- Joined
- Jul 26, 2009
- Messages
- 12,177
- Reaction score
- 7,551
- Location
- Ft. Campbell, KY
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed
Killing is often more stressful than the thought you may die, because normally the enemy isn't in as good of a position to kill you as you are to kill him, so you don't have to worry as much about dying. And often you have at least a little time to think about your decision to kill or not and most of the time thats in a situation where you can kill him at any moment. For example a vehicle is approaching a check point and has ignored speed warnings and has some common indictators of a car bomb, VBIED, you are standing behind your machine gun or rifle, the car will reach you in say 30-45 seconds. You can kill the driver at any time but you still have those 30-45 seconds to stress about should I flash another warning, fire a warning shot, attempt to disable his vehicle, kill the driver? A lot of a different options and Soldiers are trained to show restraint, and naturally as humans, dont want to kill someone.
AND you feel more guilty about shooting someone who has no chance of really killing you. If you're in a fire fight and someone is shooting at you, its much easier because you are directly and immediatly threatened, you don't have a choice to make about killing him. In the vehicle coming up to a checkpoint you are in less danger and aren't threatened at the moment, so you're calmer and can do a lot more thinking.
Well, I was.
But fine. Okay. So you think killing is more stressful than dying. The military's training prepares you for the first. It doesn't do as much to prepare you for the second. I still believe that getting killed is more stressful than pulling the trigger. What exactly is your reasoning for believing the reverse?
Killing is often more stressful than the thought you may die, because normally the enemy isn't in as good of a position to kill you as you are to kill him, so you don't have to worry as much about dying. And often you have at least a little time to think about your decision to kill or not and most of the time thats in a situation where you can kill him at any moment. For example a vehicle is approaching a check point and has ignored speed warnings and has some common indictators of a car bomb, VBIED, you are standing behind your machine gun or rifle, the car will reach you in say 30-45 seconds. You can kill the driver at any time but you still have those 30-45 seconds to stress about should I flash another warning, fire a warning shot, attempt to disable his vehicle, kill the driver? A lot of a different options and Soldiers are trained to show restraint, and naturally as humans, dont want to kill someone.
AND you feel more guilty about shooting someone who has no chance of really killing you. If you're in a fire fight and someone is shooting at you, its much easier because you are directly and immediatly threatened, you don't have a choice to make about killing him. In the vehicle coming up to a checkpoint you are in less danger and aren't threatened at the moment, so you're calmer and can do a lot more thinking.