I understand very well that you yourself don't think that one has to be a sociopath to become an infantryman, but that is exactly what the author is claiming in this article. That's why so many former military guys (such as myself) think that this article is idiotic.
There are definitely a disproportionate amount of people who return from war with psychological issues, but sociopaths are pretty rare. Many people who have been in combat have a difficult time relating to the rest of the world, but it doesn't make them psychopaths.
There are probably a few people who choose to become military contractors because they are sick individuals that enjoy killing their fellow man, but I suspect that the majority of the people who go that route do so because they leave the military without any marketable skills and find it hard to pass up the six-figure incomes that are offered to military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Just to clarify a bit, I don't disagree with his assessment of the video game / movie industry, just his statements about soldiers being sadistic killing machines without a sense of morality.
There are probably a few people who choose to become military contractors because they are sick individuals that enjoy killing their fellow man
'Sociopath' has become unfortunately loaded word. I certainly don't think of a serial killer or sadist when I see that term, but rather someone who is emotionally and socially detached from their surroundings, out of ongoing necessity as much as anything else. It's callous indifference as opposed to cruelty, just as people who work on industrial farms and in slaughterhouses are acclimatized to their rather unpleasant jobs, as opposed to hating animals or glorifying in their suffering. The sociopathy described here is the mindset of 'nothing personal/just business' taken to its logical conclusion: one might say that the US has a comparative economic advantage in the projection of military power, this military contractor is essentially one of many service workers to whom we (as society) have outsourced some of our morally unpleasant tasks.
I agree. Most sociopaths will never commit a violent act and often lead somewhat normal lives. I was just trying to use the term in the same context the author did. There are some sociopaths that are serial killers and sadists, but most sociopaths are not.
There have been rare cases where complete lunatics have joined the military during a time of war for the sole purpose of killing people. I can't remember the name but I think there was at least one soldier from Vietnam who returned to the United States and became a serial killer.
There are definitely a disproportionate amount of people who return from war with psychological issues, but sociopaths are pretty rare. Many people who have been in combat have a difficult time relating to the rest of the world, but it doesn't make them psychopaths.
There are probably a few people who choose to become military contractors because they are sick individuals that enjoy killing their fellow man, but I suspect that the majority of the people who go that route do so because they leave the military without any marketable skills and find it hard to pass up the six-figure incomes that are offered to military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Just to clarify a bit, I don't disagree with his assessment of the video game / movie industry, just his statements about soldiers being sadistic killing machines without a sense of morality.