Unforgiven wrote on Jun 11
th, 2018 at 1:55pm:
Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on Jun 11
th, 2018 at 10:15am:
The military doesn't recruit psychopaths - they recruit ordinary people, which is precisely why there is a high percentage of burn-out.
You've forfeited any right to comment with that ridiculous comment.
So, Grappler contends that military personnel are not psychopaths at the time of recruitment.
PTSD rate in the military is only 11-20%. That is not to say there aren't other undiagnosed or unrecognized psychiatric conditions in military personnel.
Not even a remote comparison... the rate of PTSD - around 30% in combat troops and that includes nearby ancillary troops as well - is generated (wait for it) as a RESULT of the exposure of otherwise civilised human beings to an uncivilised environment. It is a PSYCHOLOGICAL disorder created by environmental factors in otherwise normal human beings.
Psychiatric issues are rapidly discovered and weeded out, and nowhere more than in Special Forces, which, contrary to cafe gangster belief, rely on intelligence, composure, training, and teamwork and has no place for 'lone wolves'. NO psychopathic individual ever gets into Special Forces, and even if the shrinks miss them, which is unlikely, the sergeants sitting on a Selection Board will find them out... ye've my word on it.
Sometimes extraordinary measures are called for, usually in response to extreme actions on the part of an enemy - for example, the SS declared that they would take no Airborne prisoners if Europe was invaded, and the Hitlerjugend Division massacred Canadian prisoners as a matter of policy. The PAVN did the same, and Yon Islamites are noted for their barbarity towards prisoners.
There is no justification in such circumstances for not meting out the same in retaliation, and it is often the case that this can occur. US Airborne routinely refused to take SS prisoner, because the SS did it to them, often in horrifying ways, and neither did the Canadians after their experience in Normandy with Hitler's young murderers. In Vietnam, considering the massacred of wounded at Dak To by the PAVN, and atrocities committed by them even early in that war, it is no wonder that some US troops killed PAVN soldiers as a matter of course. The 101st Airborne had the same early on with captured wounded tortured to death, leading to PAVN prisoners being executed out of hand.
I've told you before, about the Ia Drang, the wounded to killed ratio for the Seventy Cavalry was extraordinary - for the simple reason that the PAVN/VC killed wounded out of hand.
There are no rules in a knife fight.
Back during the ww1 the blokes in France for instance would do a spell on the line and then go back to the rear and get on the grog and into the girls all in safety. It must be hard fighting those wars where there is no frontline and civilians/enemy all dress the same. Nowhere is safe. A soldier would have to be on edge 24/7. No wonder so many have come back suffering trauma. Continual stress.