Sheepdog Tip of the Day, After Combat tip 128
Each soldier who actively or passively participates in ... mass executions is faced with a stark choice. On the one hand, the soldier can resist the incredibly powerful array of forces that call for him to kill, and he will instantly be denied by his nation, his leaders, and his friends and will most likely be executed along with the other victims of this horror. On the other hand, the soldier can bow before the social and psychological forces that demand that he kill, and in doing so he will be strangely empowered. The soldier who does kill must overcome that part of him that says that he is a murderer of women and children, a foul beast who has done the unforgivable. He must deny the guilt within him, and he must assure himself that the world is not mad, that his victims are less than animals, that they are evil vermin, and that what his nation and his leaders have told him to do is right. He must believe that not only is this atrocity right, but it is proof that he is morally, socially, and culturally superior to those whom he has killed. It is the ultimate definitive act of denial of their humanity. It is the ultimate act of affirmation of his superiority. And the killer must violently suppress any dissonant thought that he has done anything wrong. Further, he must violently attack anyone or anything that would threaten his beliefs. His mental health is totally invested in believing that what he has done is good and right. It is the blood of his victims that binds and empowers him to even greater heights of killing and slaughter. And when we realize that this same basic empowering process is what motivates satanic murders and other such cult killings, the analogy of a satanic pact is not as strange as it seems. This is the strength, the power, and the attraction that have resided in human sacrifices over millennia.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing
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Additional Resources
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