Quote:
Originally Posted by Sidd Finch
I agree with you that a lot of people want to have a simple narrative. I'm looking past that, past the movie (that I haven't seen) and at the more fundamental question, of why we should be surprised at what people become when we train them to be killers.
I understand you know vets who are different and more shaded than Kyle supposedly was. So do I. But I do wonder whether the particular job of a sniper is such as to make that much more difficult.
I'm not really arguing with you, just wrestling with this myself. A few years ago I bought a book by a general, called "On Killing" that I think discussed some of these issues. I'll look at it and tell you if I can recommend.
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Jobs like this are particularly problematic. A lot of them are dead-ends within the military. You don't really want someone who is trained as an unfeeling automaton of an assassin to command broader troop formations, and generally moving into senior command ranks requires that (or sometimes a pentagon desk job). Some people get pulled out and retrained, but most languish. So besides all the problems around how you've been trained and what you've been trained to do, there are limited rewards for doing these jobs well, so you're going to start getting pretty frustrated with the military itself as you keep doing this.
Then think on this: as independent contractors, after leaving the military, these folks are in demand and get paid well.
