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I was never taught anything about overcoming any societal taboos...just how to shoot, where to aim, and if I didn't do it right, I would be dead. No moral training.

You did not go through bayonet training? Aim at the gut and yell "Kill" "Kill" Kill" each time you stuck the dummy? You didn't fire at targets shaped like men? You didn't march to candence with reference with what you wanted to do to the enemy?

I did not say there is a formal class on overcoming the taboo, I said that is one of the goals of the training.

It may not even be meant to be realized, but as I reflect back on my training, adding the wisdom of 30 more years of life experience, I can understand now what was being done. (And for the record, I think it is a necessary part of the training process.)

In the army they did teach the spirit of the bayonet (kill), just as todays computer games do. Many shoot at man-shaped targets at my gun club now. I used to want to kill Indians when I was a kid, especially after watching westerns. In the navy, they teach you to shoot, but no bayonet training. After the army and navy, the only thing refined was how to use different kinds of weapons and new targets. The media indoctrinates more about killing every day, than the military ever did, and, at a younger age.