Originally Posted by
Switch
A good question Willy. I doubt if any recruit joined the forces in order to kill another human being, but it was a necessary part of training to learn a range of skills required to defend yourself and your comrades from dangers in battle situations. To my knowledge, I have not been in a position to do that, but I have trained others to do the same.
I do know that certain individuals did join for that reason, and were given the tools, and the basic rules of engagement to make that possible.
Such persons are usually members of the so called teeth arms or special forces, almost always trained and tested to overcome such encounters and come out of it alive.
I claim no such opportunities personally, but even as ‘ordinary forces’ I take responsibility for having trained others to kill.
In the end it comes down to one person making a reasoned judgement to deploy that skill, and another to follow those orders. It very rarely becomes an individual choice, to take a life. The ethos of the services inculcates a duty to your friends, to protect them before yourself, and instils the belief that others are psychologically prepared to do the same.
The army motto during my service was, ‘In peace we train for war’. This creates an unshakable bond between individuals and teams. We justify those choices based on an understanding of the order to shoot, and the method taught is shoot to kill. Those responsible for such orders, throughout the chain of command, must have to rationalize personally it in the end.
Given that I spent my whole career preparing my colleagues to make, and execute those decisions, my rationale now is that, while we remain capable of extreme violence, we should consider that option, only in cases of extreme provocation, and understand the consequences of such action.
In this instance, it is unusual for such individual decisions to made for anything other than altruistic reasons. Kill or be killed.