OK Recon +1 for serving your country.
Me being a critical Dutchman (ergo a non-American) have some comments for you to give you some perspective... I hear your story about fighting for freedom and so on, but the horrible truth is that you are fighting for the political agenda of your leaders. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful that your Grandfathers came in '45 to relieve us from the Nazi's, but where it not for other interests (like oil, Arabs with nukes, economic impulses, getting the peoples vote) the US would not be in any global conflict.
About the reason you fight... When you were in your war and were lying in a ditch with you fellow soldiers, where you thinking about how good it felt you were fighting for freedom? BS... You were fighting for the man next to you. (And off course the officers told you to fight). And there is nothing wrong with that.
Only when you are the one being attacked, when you home soil is threatened, I can understand you are fighting for your freedom.
Now about the linking to kill people. As a reason for not linking to kill people you name the trauma's you get from it. What about killing being morally wrong.
They are working on a medicine for soldiers to take the emotions out of killing and stressful combat situations. You take a pill and the emotion you have about the person you just killed is the same as blowing your nose.
So if that would be available to you do you think killing would be less of a problem?
I think yes...
Ever heard of B.F Skinner. The Army is using his psychological techniques to teach soldiers to kill at a drop of a hat. It is called conditioning and it works. Killing for a soldiers has nothing to do with liking... It is a conditioned behavior. The only problem the Army was having was the emotional problems the soldiers were having afterward (ergo Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). With the invention of this pill that will become something of the past (thanks to the information acquired from patients who have received brain surgery, they discovered where the emotions connection to an event are stored en how to modify these emotions, experiments with mice have succeeded).
So my question to you Recon is this. When this pill comes available to the Army, will you take it and be able to lead a normal life as if nothing has even happened. Or will you refuse and feel the pain for the rest of your life, contributing to our global conscience.
If you really are against killing people, you will refuse this pill... but hey it is your life.
I mean no disrespect to you and your fellow soldiers, just hoping to give you another view for you to think about.
Grtz. ResDog1
[pWa]Recon wrote:
being a soldier, and having gone to war for my country, i say NO, do any of you know what it is like to dream the same dream over and over again, until you are walking down the street with your wife and kids and you spaz out and hit the ground, because your dream is not playing out for you in real time, full color, no holds barred action as if you were back in the mix.... maybe 2% of you do, until you have this first hand knowledge, shut the fuck up, and keep your ASS HAT statements to your self about "the red mist" (jarhead) and baby killers ( LBJ), i don't want to hear it, people in america.... soldiers fight for your freedom so you have the RIGHT TO PROTEST the war, we fight for you to say whatever your little minds think about an elected office... we fight for the freedom that allows you to be on this message board in the first place..... do you think that China can just google whatever it wants to..... nope.... less freedoms..... your freedom of speech is a soldiers curse, due to this we take your comments with a grain of salt (or sand, depending if you have been to the sand box) and say we fight for YOU, the civilians, so you can curse us, and spit on us... and another thing..... while you spit on us.... we stand still, hold our ground, and remember that this land was formed on the blood of our country's leaders, soldiers, and HONOR. remember this before you deside to cut down a soldier for keeping your civil freedoms just that... free, remember that before you protest another soldiers furnal, remember that the next time you see our flag waving above your head, that soldiers bleed the red stripes to keep the white(civilians in general) stripes pure, and the field of blue and white held in union. Truth, Honor, and the HIGHEST ESPRIT` De Corps.
~Recon