Sheepdog Tip of the Day

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When soldiers do kill the enemy they appear to go through a series of
emotional stages. The actual kill is usually described as being reflexive
or automatic. Immediately after the kill the soldier goes through a period
of euphoria and elation, which is usually followed by a period of guilt and
remorse. The intensity and duration of these periods are closely related to
distance. At midrange we see much of the euphoria stage. The future field
marshal Slim wrote of experiencing this euphoria upon shooting a Turk in
Mesopotamia in 1917. "I suppose it is brutal," wrote Slim, "but I had a
feeling of the most intense satisfaction as the wretched Turk went spinning
down." Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing
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One of the most remarkable revelations in Watson's book War on the Mind is
his report of conditioning techniques used by the U.S. government to train
assassins. In 1975 Dr. Narut, a U.S. Navy psychiatrist with the rank of
commander, told Watson about techniques he was developing for the U.S.
government in which classical conditioning and social learning methodology
were being used to permit military assassins to overcome their resistance
to killing. The method used, according to Narut, was to expose the subjects
to "symbolic modeling" involving "films specially designed to show people
being killed or injured in violent ways. By being acclimatized through
these films, the men were supposed to eventually become able to
disassociate their emotions from such a situation. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman,
On Killing
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The modern concept of a combat leader usually envisions a hardened veteran
moving behind a battle line of his men, exhorting, encouraging, punishing,
rebuking, correcting, and rewarding them. But combat leadership has not
always been like this. Armies have always had leaders, but the Romans were
the first to take proven warriors and systematically develop them into
professional leaders starting at the lowest levels. Prior to this time,
leaders were usually expected to get into the battle and lead from the
front, but the Romans were one of the first to also place leaders behind
their men in an open order of battle. The influence of this kind of
leadership was one of the key factors in the success of the Roman way of
war. The process of having a respected, proven, small unit leader moving
behind his men and demanding effective killing activity from them has
continued to be a key factor in effective combat in the centuries to
follow. (The fact that he does not necessarily have to personally kill the
enemy provides a diffusion of responsibility, which also enables the
killing.) This kind of leadership largely disappeared along with the Roman
Empire, but it appeared again in the firing lines of English long bowmen,
and then it appeared as a systematically applied factor in the firing lines
of the successful armies of the gunpowder era, and it continues up to
today. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Combat
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Thirty seven states are "shall issue" concealed carry. In all thirty seven
cases crime went down. We have become hard targets, and that is a major
factor in keeping violent crime under control. Not one state ever
reversed "shall issue". Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, The Bullet Proof Mind
seminar (paraphrased)
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If a pilot becomes too aroused and begins to enter Condition Red, the price
he pays is loss of fine-motor skills. Having your helicopter pilot lose his
fine-motor control as he makes a close approach on a hot landing zone is
not a good thing. Pilots try to exist in a zen-like state of constant,
mellow Yellow. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Combat
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The stress hormones flooding through your body are made for fight or
flight, and cannot be ignored. They need to be used, and hard exercise is
the best way to do it. When you get busy, however, it is often your workout
program that is the first thing to go. Do not let this happen to you,
because exercise is the very thing you need. A daily run, 45 minutes
pumping weights or a basketball game are the kind of things that can help
burn off the stress hormones flooding through your body. Be sure to work
out with positive, quality people who can help you blow off steam. You
do not get anything from your workout when you exercise with bitter, trash
talking or quick-tempered people. Such individuals only add to your
stress. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Combat
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When you're shooting badly, stop. Too often, when people are training they
think the opposite. When they're shooting badly, they think, "Oh, I'm not
doing well. I'd better keep hammering at this until I get better." In fact,
what they're doing is reinforcing poor performance. They should stop
training and go to a different drill they can do well, a lower intensity
drill, or a "back to basics" training session. In some cases, they need to
do something completely different for a while. Linda K. Miller and Keith
Cunningham, Secrets of Mental Marksmanship
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To a large extent our society - particularly our young men - actively and
vicariously pursues physical danger. Through roller coasters, action and
horror movies, drugs, rock climbing, whitewater rafting, scuba diving,
parachuting, hunting, contact sports, and a hundred other methods, our
society enjoys danger. To be sure, danger in excess grows old fast,
particularly when we feel that we have lost control of it. And the
potential for death and injury is an important ingredient in the complex
mixture that makes combat so stressful, but it is not the major cause of
stress in either our daily lives or in combat. But facing aggression and
hatred in our fellow citizens is an experience of an entirely different
magnitude. All of us have had to face hostile aggression. On the playground
as children, in the impoliteness of strangers, in the malicious gossip and
comments of acquaintances, and in the animosity of peers and superiors in
the workplace. In all of these instances everyone has known hostility and
the stress it can cause. Most avoid confrontations at all costs, and to
work ourselves up to an aggressive verbal action - let alone a physical
confrontation - is extremely difficult. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On
Killing
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John Farnam, correspondence to Lt. Col. Grossman: We do too much
training "in the abstract." "In the abstract" is where all training must
begin, because the front brain is the entry point for all information.
Unhappily, that is where much of what passes for training also ends. As the
student is gradually immersed in the training environment, stress levels
must be increased so that important psychomotor skills begin to filter into
the mid-brain. The mid-brain will only "know what to do" if the student has
been "stress inoculated." Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Combat
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Since Columbine, there have been several cases of kids with bombs and guns
caught by the police before they could inflict massive death in their
schools. There will be more attempts, and some will succeed. Police,
teachers and emergency crews need to be courageous and rescue the wounded,
but they need to do so with great caution and with security in place. They
need to be alert for a gunman in the middle of the kill zone with a
shotgun, or an entrenched sniper gunning down survivors. Lt. Col. Dave
Grossman, On Combat
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