the smaller the war, the worse it becomes

Luke Mogelson's piece in Sunday's (May 1) The New York Times Magazine, "A Beast in the Heart of Every Fighting Man" is required reading.

The tale of the killing of three Afghan civilians by U.S. soldiers--the solidiers currently on trial for the crime at an army base near Tacoma, Washington--is chilling in all aspects.

Most sobering is this passage, lifted straight from Mogelson:

       Studies show that over the course of our military history,
       American soldiers have become increasingly more willing
       to kill. In World War II, just 15 to 20 percent of infantrymen
       actually fired their rifles at the enemy during battles; in Korea
       that number increased to 55 percent; in Vietnam it reached 90.
       Retired Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author of the book "On Killing",
       attributes the trend to changes in military training. The "methods
       that increased the firing rate from 15 percent to 90 percent,"
       Grossman writes, "are referred to as 'programming' or
       'conditioning'" intended to address--or redress--"the simple
       and demonstrable fact that there is within most men an intense
       resistance to killing their fellow man."

Note the eerie progression, and that the 'smaller' the war the more likely it is that a solider will activate his (or her) weapon.

Several years ago James Hillman published A Terrible Love of War, saying it would be his last book. I kept the book on my nightstand for almost a year, finally having the guts to read it.