What do you know about killing. (Part 2)

[jhungary]

Foreword ::

I don't know if this is counted as Military history (it would certainly be my history), but 4 years ago, I wrote this

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/what-do-you-know-about-killing.295642/

We cannot avoid the fact that, in a Military Forum when we talk about war, to talk about killing another person. After all, this is what war is all about, soldiers killing other soldiers, people killing each other.

Usually when people ask me "Had you killed in War?" I usually just brush away the question and talk about something else. To people who actually kill another person before, its not something you talk about, not in a daily conversation anyway.

but I do realise sometime, people want to know for whatever reason, some are constructive, some are just, well, trolling, like I was talking to @HannibalBarca some day ago between the psyche of a person kills a person with firearms, and a person kills a person with knife. That is a constructive discussion, I don't mind to share what I feel if this is constructive. That why I am here for.

But then sometime, folks like @Chinese-Dragon would come down and ask me to proof that I have killed before I can validate my answer. Well, that strange, because how do I definitively proof I did indeed killed a person? The only definitive proof is that I kill a person in front of you. That would be the definitive proof.

Either way, people seems to think this is in interested topic for whatever reason. Even tho for me, it's a bit personal, I decided to tell you what I can about how I felt about killing a human being. In the previous article, I talked about the ramification and justification of killing. In this articles, I am going to focus on the psyche of the action of killing.

Please do not think this is just a post I am bragging about people who I did killed. I would never do that, but if this post help you in anyway understand more about killing another person, maybe, just maybe, you will treasure a human life more, and if this is what you ended up getting. Then my message is across

The act of killing

In a strange way, I both enjoyed and hated killing another person at the same time in a nutshell, I enjoy the satisfaction it gives me for completing something, but at the same time I hated what I become after killing someone.

Killing is abnormal in civilize world, which mean if you feel right killing another person, basically, you deserved to live in an asylum. As I said before, killing a person is easy, but bringing yourself to kill another person, that is a different ball game.

In a normal day, in an normal setting, you wouldn't want to kill anyone. Yes, I may have something pissed me off during the course of the day, and I might have said a few time to my wife, I am gonna kill ya, especially she ran off with my credit card and bought a $500 dollars worth of handbag. But that does not mean I really want to kill anyone. To those people who wake up and decided to kill people, that's abnormal.

However, in war, you woke up everyday prepared to kill. Everyday you wakes up, that is a day potentially someone is going to die and it could have been you. How does that make you feel? In war, you tend not to think about that, you don't think about consequence. You think of each day as if you are doing a 9 to 5 job, you were there to do a job, yes, that is actually to kill another human being, but you tend to not see it that way, it's just a job, it's just something you need to do as your job prescribe.

The threshold of killing

That was how you would felt about that, but it's completely different when you have to actually do it. The threshold of killing is what accumulated to have you reach that point, for lack of a better word, snapped out from reality and really do your job.

I used to use the word conviction, but that doesn't seems the right word to describe the hype of killing another person. The word "Threshold" is more mechanical, and more detached of emotion, which best suited to describe the action of killing another human being. You go over the threshold, you kill.

What make you go over the threshold? Think of why a mass murderer kill people? Bullying, Inferiority, Paranoia, being left out or feeling of loneliness, feeling of rejection. Those aren't actually applies in war. So what do war offer that push you over the threshold? The answer is simple, Violence.

People who has been to war would have use a lot of word to describe their experience, you may get 3000 different word coming from 1000 vet, but almost all would have said the word Violent. This is a part of a battlefield, a part of fighting. By immersing yourself daily in violence, all the destruction. all the dead bodies, all the weapons, all the fire power. You sort of accustomed to it, and violent become your everyday part of life.

In war, there are no lack of violence, and you don't need to hang around long to get it. They bring it to you, handing them to you in a platter. I don't even remember whether my first kill or I think violence can solve all my problem come to me first.

This is a bit easier to the videogaming generation we had today, where you can be prepared to be detached from reality, just kill 100 or 200 "people" on games like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. Do that enough, you will started to feel something.

My first kill

You always remember your first kill, killing a person is a big deal, if you drive down the road and run over a cat, you will remember it til you die, right? Killing a person give you the same effect, although, it was hanging on between reality (What you actually did) and imagination (What you think had happened), 500 night you dream about your first kill, you have 500 different memory of it. At a point, you don't really remember what is actually happened, and what is in your imagination.

I looked thru an ACOG in a busy day in Iraq. People are shouting, people are screaming, the sound of gunfire is much more realistic than I remember in the movie. You can even felt a bullet going pass 2 inchs from your. I look through my ACOG and pick up a target. He is as big as a deer I used to hunt, I can make out his face, his AK, and his shirt. I can also make out the flash coming out from his barrel. I put down my rifle, stuck my head down behind some wall, I don't know what was I thinking, I peek back up again, look thru the scope again, pick up another target again, I can see his face, his AK, he is running. And I remember I am either thinking to myself or saying it out loud; "Someone get this guy". Then more yelling, more noise, more bullet coming my way, I tuck my head down again.

Somebody behind me yelled "What are you doing, Lieutenant?" I look back, everybody is busy. I don't know who said that, I don't know what's happening behind me. I raise my head up once again.

The strangest thing happens, I look thru my scope, and there are no noise, absolute silence. It's between me and what I am looking at. I don't like it, I move my head away form the ACOG, saw someone in the corner of my eyes. He is running, I can make out his AK, I can make out the flash. I can see his face.

I don't remember whether I shot first, or felt it first. It seems like a compete detachment of reality. Did I just shoot? At the same time, I felt my finger moving, before I know it, my eyes was following him going to the ground, my finger still squeezing the trigger. You don't know what it is, and you don't even know was that just happened? Or some one shot him? Until you take your head away your scope, you look around, and see nobody could have got him but you. Then it started to sink in. I just killed him.

To be honest, I like that feeling afterward, the kind of euphoria that you can only get when you accomplished something, you let out a quick smile, train your head back into the scope, looking for a second target, then a third, then a forth. You want to jump up and scream, like your favorited basketball team just sink a 3 pointer. Someone trying to kill you and now he's dead, set aside whether or not that guy was trying to kill you, this is not the point, the important thing is, he is dead and you aren't, just happy to stay alive I guess.

Some people say second kill is harder than the first, because you had anticipated it, it's gonna happen whether you like it or not, but the second one would come as a surprise to you, but for me, I think I have accepted this is the business I will be in, so I sort of accepted the second kill, or the third kill or the next one.

After a year or so, you rotated back into the US, where everything is A-OK, wall don't fall down because it was hit by a RPG, body don't litter in the street, cars are quite intact and not burning. People with guns replaced with childing playing on a swing set, people laughing talking without the care of the world. Everything is changed, but you. But everyone knows that you had changed, but you.

You are walking down a street downtown Georgia, you felt something isn't right, your ears and eyes cannot reconcile with your brain, you mind tells you it should be a war torn country like you were seeing 3 days ago. you eyes tells your brain that you are seeing other things. You started to stare at a wall and see if it falls down, you started to stares at cars driven by you and waiting for it to explode. But it didn't. Until you see something, hear something familiar, then you go back to your survival mode. You started to feel everything can be fixed with violence.

War is like a drugs, you afraid to try, but it will get you hooked up, and the only way to get your high is, more war.

My first knife kill.

Killing a person with firearms is easy, well, easier. Just aim your rifle to a person and squeeze the trigger until he go down. That is once you are over the threshold to kill, afterward, killing don't offer you much of a resistance then it should, it's just something you got to do.

Using a knife or using a rifle, or using a machine gun is simply a choice, at this point, anything and everything is replaceable, killing people with a firearms, and killing people with a knife is one and the same, the only different is the execution.

I guess this is where it diverted, unlike a gun kill, you stalk your victim, you go behind him, you put your right hand over his mouth, you put your left hand, with a bayonet, around his chest, stuck your bayonet between 2nd and 3rd rib bones, twist it 90 degree, and pull it out quickly, then stuck it into his chest again, and again, and again until he slum over you.

You can hear his last breath, you can hear the knife goes into his chest, you can hear the rib cage got pry open. You can felt him bleeding, you are so close, you can even felt his heartbeat. And all I can think of is how to kill the next guy so I won't be detected and also , what if they know?

It gives you that high you can feel, or even tasted when you kill him. It makes you feel good, there are no other word for it. It's felt like you are playing a video game and you went pass a level and starting a new one.

What if I have to do a knife kill first? I would imagine it is the same, maybe I need some more time to think about it, but regardless, you wasn't push over the threshold just before you have to kill, not like how they show in Band of Brothers, maybe different people have different feeling, I don't know, I cannot speak for other people.

The ending.

While the sole purpose of war is to kill people (and resolve conflict) but we never use the word "Kill", after all the feelings, emotions, deeds, the act of killing doesn't officially exist in war. It's either you take your target out, you silence that sentry, or you wasted him, but never kills. I wonder is it because it will make us feel better if we don't call it killing? Or is there are something else deeper in the meaning? I cannot tell you that. I am not that deep.

To @HannibalBarca I hope this answer your question as to how people felt to kill
To @Chinese-Dragon I hope that I was making this up, and this never happens, and I sincerely hope that you never have to go thru this.

Thank you for your time.

 

[jhungary]

@LeGenD @Levina @AUSTERLITZ @Slav Defence @WAJsal @Davos @WebMaster @Horus @niaz @Icarus @DESERT FIGHTER @Starlord

 

[khansaheeb]

Foreword ::

I don't know if this is counted as Military history (it would certainly be my history), but 4 years ago, I wrote this

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/what-do-you-know-about-killing.295642/

We cannot avoid the fact that, in a Military Forum when we talk about war, to talk about killing another person. After all, this is what war is all about, soldiers killing other soldiers, people killing each other.

Usually when people ask me "Had you killed in War?" I usually just brush away the question and talk about something else. To people who actually kill another person before, its not something you talk about, not in a daily conversation anyway.

but I do realise sometime, people want to know for whatever reason, some are constructive, some are just, well, trolling, like I was talking to @HannibalBarca some day ago between the psyche of a person kills a person with firearms, and a person kills a person with knife. That is a constructive discussion, I don't mind to share what I feel if this is constructive. That why I am here for.

But then sometime, folks like @Chinese-Dragon would come down and ask me to proof that I have killed before I can validate my answer. Well, that strange, because how do I definitively proof I did indeed killed a person? The only definitive proof is that I kill a person in front of you. That would be the definitive proof.

Either way, people seems to think this is in interested topic for whatever reason. Even tho for me, it's a bit personal, I decided to tell you what I can about how I felt about killing a human being. In the previous article, I talked about the ramification and justification of killing. In this articles, I am going to focus on the psyche of the action of killing.

Please do not think this is just a post I am bragging about people who I did killed. I would never do that, but if this post help you in anyway understand more about killing another person, maybe, just maybe, you will treasure a human life more, and if this is what you ended up getting. Then my message is across

The act of killing

View attachment 475789

In a strange way, I both enjoyed and hated killing another person at the same time in a nutshell, I enjoy the satisfaction it gives me for completing something, but at the same time I hated what I become after killing someone.

Killing is abnormal in civilize world, which mean if you feel right killing another person, basically, you deserved to live in an asylum. As I said before, killing a person is easy, but bringing yourself to kill another person, that is a different ball game.

In a normal day, in an normal setting, you wouldn't want to kill anyone. Yes, I may have something pissed me off during the course of the day, and I might have said a few time to my wife, I am gonna kill ya, especially she ran off with my credit card and bought a $500 dollars worth of handbag. But that does not mean I really want to kill anyone. To those people who wake up and decided to kill people, that's abnormal.

However, in war, you woke up everyday prepared to kill. Everyday you wakes up, that is a day potentially someone is going to die and it could have been you. How does that make you feel? In war, you tend not to think about that, you don't think about consequence. You think of each day as if you are doing a 9 to 5 job, you were there to do a job, yes, that is actually to kill another human being, but you tend to not see it that way, it's just a job, it's just something you need to do as your job prescribe.

The threshold of killing

View attachment 475790

That was how you would felt about that, but it's completely different when you have to actually do it. The threshold of killing is what accumulated to have you reach that point, for lack of a better word, snapped out from reality and really do your job.

I used to use the word conviction, but that doesn't seems the right word to describe the hype of killing another person. The word "Threshold" is more mechanical, and more detached of emotion, which best suited to describe the action of killing another human being. You go over the threshold, you kill.

What make you go over the threshold? Think of why a mass murderer kill people? Bullying, Inferiority, Paranoia, being left out or feeling of loneliness, feeling of rejection. Those aren't actually applies in war. So what do war offer that push you over the threshold? The answer is simple, Violence.

People who has been to war would have use a lot of word to describe their experience, you may get 3000 different word coming from 1000 vet, but almost all would have said the word Violent. This is a part of a battlefield, a part of fighting. By immersing yourself daily in violence, all the destruction. all the dead bodies, all the weapons, all the fire power. You sort of accustomed to it, and violent become your everyday part of life.

In war, there are no lack of violence, and you don't need to hang around long to get it. They bring it to you, handing them to you in a platter. I don't even remember whether my first kill or I think violence can solve all my problem come to me first.

This is a bit easier to the videogaming generation we had today, where you can be prepared to be detached from reality, just kill 100 or 200 "people" on games like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. Do that enough, you will started to feel something.

My first kill

View attachment 475791

You always remember your first kill, killing a person is a big deal, if you drive down the road and run over a cat, you will remember it til you die, right? Killing a person give you the same effect, although, it was hanging on between reality (What you actually did) and imagination (What you think had happened), 500 night you dream about your first kill, you have 500 different memory of it. At a point, you don't really remember what is actually happened, and what is in your imagination.

I looked thru an ACOG in a busy day in Iraq. People are shouting, people are screaming, the sound of gunfire is much more realistic than I remember in the movie. You can even felt a bullet going pass 2 inchs from your. I look through my ACOG and pick up a target. He is as big as a deer I used to hunt, I can make out his face, his AK, and his shirt. I can also make out the flash coming out from his barrel. I put down my rifle, stuck my head down behind some wall, I don't know what was I thinking, I peek back up again, look thru the scope again, pick up another target again, I can see his face, his AK, he is running. And I remember I am either thinking to myself or saying it out loud; "Someone get this guy". Then more yelling, more noise, more bullet coming my way, I tuck my head down again.

Somebody behind me yelled "What are you doing, Lieutenant?" I look back, everybody is busy. I don't know who said that, I don't know what's happening behind me. I raise my head up once again.

The strangest thing happens, I look thru my scope, and there are no noise, absolute silence. It's between me and what I am looking at. I don't like it, I move my head away form the ACOG, saw someone in the corner of my eyes. He is running, I can make out his AK, I can make out the flash. I can see his face.

I don't remember whether I shot first, or felt it first. It seems like a compete detachment of reality. Did I just shoot? At the same time, I felt my finger moving, before I know it, my eyes was following him going to the ground, my finger still squeezing the trigger. You don't know what it is, and you don't even know was that just happened? Or some one shot him? Until you take your head away your scope, you look around, and see nobody could have got him but you. Then it started to sink in. I just killed him.

To be honest, I like that feeling afterward, the kind of euphoria that you can only get when you accomplished something, you let out a quick smile, train your head back into the scope, looking for a second target, then a third, then a forth. You want to jump up and scream, like your favorited basketball team just sink a 3 pointer. Someone trying to kill you and now he's dead, set aside whether or not that guy was trying to kill you, this is not the point, the important thing is, he is dead and you aren't, just happy to stay alive I guess.

Some people say second kill is harder than the first, because you had anticipated it, it's gonna happen whether you like it or not, but the second one would come as a surprise to you, but for me, I think I have accepted this is the business I will be in, so I sort of accepted the second kill, or the third kill or the next one.

After a year or so, you rotated back into the US, where everything is A-OK, wall don't fall down because it was hit by a RPG, body don't litter in the street, cars are quite intact and not burning. People with guns replaced with childing playing on a swing set, people laughing talking without the care of the world. Everything is changed, but you. But everyone knows that you had changed, but you.

You are walking down a street downtown Georgia, you felt something isn't right, your ears and eyes cannot reconcile with your brain, you mind tells you it should be a war torn country like you were seeing 3 days ago. you eyes tells your brain that you are seeing other things. You started to stare at a wall and see if it falls down, you started to stares at cars driven by you and waiting for it to explode. But it didn't. Until you see something, hear something familiar, then you go back to your survival mode. You started to feel everything can be fixed with violence.

War is like a drugs, you afraid to try, but it will get you hooked up, and the only way to get your high is, more war.

My first knife kill.

View attachment 475793

Killing a person with firearms is easy, well, easier. Just aim your rifle to a person and squeeze the trigger until he go down. That is once you are over the threshold to kill, afterward, killing don't offer you much of a resistance then it should, it's just something you got to do.

Using a knife or using a rifle, or using a machine gun is simply a choice, at this point, anything and everything is replaceable, killing people with a firearms, and killing people with a knife is one and the same, the only different is the execution.

I guess this is where it diverted, unlike a gun kill, you stalk your victim, you go behind him, you put your right hand over his mouth, you put your left hand, with a bayonet, around his chest, stuck your bayonet between 2nd and 3rd rib bones, twist it 90 degree, and pull it out quickly, then stuck it into his chest again, and again, and again until he slum over you.

You can hear his last breath, you can hear the knife goes into his chest, you can hear the rib cage got pry open. You can felt him bleeding, you are so close, you can even felt his heartbeat. And all I can think of is how to kill the next guy so I won't be detected and also , what if they know?

It gives you that high you can feel, or even tasted when you kill him. It makes you feel good, there are no other word for it. It's felt like you are playing a video game and you went pass a level and starting a new one.

What if I have to do a knife kill first? I would imagine it is the same, maybe I need some more time to think about it, but regardless, you wasn't push over the threshold just before you have to kill, not like how they show in Band of Brothers, maybe different people have different feeling, I don't know, I cannot speak for other people.

The ending.

View attachment 475794

While the sole purpose of war is to kill people (and resolve conflict) but we never use the word "Kill", after all the feelings, emotions, deeds, the act of killing doesn't officially exist in war. It's either you take your target out, you silence that sentry, or you wasted him, but never kills. I wonder is it because it will make us feel better if we don't call it killing? Or is there are something else deeper in the meaning? I cannot tell you that. I am not that deep.

To @HannibalBarca I hope this answer your question as to how people felt to kill
To @Chinese-Dragon I hope that I was making this up, and this never happens, and I sincerely hope that you never have to go thru this.

Thank you for your time.

You must be glad you got that off your chest?

 

[Ocean]

And now killings of innocents in iraq will be celebrated on this forum.

I hope the one who kills innocents barging into their lands doesnt die until he is turned into a minced meat.

 

[HannibalBarca]

Foreword ::

I don't know if this is counted as Military history (it would certainly be my history), but 4 years ago, I wrote this

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/what-do-you-know-about-killing.295642/

We cannot avoid the fact that, in a Military Forum when we talk about war, to talk about killing another person. After all, this is what war is all about, soldiers killing other soldiers, people killing each other.

Usually when people ask me "Had you killed in War?" I usually just brush away the question and talk about something else. To people who actually kill another person before, its not something you talk about, not in a daily conversation anyway.

but I do realise sometime, people want to know for whatever reason, some are constructive, some are just, well, trolling, like I was talking to @HannibalBarca some day ago between the psyche of a person kills a person with firearms, and a person kills a person with knife. That is a constructive discussion, I don't mind to share what I feel if this is constructive. That why I am here for.

But then sometime, folks like @Chinese-Dragon would come down and ask me to proof that I have killed before I can validate my answer. Well, that strange, because how do I definitively proof I did indeed killed a person? The only definitive proof is that I kill a person in front of you. That would be the definitive proof.

Either way, people seems to think this is in interested topic for whatever reason. Even tho for me, it's a bit personal, I decided to tell you what I can about how I felt about killing a human being. In the previous article, I talked about the ramification and justification of killing. In this articles, I am going to focus on the psyche of the action of killing.

Please do not think this is just a post I am bragging about people who I did killed. I would never do that, but if this post help you in anyway understand more about killing another person, maybe, just maybe, you will treasure a human life more, and if this is what you ended up getting. Then my message is across

The act of killing

View attachment 475789

In a strange way, I both enjoyed and hated killing another person at the same time in a nutshell, I enjoy the satisfaction it gives me for completing something, but at the same time I hated what I become after killing someone.

Killing is abnormal in civilize world, which mean if you feel right killing another person, basically, you deserved to live in an asylum. As I said before, killing a person is easy, but bringing yourself to kill another person, that is a different ball game.

In a normal day, in an normal setting, you wouldn't want to kill anyone. Yes, I may have something pissed me off during the course of the day, and I might have said a few time to my wife, I am gonna kill ya, especially she ran off with my credit card and bought a $500 dollars worth of handbag. But that does not mean I really want to kill anyone. To those people who wake up and decided to kill people, that's abnormal.

However, in war, you woke up everyday prepared to kill. Everyday you wakes up, that is a day potentially someone is going to die and it could have been you. How does that make you feel? In war, you tend not to think about that, you don't think about consequence. You think of each day as if you are doing a 9 to 5 job, you were there to do a job, yes, that is actually to kill another human being, but you tend to not see it that way, it's just a job, it's just something you need to do as your job prescribe.

The threshold of killing

View attachment 475790

That was how you would felt about that, but it's completely different when you have to actually do it. The threshold of killing is what accumulated to have you reach that point, for lack of a better word, snapped out from reality and really do your job.

I used to use the word conviction, but that doesn't seems the right word to describe the hype of killing another person. The word "Threshold" is more mechanical, and more detached of emotion, which best suited to describe the action of killing another human being. You go over the threshold, you kill.

What make you go over the threshold? Think of why a mass murderer kill people? Bullying, Inferiority, Paranoia, being left out or feeling of loneliness, feeling of rejection. Those aren't actually applies in war. So what do war offer that push you over the threshold? The answer is simple, Violence.

People who has been to war would have use a lot of word to describe their experience, you may get 3000 different word coming from 1000 vet, but almost all would have said the word Violent. This is a part of a battlefield, a part of fighting. By immersing yourself daily in violence, all the destruction. all the dead bodies, all the weapons, all the fire power. You sort of accustomed to it, and violent become your everyday part of life.

In war, there are no lack of violence, and you don't need to hang around long to get it. They bring it to you, handing them to you in a platter. I don't even remember whether my first kill or I think violence can solve all my problem come to me first.

This is a bit easier to the videogaming generation we had today, where you can be prepared to be detached from reality, just kill 100 or 200 "people" on games like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. Do that enough, you will started to feel something.

My first kill

View attachment 475791

You always remember your first kill, killing a person is a big deal, if you drive down the road and run over a cat, you will remember it til you die, right? Killing a person give you the same effect, although, it was hanging on between reality (What you actually did) and imagination (What you think had happened), 500 night you dream about your first kill, you have 500 different memory of it. At a point, you don't really remember what is actually happened, and what is in your imagination.

I looked thru an ACOG in a busy day in Iraq. People are shouting, people are screaming, the sound of gunfire is much more realistic than I remember in the movie. You can even felt a bullet going pass 2 inchs from your. I look through my ACOG and pick up a target. He is as big as a deer I used to hunt, I can make out his face, his AK, and his shirt. I can also make out the flash coming out from his barrel. I put down my rifle, stuck my head down behind some wall, I don't know what was I thinking, I peek back up again, look thru the scope again, pick up another target again, I can see his face, his AK, he is running. And I remember I am either thinking to myself or saying it out loud; "Someone get this guy". Then more yelling, more noise, more bullet coming my way, I tuck my head down again.

Somebody behind me yelled "What are you doing, Lieutenant?" I look back, everybody is busy. I don't know who said that, I don't know what's happening behind me. I raise my head up once again.

The strangest thing happens, I look thru my scope, and there are no noise, absolute silence. It's between me and what I am looking at. I don't like it, I move my head away form the ACOG, saw someone in the corner of my eyes. He is running, I can make out his AK, I can make out the flash. I can see his face.

I don't remember whether I shot first, or felt it first. It seems like a compete detachment of reality. Did I just shoot? At the same time, I felt my finger moving, before I know it, my eyes was following him going to the ground, my finger still squeezing the trigger. You don't know what it is, and you don't even know was that just happened? Or some one shot him? Until you take your head away your scope, you look around, and see nobody could have got him but you. Then it started to sink in. I just killed him.

To be honest, I like that feeling afterward, the kind of euphoria that you can only get when you accomplished something, you let out a quick smile, train your head back into the scope, looking for a second target, then a third, then a forth. You want to jump up and scream, like your favorited basketball team just sink a 3 pointer. Someone trying to kill you and now he's dead, set aside whether or not that guy was trying to kill you, this is not the point, the important thing is, he is dead and you aren't, just happy to stay alive I guess.

Some people say second kill is harder than the first, because you had anticipated it, it's gonna happen whether you like it or not, but the second one would come as a surprise to you, but for me, I think I have accepted this is the business I will be in, so I sort of accepted the second kill, or the third kill or the next one.

After a year or so, you rotated back into the US, where everything is A-OK, wall don't fall down because it was hit by a RPG, body don't litter in the street, cars are quite intact and not burning. People with guns replaced with childing playing on a swing set, people laughing talking without the care of the world. Everything is changed, but you. But everyone knows that you had changed, but you.

You are walking down a street downtown Georgia, you felt something isn't right, your ears and eyes cannot reconcile with your brain, you mind tells you it should be a war torn country like you were seeing 3 days ago. you eyes tells your brain that you are seeing other things. You started to stare at a wall and see if it falls down, you started to stares at cars driven by you and waiting for it to explode. But it didn't. Until you see something, hear something familiar, then you go back to your survival mode. You started to feel everything can be fixed with violence.

War is like a drugs, you afraid to try, but it will get you hooked up, and the only way to get your high is, more war.

My first knife kill.

View attachment 475793

Killing a person with firearms is easy, well, easier. Just aim your rifle to a person and squeeze the trigger until he go down. That is once you are over the threshold to kill, afterward, killing don't offer you much of a resistance then it should, it's just something you got to do.

Using a knife or using a rifle, or using a machine gun is simply a choice, at this point, anything and everything is replaceable, killing people with a firearms, and killing people with a knife is one and the same, the only different is the execution.

I guess this is where it diverted, unlike a gun kill, you stalk your victim, you go behind him, you put your right hand over his mouth, you put your left hand, with a bayonet, around his chest, stuck your bayonet between 2nd and 3rd rib bones, twist it 90 degree, and pull it out quickly, then stuck it into his chest again, and again, and again until he slum over you.

You can hear his last breath, you can hear the knife goes into his chest, you can hear the rib cage got pry open. You can felt him bleeding, you are so close, you can even felt his heartbeat. And all I can think of is how to kill the next guy so I won't be detected and also , what if they know?

It gives you that high you can feel, or even tasted when you kill him. It makes you feel good, there are no other word for it. It's felt like you are playing a video game and you went pass a level and starting a new one.

What if I have to do a knife kill first? I would imagine it is the same, maybe I need some more time to think about it, but regardless, you wasn't push over the threshold just before you have to kill, not like how they show in Band of Brothers, maybe different people have different feeling, I don't know, I cannot speak for other people.

The ending.

View attachment 475794

While the sole purpose of war is to kill people (and resolve conflict) but we never use the word "Kill", after all the feelings, emotions, deeds, the act of killing doesn't officially exist in war. It's either you take your target out, you silence that sentry, or you wasted him, but never kills. I wonder is it because it will make us feel better if we don't call it killing? Or is there are something else deeper in the meaning? I cannot tell you that. I am not that deep.

To @HannibalBarca I hope this answer your question as to how people felt to kill
To @Chinese-Dragon I hope that I was making this up, and this never happens, and I sincerely hope that you never have to go thru this.

Thank you for your time.

I was going to answer back on our previous exchange.
But I think I have your testimony on this matter.

I thank you for this piece of your Life and Reality, I understand it's not something easy to do, especially when "Feelings" are put on paper and "Answers" will not always be the one you wished to read/hear.

I will take it as it is.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

Foreword ::

I don't know if this is counted as Military history (it would certainly be my history), but 4 years ago, I wrote this

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/what-do-you-know-about-killing.295642/

We cannot avoid the fact that, in a Military Forum when we talk about war, to talk about killing another person. After all, this is what war is all about, soldiers killing other soldiers, people killing each other.

Usually when people ask me "Had you killed in War?" I usually just brush away the question and talk about something else. To people who actually kill another person before, its not something you talk about, not in a daily conversation anyway.

but I do realise sometime, people want to know for whatever reason, some are constructive, some are just, well, trolling, like I was talking to @HannibalBarca some day ago between the psyche of a person kills a person with firearms, and a person kills a person with knife. That is a constructive discussion, I don't mind to share what I feel if this is constructive. That why I am here for.

But then sometime, folks like @Chinese-Dragon would come down and ask me to proof that I have killed before I can validate my answer. Well, that strange, because how do I definitively proof I did indeed killed a person? The only definitive proof is that I kill a person in front of you. That would be the definitive proof.

Either way, people seems to think this is in interested topic for whatever reason. Even tho for me, it's a bit personal, I decided to tell you what I can about how I felt about killing a human being. In the previous article, I talked about the ramification and justification of killing. In this articles, I am going to focus on the psyche of the action of killing.

Please do not think this is just a post I am bragging about people who I did killed. I would never do that, but if this post help you in anyway understand more about killing another person, maybe, just maybe, you will treasure a human life more, and if this is what you ended up getting. Then my message is across

The act of killing

View attachment 475789

In a strange way, I both enjoyed and hated killing another person at the same time in a nutshell, I enjoy the satisfaction it gives me for completing something, but at the same time I hated what I become after killing someone.

Killing is abnormal in civilize world, which mean if you feel right killing another person, basically, you deserved to live in an asylum. As I said before, killing a person is easy, but bringing yourself to kill another person, that is a different ball game.

In a normal day, in an normal setting, you wouldn't want to kill anyone. Yes, I may have something pissed me off during the course of the day, and I might have said a few time to my wife, I am gonna kill ya, especially she ran off with my credit card and bought a $500 dollars worth of handbag. But that does not mean I really want to kill anyone. To those people who wake up and decided to kill people, that's abnormal.

However, in war, you woke up everyday prepared to kill. Everyday you wakes up, that is a day potentially someone is going to die and it could have been you. How does that make you feel? In war, you tend not to think about that, you don't think about consequence. You think of each day as if you are doing a 9 to 5 job, you were there to do a job, yes, that is actually to kill another human being, but you tend to not see it that way, it's just a job, it's just something you need to do as your job prescribe.

The threshold of killing

View attachment 475790

That was how you would felt about that, but it's completely different when you have to actually do it. The threshold of killing is what accumulated to have you reach that point, for lack of a better word, snapped out from reality and really do your job.

I used to use the word conviction, but that doesn't seems the right word to describe the hype of killing another person. The word "Threshold" is more mechanical, and more detached of emotion, which best suited to describe the action of killing another human being. You go over the threshold, you kill.

What make you go over the threshold? Think of why a mass murderer kill people? Bullying, Inferiority, Paranoia, being left out or feeling of loneliness, feeling of rejection. Those aren't actually applies in war. So what do war offer that push you over the threshold? The answer is simple, Violence.

People who has been to war would have use a lot of word to describe their experience, you may get 3000 different word coming from 1000 vet, but almost all would have said the word Violent. This is a part of a battlefield, a part of fighting. By immersing yourself daily in violence, all the destruction. all the dead bodies, all the weapons, all the fire power. You sort of accustomed to it, and violent become your everyday part of life.

In war, there are no lack of violence, and you don't need to hang around long to get it. They bring it to you, handing them to you in a platter. I don't even remember whether my first kill or I think violence can solve all my problem come to me first.

This is a bit easier to the videogaming generation we had today, where you can be prepared to be detached from reality, just kill 100 or 200 "people" on games like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. Do that enough, you will started to feel something.

My first kill

View attachment 475791

You always remember your first kill, killing a person is a big deal, if you drive down the road and run over a cat, you will remember it til you die, right? Killing a person give you the same effect, although, it was hanging on between reality (What you actually did) and imagination (What you think had happened), 500 night you dream about your first kill, you have 500 different memory of it. At a point, you don't really remember what is actually happened, and what is in your imagination.

I looked thru an ACOG in a busy day in Iraq. People are shouting, people are screaming, the sound of gunfire is much more realistic than I remember in the movie. You can even felt a bullet going pass 2 inchs from your. I look through my ACOG and pick up a target. He is as big as a deer I used to hunt, I can make out his face, his AK, and his shirt. I can also make out the flash coming out from his barrel. I put down my rifle, stuck my head down behind some wall, I don't know what was I thinking, I peek back up again, look thru the scope again, pick up another target again, I can see his face, his AK, he is running. And I remember I am either thinking to myself or saying it out loud; "Someone get this guy". Then more yelling, more noise, more bullet coming my way, I tuck my head down again.

Somebody behind me yelled "What are you doing, Lieutenant?" I look back, everybody is busy. I don't know who said that, I don't know what's happening behind me. I raise my head up once again.

The strangest thing happens, I look thru my scope, and there are no noise, absolute silence. It's between me and what I am looking at. I don't like it, I move my head away form the ACOG, saw someone in the corner of my eyes. He is running, I can make out his AK, I can make out the flash. I can see his face.

I don't remember whether I shot first, or felt it first. It seems like a compete detachment of reality. Did I just shoot? At the same time, I felt my finger moving, before I know it, my eyes was following him going to the ground, my finger still squeezing the trigger. You don't know what it is, and you don't even know was that just happened? Or some one shot him? Until you take your head away your scope, you look around, and see nobody could have got him but you. Then it started to sink in. I just killed him.

To be honest, I like that feeling afterward, the kind of euphoria that you can only get when you accomplished something, you let out a quick smile, train your head back into the scope, looking for a second target, then a third, then a forth. You want to jump up and scream, like your favorited basketball team just sink a 3 pointer. Someone trying to kill you and now he's dead, set aside whether or not that guy was trying to kill you, this is not the point, the important thing is, he is dead and you aren't, just happy to stay alive I guess.

Some people say second kill is harder than the first, because you had anticipated it, it's gonna happen whether you like it or not, but the second one would come as a surprise to you, but for me, I think I have accepted this is the business I will be in, so I sort of accepted the second kill, or the third kill or the next one.

After a year or so, you rotated back into the US, where everything is A-OK, wall don't fall down because it was hit by a RPG, body don't litter in the street, cars are quite intact and not burning. People with guns replaced with childing playing on a swing set, people laughing talking without the care of the world. Everything is changed, but you. But everyone knows that you had changed, but you.

You are walking down a street downtown Georgia, you felt something isn't right, your ears and eyes cannot reconcile with your brain, you mind tells you it should be a war torn country like you were seeing 3 days ago. you eyes tells your brain that you are seeing other things. You started to stare at a wall and see if it falls down, you started to stares at cars driven by you and waiting for it to explode. But it didn't. Until you see something, hear something familiar, then you go back to your survival mode. You started to feel everything can be fixed with violence.

War is like a drugs, you afraid to try, but it will get you hooked up, and the only way to get your high is, more war.

My first knife kill.

View attachment 475793

Killing a person with firearms is easy, well, easier. Just aim your rifle to a person and squeeze the trigger until he go down. That is once you are over the threshold to kill, afterward, killing don't offer you much of a resistance then it should, it's just something you got to do.

Using a knife or using a rifle, or using a machine gun is simply a choice, at this point, anything and everything is replaceable, killing people with a firearms, and killing people with a knife is one and the same, the only different is the execution.

I guess this is where it diverted, unlike a gun kill, you stalk your victim, you go behind him, you put your right hand over his mouth, you put your left hand, with a bayonet, around his chest, stuck your bayonet between 2nd and 3rd rib bones, twist it 90 degree, and pull it out quickly, then stuck it into his chest again, and again, and again until he slum over you.

You can hear his last breath, you can hear the knife goes into his chest, you can hear the rib cage got pry open. You can felt him bleeding, you are so close, you can even felt his heartbeat. And all I can think of is how to kill the next guy so I won't be detected and also , what if they know?

It gives you that high you can feel, or even tasted when you kill him. It makes you feel good, there are no other word for it. It's felt like you are playing a video game and you went pass a level and starting a new one.

What if I have to do a knife kill first? I would imagine it is the same, maybe I need some more time to think about it, but regardless, you wasn't push over the threshold just before you have to kill, not like how they show in Band of Brothers, maybe different people have different feeling, I don't know, I cannot speak for other people.

The ending.

View attachment 475794

While the sole purpose of war is to kill people (and resolve conflict) but we never use the word "Kill", after all the feelings, emotions, deeds, the act of killing doesn't officially exist in war. It's either you take your target out, you silence that sentry, or you wasted him, but never kills. I wonder is it because it will make us feel better if we don't call it killing? Or is there are something else deeper in the meaning? I cannot tell you that. I am not that deep.

To @HannibalBarca I hope this answer your question as to how people felt to kill
To @Chinese-Dragon I hope that I was making this up, and this never happens, and I sincerely hope that you never have to go thru this.

Thank you for your time.

There's a fine line between hero and monster.Grim reality of a soldiers' life,hats off man.

 

[Feng Leng]

I seriously doubt about the knife killing part. The previous story was a bayonet. Now it's a ninja assassin.

Rifle, artillery and missile kills are not such a big deal. Just pull the trigger or press a button.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

My first knife kill.

It gives you that high you can feel, or even tasted when you kill him. It makes you feel good, there are no other word for it.

"It makes you feel good" to kill someone with a knife?

First you "claimed" to have killed people in combat, now you are claiming you have killed multiple people, even with a knife? And it feels good?

It's felt like you are playing a video game and you went pass a level and starting a new one.

This is not a video game, those are real living people you are claiming to have killed.

 

[nang2]

No one really gets the full picture of killing until he himself is being killed. Before that, he is just imagining. Maybe a story from a severely wounded soldier is more telling.

 

[Viny]

"It makes you feel good" to kill someone with a knife?

First you "claimed" to have killed people in combat, now you are claiming you have killed multiple people, even with a knife? And it feels good?



This is not a video game, those are real living people you are claiming to have killed.

"It makes you feel good" to kill someone with a knife?

First you "claimed" to have killed people in combat, now you are claiming you have killed multiple people, even with a knife? And it feels good?



This is not a video game, those are real living people you are claiming to have killed.

Who's life is more important, His or Yours?
When you are in war zone, you are not there because you like to kill, you are there because someone else is going to kill you or your friends or someone whom you need to safequard.

It feels good, because you survived or your team survived or the people whom you are protecting are unaffected.
Its happiness of being able to overcome adversary and not as you think about killing someone or seeing blood ozing out is reason for happiness.

The natures survival instinct kicks up, in a war zone when bullets fly next you, its like pain/death coming from all sides and if you are able block or cut down the approaching death, the natural euphoria kicks in.

Finally although everyone is trained to kill, many shoot down just to make target immobile or incompetent and not to kill.

Put yourself in line of fire, your views will change.

 

[saltyashell]

Depends on the level of brainwashing. If like on this forum i read quite extreme views of some people , these guys have been brainwashed to only see the other as a enemy and wont feel feel a twinge of regret in taking a life of the "enemy" as he would have already justified it in his mind.
On the other hand someone from a country with much less violence or conflict would have a much different experience after killing a human.
The poster is from usa so already has a violent background to justify his actions.

 

[Slav Defence]

Thread featured.

For other readers, war is a part of natural, evolutionary life.Humans never like to kill unless they are exposed to a certain environment.
Every nation has military and at least quarter men of every nation are trained to handle any unfavorable circumstance.However, under peaceful and stable condition no nation wants to impose war.
So, let us pray for peace and let Allah(SWT) judge the matter.Let us strengthen ourselves and utilize our skills for better world.
Very interesting piece @jhungary and well written.Please go through and proof read your article once again as you share such golden memories when you are drunk .I enjoyed reading it and am happy to see old jhungary coming back after 3 years!
Regards

 

[LeGenD]

"It makes you feel good" to kill someone with a knife?

First you "claimed" to have killed people in combat, now you are claiming you have killed multiple people, even with a knife? And it feels good?



This is not a video game, those are real living people you are claiming to have killed.

Some members of this forum are/were soldiers who have fought in wars and killed people. Soldiers are trained and conditioned to kill. If they are not up to the task, how a country will fight a war? What is so unbelievable in this case?

Some weapons are advanced and robotic to a degree that they offer 'video game style' killing experience to their handlers. Read the testimonials of drone operators for instance.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Some members of this forum are/were soldiers who have fought in wars and killed people. What is so unbelievable in this case?

Some weapons are advanced and robotic to a degree that they offer 'video game style' killing experience to their handlers. Read the testimonials of drone operators for instance.

The problem is that this is an anonymous forum, anyone can claim anything about themselves with zero proof.

Especially when it comes to such wild claims as having killed multiple people, even in close combat with a knife. It just doesn't sound believable without at least some kind of outside verification that the person involved was even a soldier to begin with, like you would see on any non-anonymous platform.

Read the testimonials of drone operators for instance.

I have read the testimonials of drone operators. I could simply write a piece claiming to be a drone operator after that, this is all public domain knowledge that anyone with a keyboard can access.

 

[jhungary]

You must be glad you got that off your chest?

Its never glad that to get it out of someone chest. Because this is a burden you will carry for the rest of your life.

Talk about it is good for mental health, but its not essentially help with you live your everyday life.

This is some sort of point of no return stuff, once you have done that, you never going to be the same. The only way to make you feel better is to accept the fact that it is never going to be the same. Which I have done a long time ago.

And now killings of innocents in iraq will be celebrated on this forum.

I hope the one who kills innocents barging into their lands doesnt die until he is turned into a minced meat.

Well...…….

I am not going to defend my action, it's a war, they have the same chance to kill me as much as I have the same chance to kill him, while I am sorry this is got to be like this (There are no other way, it's a war) but I am not sorry I have to kill these people.

And there are no amount of word can change me view. So you can hope I turn into mince meat before I die, I don't care.

I was going to answer back on our previous exchange.
But I think I have your testimony on this matter.

I thank you for this piece of your Life and Reality, I understand it's not something easy to do, especially when "Feelings" are put on paper and "Answers" will not always be the one you wished to read/hear.

I will take it as it is.

Well, it's hard to actually tell other how you feel when you stick a knife into a human being, you zoned out when you do that, you look at what you doing as if it's someone else, not you. In all the excitement, adrenaline, you won't feel anything when you do it, what you can do is describe how you felt immediately before, and how you felt immediately after. Which sometime it's as hazy as it sound, I mean your brain trying to block what actually did happened, but your conscious trying to keep these memory alive.

That is the reason I said your eyes and ears cannot reconcile with your brain. That's how you get that blank stare (or thousand yards stare) once in a while. Even today, I don't really know was I not in harms way or I am still in that world where I am trying to survive.

This is easy to turn off, extremely hard to turn off.

There's a fine line between hero and monster.Grim reality of a soldiers' life,hats off man.

Let me make it easy for you.

We are ALL monster. Nobody get out of war alive without doing something you are not proud of, I have had my time when I should go help someone and I didn't, and everything you do make you look bad, and everything you try to think make you look good. That is the part you cannot reconcile your action.

You are in war, there are always going to be some action you are expected to take, whether you are ready or not. The interesting things here is, you can be prepared to do the ultimate, but your are never ready for it. You can joke about it, you can laugh about it, you can talk about it, but it does not necessarily make you efficient about that.

And sadly, that is all you can deal with.

Picking up the piece, little by little.

I seriously doubt about the knife killing part. The previous story was a bayonet. Now it's a ninja assassin.

Rifle, artillery and missile kills are not such a big deal. Just pull the trigger or press a button.

How else do you kill a person with bayonet? You do a bayonet charge? You watched too many movie I supposed.

And well, you entitle to your own opinion, so I am not going to say anything else.

Enjoy your day.

"It makes you feel good" to kill someone with a knife?

First you "claimed" to have killed people in combat, now you are claiming you have killed multiple people, even with a knife? And it feels good?

Yes, it felt good. So? What is the problem with that? If you don't like what you do, and do not have sort of a blood lust, military is NOT a place for you. It felt good because you achieve something. You don't see it as a person just died, you see it as overcoming an obstacle.

And you never really kill one single person in war and get over with, it's not a quota system, you don't get to go home just because you killed once before, I am not sure how you think a Military would manage if you limited it to one kill per soldiers.

You were there on a tour of 1 year, on average you have action 2 or 3 days, it is not at all uncommon to have killed more than 1 people. In fact, I have no idea how many people I might have killed in war.

This is not a video game, those are real living people you are claiming to have killed.

Can you distinguish between the two tho? Especially when you in a situation where you dehumanize everyone. In Vietnam, Vietnamese is not human, they are Charlie, Gook, VC. In Falkland, they are Argie. In Iraq, they are Hajji, Rag, Brownie.

I guess for you, it's hard to understand how battlefield is like, war is not for people like you.

No one really gets the full picture of killing until he himself is being killed. Before that, he is just imagining. Maybe a story from a severely wounded soldier is more telling.

Well, in a way, what you said is true. You never get the picture of the people from the other side, but than that is beside the point, because you will never be able to do that and come back and talk about it. Which mean you cannot have something don't really exist.

I have been wounded before, my last incident put me out of the Military. I have been that as well, but at the end of the day, being wounded is more traumatize than having to kill, and I am not going to tell you how it felt being critically wounded.

Who's life is more important, His or Yours?
When you are in war zone, you are not there because you like to kill, you are there because someone else is going to kill you or your friends or someone whom you need to safequard.

It feels good, because you survived or your team survived or the people whom you are protecting are unaffected.
Its happiness of being able to overcome adversary and not as you think about killing someone or seeing blood ozing out is reason for happiness.

The natures survival instinct kicks up, in a war zone when bullets fly next you, its like pain/death coming from all sides and if you are able block or cut down the approaching death, the natural euphoria kicks in.

Finally although everyone is trained to kill, many shoot down just to make target immobile or incompetent and not to kill.

Put yourself in line of fire, your views will change.

It felt good because it is an Accomplishment, you achieve something, either as a part of your objective, or simply you felt alive when you are nearly dead.

In war, I don't care who tell you whatever, your aim is to survive, and the end of a day, when you did and they don't, you felt happy and joy. Not because you like killing people, unlike a serial killer, but rather, it's something that you do and the consequence is instant.

People don't understand that when they were never fired at. The sort of adrenaline rush is there when you do, and that rush, is probably more additive than drug. And there are no other place to score, except in a battlefield.

Depends on the level of brainwashing. If like on this forum i read quite extreme views of some people , these guys have been brainwashed to only see the other as a enemy and wont feel feel a twinge of regret in taking a life of the "enemy" as he would have already justified it in his mind.
On the other hand someone from a country with much less violence or conflict would have a much different experience after killing a human.
The poster is from usa so already has a violent background to justify his actions.

I grow up (from ages 2 to 19) in China, and Hong Kong.

While I am not going to say you are wrong. Everybody is brainwashed to kill. Yes, I led to believe those are my enemy, and you know who lead me to believe? Them. They shoot at me, and I shoot back, the only different is, they are firing their AK in about 100 to 200 meters away, which is bad range for them . I shoot back at a range of 150 meters, with advance optics and stabilisation in my M4, I killed them and they can't kill me.

It's just this simple. Set aside your political view. Warzone is a open-ended free for all, open season on everyone. Normal people are not going to experience something like that. And that is the "beauty" of warzone. In a way, warzone is the most indiscriminate place on earth, because no matter who you are, what you are, you have the equal chance of killing and being kill. It does not matter if you are an US soldier, Iraqi insurgent, or Civilian that got caught in cross fire.

Do we justified that? That's up to the individual who partake in this. Some people kill themselves afterward because they cannot justify what they were doing, some people thrive from what they do, but most, like me, just live by.

I don't think the war is just or unjust, that is not up to me to decide, I just go and do my job. You can say I am lying to myself, but well, if lying to myself get me to sleep, I am more than gladly lying to myself.

Thread featured.

For other readers, war is a part of natural, evolutionary life.Humans never like to kill unless they are exposed to a certain environment.
Every nation has military and at least quarter men of every nation are trained to handle any unfavorable circumstance.However, under peaceful and stable condition no nation wants to impose war.
So, let us pray for peace and let Allah(SWT) judge the matter.Let us strengthen ourselves and utilize our skills for better world.
Very interesting piece @jhungary and well written.Please go through and proof read your article once again as you share such golden memories when you are drunk .I enjoyed reading it and am happy to see old jhungary coming back after 3 years!
Regards

I never brag about killing people, I don't really actually ever talk about them, this is probably the 3rd time I told this and since this forum is anonymous, I can share it with you.

People inheritably not set for killing, if you see a puppy about to drown in a pool, you either rescue that puppy or at worse, stand there and let it goes by. But you will never go down to the pool and push its head down and make it drown faster. If you do, you have some serious issue.

But that's a normal world.

In war, things goes a bit different. You see, hear and smell violent, even the air you breathe in, you breathing in violent, when you cross the street, you see dead body over in the side of the road, building being demolish and car's burning, it will impact you in the first couple of days, but when you go in and out of the street day by day, sooner than later, you will be adjusting to this, and you don't see it as anything out of the norm. This is where you enter the world of chaos.

In war, you need to accept the concept of violence and killing solve EVERYTHING, in order for you to function. In a normal world, you may talk to people who trying to do you harm, or rang the police if someone is inside your house, in war, you need to believe you have to be pro-active. You get your rifle, and start shooting. That is the only way problem get solved.

It may seems barbaric, but war is barbaric, you don't go to war to talk to your enemy, that is way past that point already, there are only one objective universally, they are there to kill you, you are there to kill them. If you cannot accept that, you cannot function as a soldier.

People never been to war, and never at both giving end and receiving end of small arms fire would think there is always an alternative. There isn't. Even if you don't want to kill, other people would make that choice for you, be it your enemy shooting at you and make you angry, or your guys encouraging you to do your deed, either way. Battlefield is a place where there are no immediate consequence. Noted that I said no immediate consequence, not consequence free. You are still account for what you did, but at that time, during the firefight, nothing is off limit.

Some members of this forum are/were soldiers who have fought in wars and killed people. Soldiers are trained and conditioned to kill. If they are not up to the task, how a country will fight a war? What is so unbelievable in this case?

Some weapons are advanced and robotic to a degree that they offer 'video game style' killing experience to their handlers. Read the testimonials of drone operators for instance.

Actually, training only prepare a person to kill, you get ready when you are over there.

Over there, in a war, killing is an instinct, it's like when something make you look up (like a dog carcass on a tree) your instinct tells you to look down, that's where the IED were. Killing come naturally, when you are in an unnatural world. It's is not an action, it's a decision. Or to put it simple, things that we do.

*** I said before, you don't go to a warzone to talk to your enemy, no matter how you slice it, killing accomplished your objective, whether or not it's just living thru day by day, or you need to make progress on an operation, killing and at the same time, not being kill make you come closer to your objective, then of course, you felt happy for it.

Drone, Computer simulation are there to better prepare for a situation, in some way, it delineate what you actually do, and have you accomplished as objective as you can, back in those day, when I have to go to war, the only realistic preparation is when you go to Iraq and being shot at. That is the only way you can prepare for your killing.

The problem is that this is an anonymous forum, anyone can claim anything about themselves with zero proof.

Especially when it comes to such wild claims as having killed multiple people, even in close combat with a knife. It just doesn't sound believable without at least some kind of outside verification that the person involved was even a soldier to begin with, like you would see on any non-anonymous platform.

LOL...…..

I don't write that to make you believe I am a soldier, or I killed people. I don't care you believe I was a soldier and I killed people.

I write to express my feeling, that is how I feel about killing someone, hopefully you have some insight about it. And if you don't believe a word I say, that's your business.

I don't get this "you need to show proof" thing coming from a PDF Chinese member. Okay, of course I can show you my HKID card, my HKCEE exam certificate, I can show you my HKAL certificate, I can show you a copy of my CAC card, I can show you my 201 file, I can show you my 214 file, I can show you my 215 letter, I can show you my certificate of appreciation sign by a major general, I can show you my collection of "trophies". No problem.

But how do you know that is me and not something I download or ask some friend that have military experience on ad pretend that was me? You won't know, so I don't really get this "proof" thing, and it just happened to Chinese member here. I mean, I will never challenge a member "identity" when I discuss thing with them. I won't say "Hey, show me proof that you are American or you are BS"... I really don't get the point.

I have read the testimonials of drone operators. I could simply write a piece claiming to be a drone operator after that, this is all public domain knowledge that anyone with a keyboard can access.​

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You said you can write an article and pretend to be a drone operator? Can you really when you have no drone operating experience in a Forward operational area.

Do you know what is an AO scan?
Do you know what is the maximum strength of ISAR signature?
Do you know how a target chain is pick up by Drone operator?
Do you know what is "the Latency" between Drone Surveillance and Operator on station? Can you explain the chain of latency to me?

I can write a lot about race car driver, but there are some knowledge that is only know to people who actually race for a living, for you, because you know nothing (literally nothing) about military, that mean you think you can (because you don't know any proprieties/privileged knowledge, you assume those did not exist.)

But I bet you 1000 USD if you use another name and write an article about drone operating, I can pick you up and call your bluff, because I know something about battlefield drone operation in real life that you don't. Because not everything is on Public Domain like you said. That is called tactical knowledge.

I never ask anyone to believe I am an actual soldier, I am more than welcome to have any challenge my knowledge, but at this point, none have been come to fruition so far. Ask @AUSTERLITZ @Slav Defence @LeGenD @gambit or anyone in that matter, did I ever ask them to believe I was a soldier or an officer to begin with?

I wouldn't care less if anyone think I am BSing you, this is a public forum, not some NSA operation or something in that effect, BSing you or anyone here did not get me any advantage. I was not getting paid by this forum to express my view, I got absolutely no gain for pretending something that I am not.

Again, people believe I was in the military because the stuff that I say, and stuff that I discuss, not because I tell them I was a soldier.