To Kill a Human Being

In the book Seal Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Temple,Howard Wasdin shares many of his stories from his past career as one of the most advanced, highly trained fighters in the world.  Howard was part of the U.S. Navy's most elite fighting force, the Navy SEALs (specifically the super elite anti-terrorism unit SEAL Team Six).  In this book he shows just how hard it is to become a Navy Seal.  There is an unbelievable amount of training involved to become one.  In the portion of the book that I read today Howard Wasdin tells the reader about his first combat experiences in Iran and Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.  The most interesting part of this section was when he explains how he felt after he had killed someone for the first time.


When most people think of a Navy SEAL they think of a killing machine who can kill one hundred of the enemy without skipping a beat.  But in reality they are just like normal people, like me and you.  They just have some of the most advanced combat training available to anyone on the face of the earth.  Howard explained how hard it was mentally for him after he had killed for the first time.  He says that the fact that he had made it so the enemy soldier can never breath again, see his family again, talk again, walk again, etc. really haunted him.  He even asked his preacher if him killing someone in combat would send him to hell, the preacher said no because he honorably served his country.  I think that it is so interesting that someone who is trained in so many different ways for the sole purpose of killing enemies of the U.S. would have such an emotional reaction to killing one.  On the other hand I think that it makes perfect sense, Howard is only human.  He has feelings just like you and me.  Just because he went through BUD/S (really advanced training to become a navy seal) doesn't mean that he got transformed into a fighting and killing machine with no feelings what-so-ever.  


I think that what could have contributed to Howard reacting to killing in combat for the first time is that also during Operation Desert Storm, Howard and a fellow SEAL captured 14 Iraqi soldiers. The soldiers immediately surrendered and continuously thanked the two SEALs for giving them a tiny amount of food and sparing their lives.  At this moment Howard saw the enemy as human beings as opposed to "ragheads" (a derogatory term used during the Gulf War for Iraqi soldiers).  I think that the fact that Howard had essentially failed at dehumanizing the enemy (which is a technique that is widely used by soldiers to make killing the enemy easier) made it much harder mentally for him to kill.