#on combat

[warchaplain]

“Dear God, where do we get such men? What loving God has provided, that each generation, afresh, there should arise new giants in the land. Were we to go but a single generation without such men, we should surely be both damned and doomed.” -Anon, via Lt. Col. David Grossman: On Combat

[crazytxgradstudent]

This is what I struggle with, more than having seen a dead body or hearing something flying overhead. It’s that gnawing thought in the back of your head that you were involved in something terrible, that whether you pulled that trigger or not, you were an accomplice. That you were involved in something that fundamentallly goes against everything you believe.

How does one go back, integrate into society, and smile as if nothing is wrong? When someone says “thanks for your service”, and outwardly you smile, but internally cringe with disgust, how do you deal with that?

[offensiveremark]

[cirquedusoliloquies]

On pain during combat.

Naturally in fighting technique is important, but the ability to take punishment equally so.

This is why I believe that while training to fight should of course be injury free, it should also be painful. If you experience enough pain on a day-to-day basis during your training, you become used to it and then pain becomes even  less than a distraction to you; a dull touch that you barely feel. In this way there is also no need to rely on your adrenaline to mask the pain. Instead you accept it the same way you accept the discomfort of a doctor's needle; it may be unpleasant, but it does not truly harm you. With this mentality, once a fight starts and you let your opponent attack you without striking back, and all the familiar pains of combat set in -the burning muscles and bruised skin and deep contusions and sharp aches from vicious blows- and you show your opponent nothing, not even a hint of any discomfort despite him giving it his all, you break his will to fight before you even strike him once. Pain passes. But every victory, once won, is forever yours. 

[corpsman562]

We are warriors. We are willing to walk out the door and suck up bullets if we have to.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman "On Combat"

[corpsman562]

Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all of us. And every man is scared in his first action. If he says he's not, he's a goddamn liar. Some men are cowards, yes, but they fight just the same, or get the hell slammed out of them. The real hero is the man who fights even though he's scared. Some get over their fright in a minute, under fire; others take and hour; for some it takes days; but a real man will never let the fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty, to his country and to his manhood.

General George Patton

[corpsman562]

Too delicate is the flesh to be The Shield that nations interpose 'Twixt red ambition and his foes The bastion on liberty.

E.V. Lucas

"The Debt"