It can't be done casually and callously by those who have a deep sense of humanity. It can be taught, but I doubt that to even for those who have retained their sense of reality, they do have a sense of remorse. Taking the lives of others, for any reason, destroys one's own.
That's just basic human decency.
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Well I am one of those indecent, inhumane humans that at 18 yrs old was in close combat in an infantry unit and participated in both the Jan/Feb and May 1968 Tet campaigns.
I have as much remorse for them as the NVA and VC had for the US personnel they killed or wounded, NONE.
I consider I have no blood on my hands, but I did leave a bunch of mine in a ditch south of Saigon in May 1968. I can only hope as a combat veteran, not a hero (have never been called one or been considered one) as few teenage PFC infantrymen are ever called heros, can only hope my unit and I personally dished out as good as my unit took. I feel good about my service and will never look back in regret.
Kudos for you landing a calm rear echelon day job, and consider fellow military that were involved in combat as lacking human decency and less than human. But even your job was to support your fellow military.
Best wartime speech segment by Gen Patton
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An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, and fights as a team. This individual hero stuff is bullshit. The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real battle than they do about fucking. And we have the best team—we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor bastards we're going up against.
All the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters. Every single man in the army plays a vital role. So don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells and turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch? That cowardly bastard could say to himself, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' What if every man said that? Where in the hell would we be then? No, thank God, Americans don't say that. Every man does his job. Every man is important. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the quartermaster is needed to bring up the food and clothes for us because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do.
Each man must think not only of himself, but think of his buddy fighting alongside him. We don't want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, goddamn cowards, and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.
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