In the discussion of 'Bastardisation' in the Armed services, I was reminded of the number of young men who come back from places like Vietnam, E.Timur...etc and somehow are traumatized irrepairably.

They saw things that most of us will never see.. nor want to see.
Did anyone tell them the nature of human conflict before they went...or just how to fire a gun and lob a grenade.

War was brought home to me in both peace and war. In peace time, I had the 'interesting' experience of being ambushed during a night patrol which I THOUGHT was just mucking around and 'playing' soldier as we were just RAAF apprentices at the YouYangs.
When the 'grenades' started to explode around our ears.. and the 'terrorists' leaped out and started seriously clubbing us with rifle butts..and shooting.....(how the hell did we know it was just flashbangs and blanks ?) well.. that was one instance.

Then..in Vietnam around 69 at Phan Rang.. when an Aussie Iraqois chopper was brought back by a 'skycrane' and dumped on the ground.. shot up.. and all the other wreckage was strewn around the place.. Vietnamese people wandering around.. being told that a Morter had landed where I was standing last week...etc...

But who gives the FRAMEWORK...for all this.. do our infantry soldiers get taught about:
-Alliances
-Historic battles.
-Types of manouvers and who invented them
-International politics
-Treaties and treaty obligations.
-The real world nature of warfare..
-Morality and War...Just and Unjust war..

I guess it is a 'yes' to some of those, but to me the political/moral framework issues are far MORE important for the long term mental health of the soldier than the mechanics of shootemup.

Thoughts ? (specially from former or current infantry soldiers) (Scotty ?)

I currently work in a non-medical role in a place that deals with returned servicemen and their mental illnesses.

The vast majority are Vietnam vets. Obviously ww2 had the biggest showing but they've now mostly moved on to other more physical related illness wards due to age.

I recently heard someone state that military training is all about ignoring your basic survival instincts. Mostly fear. If you have a consequence of listening to that fear being percieved worse (cowardice, letting your mates down, responsible for death through inaction etc etc) than ignoring it and possibly being shot etc, that creates an emotional conflict, moral conflict, mental conflict ending in mental illness. Anger, confusion, nightmares etc etc.

So, it doesn't matter what sort of psychological preparation you put into military training, you're still making people do what society spent the first 18 years of their existence (the most influential) saying they shouldn't do. Listen to your fear. Don't trust strangers. Don't hit and hurt people. Religious influences.

If you want to help soldiers with their mental preparation. You have to make that sort of enviornment 'the norm', from a young age. Which is against what society is all about.

We have our cake, but we ask to eat it as well.

Ya know what I mean?

'do our infantry soldiers get taught about:
-Alliances
-Historic battles.
-Types of manouvers and who invented them
-International politics
-Treaties and treaty obligations.
-The real world nature of warfare..
-Morality and War...Just and Unjust war..'

Not during my basic training (not infantry), we were taught drill, weapons handling, active and passive defence, nothing about the above.

We were expected to follow orders blindly, without question.

STG... thanx for that very insightful contribution.. I'd not thought of it like that before... and now I certainly have learnt something.

Probably also, the emotions you mention, would be felt more accutely if you DON'T have some kind of idealogical framework into which to fit them. They would be totally lost...

JACK.. nor in my time.. nothing of that nature was ever said. I had no clue about the rationale of Vietnam... I honestly thought we were the 'good guys' and still to with reservation... my reservation is that the US did some rather dirty things which ultimately led to the war.. they could have managed the situation much better.

Their intel should have detected that Ho was first a nationalist.. 2nd a communist.. and that once he had slid toward the only source of assistance.. the Russians.. the old 'domino' theory became much more digestable. A simply history lesson would have shown that Vietnam,Cambodia and Laos have much longer histories than the small window of the Vietnam war era, and helped to have a better perspective on things.

Preparation in other Beliefs.

-Islamic.. the promise of a great reward including Houris at your service if you are a martyr must do something for one's mental outlook. The idea of 'installing the Rule of Allah over infidels' would also be a strong incentive.

-Zulu.. They took hashish before a battle.... 'who cares.. I'm superman' result :)

-German/Nazi.. "The Fuhrer, The Reich"

I'd be interested in knowing other approaches if anyone comes across them.

StG is absolutely correct: the object of the brutal induction rituals to which military recruits are routinely subjected is to strip from them the humanity they've acquired during their prior socialisation, in order that they reformed as obedient and amoral drones who are capable of performing the inhuman and anti-social acts that are required of soldiers. A brilliant depiction of this process is the boot camp sequence in Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket".

Of course, if Boazy had read more anthropology than a single article, he'd be aware that this is a particular form of 'rite-of-passage' that has been analysed and taught about in every anthropology department that exists.

BOAZ, They also gave amphetamines in chocolate to the German soldiers, known as 'Flyer's Chocolate' or 'Tanker's Chocolate.'

Undoubtedly that helped.