Bullet proof mind training: How Yanez learned to kill
My remarks are not from a legal perspective but as a Christian and a combat-trained infantryman who learned how to efficiently and effectively kill Koreans and later Vietnamese. This training involved an earlier version of Bullet Proof Mind training that officer Yanez recently experienced. I say this because both the developer of Yanez’s training, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, and I identify ourselves as Christian.
You need to know the military knows better than the majority of pastors, priests and theologians that men just don’t want to kill. Human beings have an “innate, natural aversion to killing fellow human beings.” Military psychologists discovered this when researching WW2 soldiers coming from face to face combat. They found that 80-85% of the men in combat refused to fire at the enemy. If they fired at all they purposely missed. They further discovered this same reluctance to kill existed in previous wars. (See “Men Under Fire” by Gen. SLA Marshall and “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.)
Consequently, since WWII, the military has developed techniques and strategies to override our natural inclination not to kill. Grossman along with other military were involved in that effort.
So when I was drafted in my late teens (1953-55) my tour of duty involved Grossman’s beginning efforts to get men to kill. At first it was firing at bull’s-eye targets. Then crude plywood silhouettes of humans were introduced to get us conditioned to destroying human forms. This evolved into silhouettes that unexpectedly swung into view so we instinctively shot at humans. Those techniques proved effective. During the Korean “police action,” 50% of the troops fired at the enemy. These strategies became more sophisticated for the Vietnam war to the point where 90-95% of the men fired at the enemy.
Grossman is bothered, however, by two consequences he hadn’t anticipated. One, these techniques have been replicated in video games youth find readily accessible. Grossman wrote in a Christian Today magazine about his fears that this has resulted in the schoolyard shootings by young boys.
Secondly, he hadn’t foreseen that military success in getting men to kill resulted in the dramatic increase in soldier suicides. Since Vietnam more soldiers are committing suicide than are getting killed in combat—at least 3 times more. And they continue; 22 a day on average. Combat vets who don’t commit suicide tend to numb their memories with drugs and alcohol, suffer PTSD, or commit crimes or represent a large portion of the homeless population.
About 10 years ago, Grossman spoke to local police, military and first responders at an event that had to find a larger venue to hold more than a thousand who were interested. There Grossman reported that in the previous year four police officers had been killed in the line of duty. At the same time over 400 had committed suicide. Col Grossman’s assessment of the police suicides was they hadn’t developed a “bullet proof mind,” i.e., able to face the fact that you’re going to have to kill.
My Christian community, including my father (who was a WWII combat army chaplain) and my religious professors, didn’t question my conscription for combat killing. Nor did I. This after all was for God and country.
They, like me, were not aware of two things: That since WW2 the military was developing a program to “get men to kill.” And secondly, they, like me, were unaware that the early Christian community in its first 300 years was pacific. And like Jesus, nonviolent. What’s more, the early Christian community wouldn’t allow soldiers who were preparing to kill to become Christians. The two occupations who had to leave their employ were pimps and soldiers trained to kill. If they refused to leave their employ they were excluded from the community. (Canons of Hyppolytus, approx. 215 AD)
The Ground of Being, Higher Power, Force, Arc of the Universe, the Spirit, the Reality behind Reality, or God—however you want to describe it—this mystery is characterized by Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies. In fact, God loves all humanity. Isaiah saw it. Buddhists see it. Jesus saw and incarnated it. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. implemented it. It’s in the deepest part of every person. Unfortunately, most of us continue to fear, and as a result, we are unable to let go and live in the reality of Nonviolent Love.
The Founder of Christianity lived and taught us to love as he loved; to return good for evil; love enemies, i.e., a nation’s enemies are not God’s enemies. In fact, our enemies are our brothers and sisters in disguise.
This is cosmic stuff and you can’t ignore it; if you do, you’re more likely to temporarily destroy yourself. Grossman is a conflicted man. He may or may not be aware of it, but his efforts are internally in conflict with the Spirit in which he was baptized. Sooner or later the realization will sink in.
Even though presently Grossman is alarmed that his techniques are negatively influencing children through video games and even though he knows that killing results in suicides, he continues promoting “bullet proof minds” even though it seems to exacerbate the problem. “Those who take the sword perish with the sword,” as Jesus said.
Grossman currently represents the ultimate in Constantinian Christianity and the pagan “Just War” theory that has corrupted Christianity for the last 1,700 years.
As mentioned earlier this doesn’t address whether Yanez’s actions were legal. Apparently they’re legal.
The Christian community, not the lawyers, have to address the issue whether Yanez and Castile are both victims of a religious and societal belief in defensive killing.
After my 64-year history of first being trained by combat veterans to kill and then of working with vets in their attempts to heal from their memories, I can say with confidence that the only thing worse than being killed is to kill.
Allan Bostelmann, clinical social worker, emeritus
In response to Polly Mann’s “Arms manufacturing leads to war”
Polly Mann’s article (all editions of June 2017) is an accurate equation of what leads to war (greed for power/money). Who supplies the weapons (greedy, wealthy manufacturers). Who is purposely left uneducated and unemployed and becomes eager to be paid something for being trained in handling of weapons and killing an “enemy” (the young, uneducated and unemployed “youth” of the nation—never the educated and employed). The same answer for question #3, who gets killed, at best, or blown up but some parts survive and are maimed for life either in body and or spirit? #4 Whose hearts are broken and also torn apart by war (The mothers and fathers of the soldiers on BOTH sides of the war).
Parents, help save your children. Vote no to all who support war.
Protest against war actively.
Jamison
