the horrors of war…..some type of desensitizing to things witnessed in war? Thanks in advance. This is a recent PBS , Frontline documentary , shot entirely by the unit ( Bad Voodoo ) in Iraq. Its well done if you have not seen it. >Click on -- Watch the full program online. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/badvoodoo/
Nope. Shoot, move, communicate. Shoot, move, communicate. Add in a mix of humanitarian assistance problem solving scenarios, then combine everything into a week long training mission. The 'horrors of war' media are often passed around from joe to joe, but its nothing you can't find on youtube or other online sites. Now that I click on that link... I think I watched a few minutes of that program. It wasn't highly entertaining to me, but it does convey their mission accurately. Most combat units' missions outside the wire aren't quite as monotonous as theirs.
Horrors of war????? Or do you mean the horrors of life??? Shit happens here just like it happens over there. I have lost a lot of friends here stateside as I have lost a lot of friends over there. All this whining and moaning is bullshit. There is trajedy in life everywhere and dumbasses need to wake the hell up and realize that. Yeah I've been there and done that!! BTW, just my .02!!! I liked Iraq, great tea, lousy cigaretes, hospitable people and lousy shots(minus a couple of good ones)!
Popular "culture" probably does more than the military for the shock of combat. Violent movies, video games, etc. There is only so much you can do in training to prepare for combat. Medic and SF training invovles "administering" gun shot wounds to pigs and then treating them. Applying that to every basic training class would get very expensive in piggies (not to mention make the PITA types go ape-shit). The real thing is still an order of magnitue more... impressive when you see and experiance it first hand though. Most people can get thru that ok. Its afterwards that some break down and there are lingering effects for the rest of your life. Like Stefan said, its life. Shit happens. Get in a bad car accident, or a violent crime and it will affect you the same way good things do to.
I don't know what kind of training that's offered in basic now but I remember what we faced when I went into the Army in 1963. Stefan can offer his experience on the difference. We were trained in the usual hand to hand combat methods and did the usual physical training to get us into good shape but something that we did also was watch a lot of film taken during combat action from WWII and Korea taken by combat photographers. (not civilians) There was an ample amount of blood and guts (literally) and it was quite sobering to think that you might be causing those kind of injuries, or receiving them, if you ever went into combat yourself. It was really ugly. We had some guys running outside to throw up because of those films. I've been under fire twice in my life and both were sobering experiences. The first time was another hunter (thank God he was a bad shot) and all I had to do was yell (at the top of my lungs) to stop shooting. He did. The second time was in Korea and myself and another soldier didn't know who it was. You can't believe how fast you can crawl under a baseball size rock. That was a really, really sobering feeling. I can only imagine how a person would feel when there are several people firing at you when they are seriously trying to kill you. Add to that having to watch a fellow soldier, and friend, die right before your eyes will be something that will affect you forever. Some guys can't live with it very well. To answer your question; No, I don't think basic training will prepare anyone for what they might end up seeing in real combat. The well trained (by that I mean the ones that take their training seriously) will do pretty well ok. Some of the others won't.
The military can only train you on past wars. No one knows where or how the next will be. De-sensatization comes with the hands on experience. I pulled a fuel tanker 10 minutes behind a first wave of M1A1's to the Euphrates River in '91. You could still smell the stinch of burning flesh not mention the mental pictures embedded in my memory. There's no training that can prepare you for that.
They tried to train you for the "fog of war". Hence the reason for all the yelling and commands on top of commands. Some SF stuff they try to use some type of rotting flesh like chickens or cattle or pigs.....but nothing can prepeare you for the stinch of molten flesh from a phosphorus type explosion....or worse the screems of your buddy crying out for his mother and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. Or escorting your buddies corpse to be buired half way around the globe.... One great book that should be read by everyone before they vote is Lone Survivor by Marcus......the first chapter sums it quite good.
I think people relate war to war and not to being a part of life (for some). You see messed up stuff and it happens on a much more frequent basis. I wonder if our problem (soldiers problems) are that we don't ever express pain (its a sign of weakness) so Joe (soldiers) just bottle it up??? Or some of us just might not know how to let it go??? I'm NO psychologist (think most of them are full of shit anyways) but maybe someone who has some insite into this might be able to chirp in?? The wounded I dealt with never made a sound (shock). The wounded wasn't as hard as the dead, nothing like seeing a couple of soldiers go by on a bed full of ice. There are some things you will never forget, it is a part of you and nothing you can change so just except it and drive on!!! The military trains you to be capable of performing through repitition while under durress, stress or whatever. Actions become natural requiring little thought to act accordingly, it is reflexive. During the fight there are no issues, I actualy enjoyed the fight!!! And unless I'm crazy I think most soldiers would agree they liked the fight also (except when things went bad, I was very lucky). It is after the fight when you finaly get the chance to reflect back homeside or when you get some time alone to think about the friends, kids that you lost or some of the terrible things you had seen, that is when things are depressing but it is the same for family or someone else that you might have cared about and lost. It just happens on a much greater scale. Like anything and everybody you have your up days and your down days, its life, move on! Just my opinion!
To answer your question, NO they don't! They can't, they try but you can't replicate an environment like that!! I seriously don't think it would be a good idea anyways to desensitize soldiers!!!
I agree. Desensitizing troops is probably a bad idea. I think it happens to some and that seems to be when really bad things(massacres, etc.) happen. I wasn't in combat but from those that have been, it seems that the desensitized troops are the ones that do the unspeakable. As for the training, there is only so much you can do. On ballistic missile subs we were the ones that could be called on to end it all. During most of my 3 years we didn't think much about it. We had seen the post Hiroshima and Nagasaki films. Those of us in the "power plant" had seen them more. On missile boats you operate as if you "are" at war all the time but of course you knew you weren't. Then all of a sudden in 90 we were going to sea with an eminent ground attack coming during the Kuwait conflict. We didn't feel we would ever be called on but in the back of your mind you think about it and you go to sea with a little different mindset. Not so much that we actually discussed our role but you could see it in everyone's eyes knowing we would be in range. We would actually pay attention to the scattered news that we would get at sea. I can only imagine what it's like for combat veterans to see their friends hit. I've not had to deal with anything quite like that. I have been involved with emergency situations in the Navy and as a civilian. Luckily I've always kept a clear head and helped deal with them. I credit it to my military training where we used repetition under duress as mentioned earlier in the thread.
John, your talking about being on a nuclear boat brings up an interesting question for me. When you're on patrol within your effective operation range of a conflict (like the Kuwaiti situation) are you limited to what outside news you guys were allowed to hear? It would seem, to me, that the news might be censured somewhat so that your decisions might be more....calculated? as it were. Is this accurate or completely off base?
When I was in Korea in the mid late sixties I was a cryptographer with Hdg. Bat. First Cal. Div. Arty. and operated Hdq. communications systems. During my tour we had two really serious alerts. Since we were located only a couple of miles from the DMZ things could get pretty hectic during those kind of operations. I knew that we, in the commo bunkers, would be the last to bug out if we were being overrun and, when the ordnance guys brought our weapons to us (that was one of the last steps before leaving) I'll have to admit that it was scary as hell. It was, in some ways, funny (in a morbid way) to think that if we were being overrun and enemy soldiers entered the bunkers we would probably kill ourselves as easily as an enemy because firing an M14 rifle inside a concrete bunker would be suicide by itself.
Because they are contaminated with depleted uranium. If they would quit dragging their feet my company would be more than happy to take care of those.
and for those who remember me in the pits, and if you see me again (can't miss the hat). That picture was taken in Baghdad (in the FOB).
