Opinion

The thousand-yard stare

By Douglas Lummis

I recently found an interesting book by Chris Hedges: "What Every Person Should Know About War" (Free Press, 2003). Hedges is a New York Times foreign correspondent, who has spent many years at the front lines in wars all around the world. The book begins with a 1392 quotation from Geoffrey Chaucer which, rendered in modern English, would read:

"There are very many men who cry 'War! War!' who know very little what war amounts to."

The book is organized in question and answer form. It contains no arguments, no appeals, no dogma, just fact and description. For example:

Only about two percent of the population (Hedges' statistics are based on American data) are "natural killers." The other 98 percent must overcome a deep resistance to killing. Even people with military training may, when they have killed someone for the first time, experience an attack of revulsion and remorse, accompanied by sobbing, vomiting, and asking for forgiveness.

During and after combat, 15 to 30 percent of soldiers suffer from "combat stress reaction." Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, paranoia, trembling, temporary blindness, deafness, or the inability to talk, and the "thousand-yard stare."

During World War II, 504,000 U.S. troops suffered psychiatric collapse and had to be taken out of combat.

It is reported that the number of U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War who have committed suicide since the war is greater than the number who were killed in the war.

"In World War II it was determined that after 60 days of continuous combat, 98 percent of all those who surviｖe will become psychiatric casualties." The remaining two percent are the same two percent mentioned above, the already psychotic "natural killers," who seek jobs as executioners or become serial killers if they don't get into the military.

The book doesn't mention this, but the United States and other rich countries keep their troops sane by continually rotating them back from the front, sending them to Rest and Recreation areas outside the war zone where they can drink beer and chase women, and then sending them back to the front. But of course the people of a country like Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, when it is invaded, will not have that luxury.)

On the other hand, some troops experience "combat addiction." Sometimes in the middle of a fierce fight, your body will release a massive amount of adrenaline into the bloodstream, which has the effect of a large morphine injection. This brings on a "combat high." You are filled with joy, you laugh, you totally forget all danger. If you live, you will remember that feeling and try to bring it on again, and again. According to Hedges, when soldiers get addicted in this manner, they always die.

During the war in Vietnam, at least 600 and perhaps as many as 2,000 U.S. military officers were killed by troops under their command.

These are just a few samples. I recommend this book to anyone who has romantic ideas about war.

Shukan ST: Oct. 3, 2003

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