On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

It is interesting book for those who have illusions concerning any war. The book confirmed the basic thought that the fright to kill a person is more important than the fright to be killed. The nature programmed us to avoid killing a human being! Every war does not cost every life! Certainly, there is CONSCIENCE! The conscience torment to kill innocent children and women, fathers of mothers of somebody!

This is a very incite-full read and should be read before on combat. Very deep subject content and makes very good points about how our society is changing and not in a good way.

This book should be required reading for all Company Commanders, and a copy should be given to every soldier who serves in combat, whether or not they kill another.

This book, if widely distributed in our armed forces, would be instrumental to reducing the social stigma associated with PTSD and provide the soldiers in the field and their officers and NCO's a critical tool for assessing and triage for combat related mental illness.

This is a good look at what it takes to kill another human, and what it means, psychologically, to the one doing the killing. This is worth reading. Some of the content will surprise you.

I regularly teach a college-level course called "Introduction to Peace & Justice Studies." On the very first day of class, I typically ask students if they think that humans are innately aggressive--that is, as the classic tag has it, "man is wolf to man." Each semester, the vast majority of students respond affirmatively. Violence is so much a part of our culture that they just take it for granted that humans are natural born killers.

That's why Dave Grossman's book is such an eye-opener for them (and why I use it as a text over and over). Here's a career military guy--a Ranger, no less--who argues empirically that in fact humans seen to have so strong a natural aversion to killing fellow humans that the military has to struggle mightily to overcome that aversion in its recruits. Since WWII, with the help of operant conditioning techniques, basic training has improved the readiness of recruits to kill. But the aversion nonetheless remains, and exacts a heavy psychological cost: PDST, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, etc. Moreover, continues Grossman, our entire media-driven culture is increasingly conditioned to accept killing as one of life's inevitabilities, and so the psychological fallout from this attitude permeates civilian as well as military life.

This is an extraordinarily powerful thesis, and it's been affirmed by dozens of other psychologists. What's astounding is that neither the military or civilian sectors seem to have taken it seriously. Counseling for soldiers is minimal, and PDST is a growing problem for Iraq War veterans. Middle and high school students continue to be desensitized by escalating levels of media-driven displays of violence, with little concern on the part of regulatory commissions for the psychological consequences.

Grossman's book argues that none of this has to be. Highly recommended.