Hi all...

I suppose part of 'indoctrination' and the process of transforming a normal bloke into a pitiless killer COULD involve the dehumanizing and demonizing of the enemy. Thats one approach.

I can agree with the demonizing but not the dehumanizing. I would rather the soldiers know exactly what they are up against..and that the primary threat is to their freedom.. In the case of the enemy being 'Muslim'.. they could rightly be told of the possibility (though not the guarantee) of their women being raped when captured.
Not only is this Quranic, it is also the actual experience of some Christian women in Jordan as I related in another post.

It would be quite correct to demonize the Bali Bomber types.. and to explain how their fanaticism is not to be reasoned with, but to be stopped.

We were so close in Malaysia at one stage following an election, to massacres and turmoil of the Ruwandan scale..(us being the victims) it wasn't funny.

I walked through the valley in the Jungle with tribal people who had slaughtered 600 Japanese in an ambush (WWII)..
I stood at the tomb in Ranau of one of our blokes who was slowly and systematically beaten and tortured by the Japanese, over many days till he finally died..

it all kind of brings the reality home to your heart..

Scotty.. the yobbo's who were with me in PNG (RAAF) were drongo's of the worst kind.. unfit for life on the front line.. a thrill for them was aiming the Comby wagon at a dog to kill it. I was not encouraged by one of them who said on the night b4 servicing the engine of the plane which would take us there.. "Lets go and get pissed"

If we expect our Soldiers to die for us.. the least we can do is give them a good reason for it.

Somebody reckoned there's no brutalising going on in today's Australian Army.

"An Army investigation found that Private Jeremy Williams killed himself after suffering intimidation and abuse from commanding officers and trainees at the Singleton School of Infantry in 2003.

Two years ago the Williams family and three other families whose sons committed suicide wrote to the then-defence minister, Robert Hill, seeking compensation."

I guess those guys must have been imagining things.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/03/2050220.htm

I don't know about the army, but I have a relative who went through 1RTU in the RAAF a few years back and he said that training was almost PC and non-confrontational.
Apparently, recruits were given a card to hold up to the drill corporal if he/she felt harrassed by him.
Back in the 'dark ages', we just had to stand stony still as a corporal screamed into our faces. Maybe it was 'character building'. At the same time, the new way, if true and if still in use, will not produce decent troops.