How can soldiers kill

At least seven civilians have been killed in targeted attacks over the past two weeks, including two teachers and a popular pharmacist from the Sikh and Hindu communities. The killings have been claimed by a group that calls itself The Resistance Front, which Indian police officials believe is an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Varying reports suggest Indian police and military have picked up somewhere between to people in recent days as part of efforts to track down the perpetrators behind the spate of killings.

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China. The date was 10 November , just two years to the day I had talked with him against that shattered wall in Fallujah — and also, the date on which the US Marine Corps annually celebrates its founding in Sandi felt the Marines had failed her son. But she knew he had loved the camaraderie of the corps and had him buried in his dress blues.

She also knew that the uniform was just the surface of a much more complex story, a story of belief, duty and honor yes, but also about how guilt over killing in the pursuit of those ideals could lead to ruin.

This is done in a clinical setting, but it is also a nod to the value of the age-old practice of storytelling, especially within warrior societies, as a method for sharing both the burdens and the glories of war — like the Greeks with their epic poems, or Native American tribes of the plains speaking around their campfires, or Maori warriors tattooing their battle exploits on their bodies. But to treat moral injury, which can and often does co-exist with PTSD, the VA is testing a different approach: a six-session pilot treatment programme, currently run by Maguen, called Impact of Killing in War, or in the military world of forced acronyms — IOK.

Silly acronym or not, the programme represents a seismic shift in the treatment of war trauma, embracing for the first time the concept that real healing might need to include moral and spiritual notions such as forgiveness and giving back. The first step in IOK involves education; veterans literally learn about the complex psychology of killing in war and the inner conflict it provokes.

Then, looking inward, they are trained to identify those feelings in themselves. The third step involves the practice of self-forgiveness. Finally, the veterans are asked to make amends through individual acts of contrition or giving back. Keith Meador, a psychiatrist with a pastoral religious background, has been breaking down the barrier between mental health and spiritual care to help the veterans heal.

In the truest warrior tradition, he shared his story as an act of faith and an act of healing. A few small studies and reports suggest that the new therapy helps. Indeed, if Corporal Wold is our allegorical Achilles, felled by an untreated moral injury, then Lance Corporal James Sperry is our Odysseus, who, after struggling for years, finally makes it home. I videotaped him after he had been wounded during the first day of fighting. Like Wold, Sperry came home with a head battered from war and filled with guilt.

His unit suffered some of the highest casualty rates of the war. He sent me an email six years after Fallujah, thanking me for helping carry his stretcher that day and asking if I had any photos of his comrades killed in action. I have lost 20 friends in this war and would like to get as many pictures as I can.

He met nearly all of its criteria, including purposelessness, alienation, drug and alcohol use, and even a near-suicide attempt he went as far as to sling a rope over the rafters of his garage.

His recovery, which took years, was not the result of a single act, but encouragement from family and friends, ongoing determination and a groundbreaking programme from the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which specialises in helping those with brain and spinal cord injuries. That rehab blended the best traditions of Eastern and Western medicine, using yoga, acupuncture, hypnosis, psychotherapy and exercise.

Sperry did one more thing. He broke the silence. He shared his story with me for my book The Things They Cannot Say , with all of its setbacks, dark moments and eventual successes. In the style of veterans undergoing IOK therapy, his struggles inspired a new sense of purpose, leading him to found The Fight Continues, an organisation dedicated to helping veterans make the transition home.

And that was war. But what of those who refuse to pull the trigger? Military psychologists debate the issue of non-firers, and some say this is because their psyche is repulsed by the act of killing.

He wrote a study called Men Against Fire about this reluctance to kill the enemy. Marshall's research methods have since been questioned, but the broad conclusion is still accepted: soldiers often simply won't shoot.

The Reverend Dr Giles Fraser, who lectures on morality and ethics at the academy of the British Ministry of Defence, says there is a deep human reluctance to kill other people. Lt Col Kilner, of the US Army, says the way to keep soldiers psychologically on an even keel is to reason with them - not to take away their choice and intellectual involvement with what happens in battle.

Marshall's conclusions led the military to change the way soldiers were trained, to bring home the reality of confronting the enemy. For example, shooting practise no longer uses bullseyes, but human-shaped cut-outs that pop up unexpectedly. I killed many people, I saw friends dying all around me, it was terrible.

I used to be afraid during the time of the fighting, because of the weapons that they were using to kill people. But on my face, I could never show that I was afraid. There were many people dying, I had to protect myself. There were over one hundred of us doing the training. They gave us a gun, we had to learn to fire. We would crawl over and under barbed wire. We were made to lie down and they would see if you were brave by firing near your body. Twelve-year-old Patrick F.

As a commander, I was in charge of nine others, four girls and five boys. We were used mostly for guarding checkpoints but also fighting. I shot my gun many times, I was wounded during World War I, shot in the leg.

I never feared anything. I would laugh at death, even when my friends were killed. Sometimes I would feel bad afterward, about my brothers killed, but by fighting I could bring food to my parents and relatives.

Children described how child soldiers in the SBUs were often the first sent to the front. Charles Q. These small ones would be sent to the front first. They were usually around fourteen or fifteen years old but some could be as young as ten.

You would be sent to the front first. You go and get killed and then the next one takes your place, it never ended. Punishment for wrongdoings could mean beatings, torture, and death. The children interviewed from LURD and government forces described the internal rules which prohibited abuses against civilians and the punishments that fighters received for harassment.

Nevertheless, they themselves were complicit in stealing, looting and abducting civilians. It was unclear whether some acts would be tolerated by some commanders and not others or whether specific ethnic groups could be targeted with impunity. However, widespread abuse against civilians by all warring parties occurred often with the knowledge and encouragement of commanders.

For punishments, some fighters were killed, some beaten or given other punishment, it depended on what they did wrong and who made the decision. I was caught looting, and had to hold my arms straight body in upright, push-up position. Whenever I fell from exhaustion, I was beaten and forced to hold my arms straight again.

There were strict rules in LURD, for murder or rape, you could be killed, for looting or harassment there were other punishments. According to one child soldier in the government, who served with both the Jungle Fire and Navy command militias, his commander in Jungle Fire would not tolerate stealing and some of his friends were killed for looting.

But in Navy command, looting was permitted. He further explained that one commander would routinely beat people, including his men, for no apparent reason and was abusive to the boys working in his unit.

If someone made a mistake they would be beaten, the general would order to have the person tied and they were beaten, sometimes by rope, a stick, a piece of rubber or a belt. They would have their arms first tied behind their back and then beaten. Other times you could be dragged through dirty water or whipped.

These punishments were for things like, raping, stealing or killing. But any government soldiers we found, they would be killed immediately. Capture by enemy combatants usually meant gruesome death. In a few cases, children would be taken as prisoners or forced to fight for the other side. Children described the killings of suspected enemy fighters or collaborators or what happened to themselves when they were caught. I saw government soldiers kill three men, right in front of me. They were made to lie on the ground and shot in the head.

They were accused of being rebels, because of the markings on their arms. They were shot on July 9 here in town. We captured this one boy and he fought with us later.

He was ambushed in a car together with other government soldiers, near Bopolu. LURD fighters cut the hands and feet off the government fighters and made them get back in the car; the boy was the only one spared.

Their car was full of blood. One boy from the government side was caught near the Broadville Bridge; he had been wounded in the leg and unable to retreat. LURD caught him and tied him up attached to a stick. They then cut off his toes, fingers, nose and ears.

Then they cut off his private parts and left him to bleed to death. They later threw his body in the river. Seventeen-year-old Winston W. He said the three adults were immediately killed; they had their heads cut off with knives, decapitated in front of him. I still have pains from the abuse. I was dragged off and imprisoned and later forced to fight with the government forces.

Prince D.