Well, I think a lot of soldiers have realized that the guy they killed was just another grunt sent by a government. They had to do it, but it must have weighed on them in many cases.
And cops - which are what Revel actually was referencing - aren’t exactly battle-hardened killers. I doubt we’d want American law-enforcement officers to be such.
Soldiers (not soldier characters in movies) are trained to see their purpose in black and white. Gray area thinking is forbidden. The enemy is all bad. Soldiers are trained to kill, kill, kill, but only enemies. Not civilian non-combatants or loved ones or neighbors back home.
Granted, most soldiers don’t want a war or to be sent to kill. But the best ones will do so, if they must. And most of them will do it very well. The PTSD push in the media is detrimental, IMO.
I’ve had close friends in old men who didn’t have PTSD or anything like it. They knew that they had done the right things and went on with life. Shell shock was in reference to hearing damage or brain damage from shock waves.
I’ve known younger ones, on the other hand, who thought they had PTSD, because so many experts said that they should have it. Hollywood glorifies it. Some of them realized that they did what was right, and they’ve gotten over psychobabblemania as pushed by the charlatans and foreign agents.
I have a friend who was Air Force but later joined a combat engineer (light) unit and only went through a two-week school for his new MOS. He went to Afghanistan and suffered a pretty bad head injury. The psychs. convinced him that he had PTSD. I had a few talks with him and told him that the habits for awareness and self-defense are normal and good (looking behind doors, etc.). No mental problem there. He was doing great the last couple of times I saw him (no more sadness). There’s nothing wrong with seeing what’s around us (awareness), as we go on through life. Doesn’t hurt a thing and might save us someday.
On police, I had a cousin who worked through his whole career in a very bad neighborhood and did experience much violence. Very nice man, though, and he came out of it okay except for some old physical injuries (paddy wagons).
But agreed on most police not being trained the same way. There’s no healthy reason for anyone to dwell on a difficult situation in the past, though, except for having learned something useful to protect themselves in the future.
No good person wants to hurt anyone, but if we’re forced to by an attacker,...