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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ubetcha who wrote (83376)	3/17/2002 4:07:06 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 117095

Since the days of old king Tut, no matter what the what, most armies seem to shrink. Give the boy a gun, tell him to have fun, and you will find he's off to drink. He doesn't want to die, he'd rather up and fly, And killings's not his think. No doubt about it, killing is a dirty word these days. Fear of death is one thing, but it is usually only when it's obvious that it hits you. It rarely nags every step. It is equally hard to get the soldier to pull the trigger when the consequences of putting an end to someone else is clear and unavoidable. That is one reason people don't want to agress deadly, but I suppose you could add panic and shock that naturally hits one in a confusing and noisy situation. This fear of killing accounts for the "lovely war" that stalemated the Western front in WWI, and the lock up of many a civil war battle across positions of cover. Even in an enemy charge where soldiers are clearly bent on taking a position, often defenders will not fire, frozen from this morbid fear of taking life. The "lovely war" is the name for a situation that developed in WWI, where German and allied troops shot above each other's heads across trenches and would not snipe the enemy soldier. They mutually agreed not to war unless ordered into a major attack. It was not absolutely universal, but very nearly so and the allied command chose to break it by inventing modern guerilla raiding tactics, or as they happened, battalion level surprise night attacks. These small party raids, without bomabardment, while costly, did break the enemy lines. Sir Arthur Hugh Currie, a southern Ontario insurance adjuster was the Canadian general who developed this way of attack and it was used to great success as well in WWII and the Korean war. Fact is nobody wants to shoot, and won't talk about it if they do. If anyone really got a kick out of pulling triggers with someone else in the sights, I don't doubt that he would be considered suspect by most soldiers. If a hippy draft dodger said that his main objection to war was that he did not want to kill other people, he is not lying. He has unusual insight into his mind I would say. And whether he knows it or not, that is the one thing other than incompetence at manoeuvering that would most inibit his ability as a soldier. Sargeant York, the legendary sniper of WWI who captured a regiment of Germans singlehandedly started the war as a non combatant, a conscientous objector. Once he had it out with his chaplain about his problem with shooting, in that he could not miss, being an expert marksman, he resolved to do his duty. After he had cleared that psychological barrier coldly and deliberately, he had left his fear of death behind. By this process of studied resolve, coupled with his unique skills, he became one of the most most efficient soldiers recorded of any American war. Similarly both Yaitsef, the famous Russian sniper of WWII, and the Finn who shot 450 officers in the Russian war, were hunters who had to learn at an early age to pull a trigger when they did not want to. Not an easy job. EC<:-}