“Morality and Killing-the Junior Officer’s Perspective”

Monday one of my instructors took the liberty of throwing out the course-mandated lesson and teaching what he thought of as more relevant and important to our professional development. I tend to agree with his assessment, especially after hearing his thoughts on the subject of killing. I'll attempt to do his class justice here. It really is something that I hope none of us ever have to deal with, but should nonetheless be prepared for.

First off, war inherently involves killing, and officers are, by the nature of their position of leadership, in charge of dealing death on the battlefield. Winning the nation's wars, when the politicians call for it, means making people dead. As my instructor said, "great political ambitions of leaders are solved by warriors killing each other." A good read on the subject is "On Killing" by Dave Grossman. While I haven't read the book [yet], from my understanding Grossman talks about how the proximity to killing has everything to do with the psychological effects, as well as the circumstances. You might be the one pulling the trigger, you might be in charge of the one pulling the trigger, you might be directing a pilot to fire on a target or calling for artillery fire, you might be the one firing the artillery from miles away, you might be on a ship in the ocean or a plane in the air firing a cruise missile from tens or hundreds of miles away. As you can probably guess, these situations all have varying impacts on the "trigger puller," but it may be that a person's post-traumatic stress actually gets more complicated as you get farther away. After all, someone charging a trench/building/whatever and shooting someone that was shooting back can feel somewhat at ease with their actions because their own life was in danger. But the bomber pilot probably can't say the same thing.

But I think I'm commenting outside of my expertise at this point, so I'll change gears to telling a story. My instructor, Major Stroh (a captain at the time), was a MTT (military transition team) team leader in a southern area of Baghdad, working alongside the IA (Iraqi Army) and IP (Iraqi Police) forces in charge. It is 2005 and Baghdad is a bad place to be. There are an average of 5 VBIEDs (vehicle-born IEDs) per day right now. Current ROE (rules of engagement) allow for the engaging of any vehicles that come within 50 meters of an American convoy; this fact is well known to the Iraqi populace at this point and is also on big signs on American vehicles. Major Stroh is out checking in with some IA leaders and his 3 vehicle convoy is outside providing security. The rearmost HMMWV's gunner is a supply clerk, not a bad soldier but not exactly the "A team." During the course of his meeting, Major Stroh hears commotion outside, one shot from an M4 (the basic rifle carried by our troops), and he walks outside in time to see the rear gunner release about 80 rounds from his M240B (heavy machine gun, absolutely lethal). The single shot was a warning shot, the 80 rounds designed to stop the car. It did stop the car and the gunner did everything correctly according to the ROE- the car came within the 50 meter limit and showed no sign of slowing down; his actions potentially saved the lives of other soldiers on the convoy. The occupants of the van were as follows: a pregnant woman in the passenger seat, her brother in the driver's seat, and the woman's husband in the back. They were on their way to the hospital because the woman was in labor. The hospital was on the other side of the convoy's position; they had almost made it. The woman and her brother were killed, the child of course lost. The bodies were MEDEVAC'ed (taken out by helicopter). But what do you tell that soldier who just killed three civilians and seriously wounded another? When is the next time you send him out on patrol (you have 9 more months in Iraq left)? How do you help him process all this? There are a lot of ways and a lot of resources available to that soldier, fortunately much more than there have been in the past. But as the first officer in his chain of command, it was Major Stroh's responsibility to make sure that soldier got the appropriate help.

The soldiers in your command will kill someone in the course of a combat deployment. You can be a infantry officer clearing buildings of enemy combatants or a quartermaster platoon leader running convoys and your gunners are going to kill people (I will most likely be in that latter boat). This is okay, even good. You want your soldiers to be absolutely lethal in combat. Accomplishing your mission hangs in the balance. But due to the ever present and auspicious "fog of war" (our way of saying that battle is confusing and ambiguous), the dead people aren't always combatants; they too often end up being innocent civilians either caught in unfortunate circumstances (like the occupants of that van, or arguably the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings) or looking down the barrel of a weapon held by a misguided or disturbed soldier (such as at Mi Lai). War is the most absurd occurrence in our human existence and it inevitably involves killing. You can ignore the consequences and complications of ending human life and take it to your grave. You probably shouldn't.

I guess the bottom line is that it's tough and part of the curse of the profession. Pray for the people who are put in these circumstances. And if you are ever in such a situation where you are ending human life in the course of combat, get help for yourself if you need it; there is no stigma or weakness in admitting you need help.