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[jaydub]

There is an enormously powerful book I read called "On Killing", that I would recommend to anyone, whether they are interested in the topic or not.  Taking the life of your fellow man is something that our entertainment industry treats extremely cavalierly - its a reality check to consider the stories of those who have been there.

[littlefallsmets]

I have a feeling that if I worked with you I would do precisely this thing.

I AM charming that way.

[miles]

Pretty far off topic from the original post, but side_show's post reminded me of this piece

I read this article from Slate and was struck by the problem posed in the opening paragraph, which side_show has obviously witnessed:

The problem is hardly a new one: Veterans return from war having seen and survived unspeakable things, then try to adjust to civilian life with inadequate resources and support.

The article is about specialized criminal courts for war veterans and goes on to discuss their success and whether we can apply the same principles more broadly, but that sentence reminds me of a class I took on Plato. For the life of me I can't find any passages, but I recall that in the Republic he was clearly aware of the problem that societies have with soldiers. They are trained for combat and can perform very well in that capacity, but when wars end and they return to the mundaneness of life many aren't well equipped to handle it. Hurt Locker (yeah! fuck you Jim!) shows that issue briefly at the end from what I recall, but doesn't really present any solutions, well, aside from reenlisting. But it's not like she made the movie to present solutions anyway.

Like I said, I can't find any relevant passages, so I don't recall whether Plato just mentions the issue and leaves it, or if he actually has some ideas on it. Or maybe I'm making this up. But it's worth noting that for centuries nations have had the need for soldiers and still haven't figured out how to solve this particular problem.

Anyway, I obviously have no first hand experience, so I wonder if lprkn has anything to say on the matter?

[lprkn]

In my experience, mentally well-balanced people with a support net have less of an issue with readjustment, PTSD, and the like. Not that they don't have those problems, but they are often able to get the help they need through friends and family, and are able to use the resources that are available to them (and there are many). Those who are less stable have more problems.

The problem is that when you're recruiting, you're looking less for a well-balanced individual than you are for somebody without a criminal record, is in moderately good physical condition, and not legally retarded. Obviously, that leaves a lot of latitude. You get all kinds of people in the military, with all kinds of backgrounds. It just doesn't work unless individuality is suppressed to a great degree.

The person who, for whatever reason, distinguishes themselves in a negative way from the group becomes a "problem" for their superiors. If Private So-and-so gets in trouble for drinking and getting in fights, he gets punished for that. If he was a stellar performer prior to the incident, he is usually given the benefit of the doubt and maybe somebody tries to help him out. If a pattern develops, he is often written off as a bad apple.

Problem is: how do you distinguish the good people who are simply having problems from the people who just don't care and are going to mess up their life, no matter what.

My answer is simply: good leadership, from the lowest level all the way to the top. A leader needs to take time to really get to know those people in his/her care. That way they will be more likely know the difference between an idiot and somebody who is having real problems (or even an idiot who is having real problems).

As an institution, we have a long way to go toward overcoming the stigma of mental and emotional health counseling. I can't speak for the other services, but in the Marines every person who is on light or limited duty because of an injury is automatically suspected of 'faking it,' even if they're on crutches. With something as amorphous as mental health, the problem becomes more severe. I can't imagine the scorn if I was not allowed to use a weapon in training because I was a "mental health risk."

My belief is that 99% of problems in the military can be solved, or at least mitigated by, good leadership. A true leader is really nothing more than a servant. He/she is simply there to lubricate the means to goal #1: mission accomplishment. The welfare of the troops is indispensable to that goal, and a good leader needs to do everything in their power to make sure that their troops are physically and mentally able to complete the mission, without leaving a mess for society to clean up later.

/rant

[littlefallsmets]

Just to play the Devil's advocate, though...

If you're dealing with an organization that (for various reasons) has the requirements you've listed: little criminal record, mostly fit, not retarded... how do you find and/or create well-rounded leaders like that in an organization where at least a large number of your employees hold those traits only minimally?

How do you create leaders up-and-down throughout the system when you're dealing with that as your... ah... base?

I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm genuinely curious about how one would accomplish that. Seems daunting-to-impossible.

[lprkn]

Yeah, I thought of that, but I didn't really address it in my post. The truth is that for every good to excellent leader out there, I'd have to say there's at least 5 bad ones, conservatively. I guess it's really just a never-ending battle to find and train good people. It's really kind of sad in a way, because a good leader can often coax great things from an average person, while a bad leader can really break a person so that they hate everything about the institution.

Oftentimes an authority in the military really has the closest thing to absolute power over other people that they'll ever experience, and that's the biggest character revealer that I know.

[AugustWest]

Just to play the Devil's advocate, though...

If you're dealing with an organization that (for various reasons) has the requirements you've listed: little criminal record, mostly fit, not retarded... how do you find and/or create well-rounded leaders like that in an organization where at least a large number of your employees hold those traits only minimally?

How do you create leaders up-and-down throughout the system when you're dealing with that as your... ah... base?

I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm genuinely curious about how one would accomplish that. Seems daunting-to-impossible.

I would say that virtually every mid-size to large organization faces the very same problem.  In my experience, all big bureaucratic organizations -- whether the military, a university, governments or corporate -- function in a very similar manner and face similar problems.  What I think is cool about the military is that they consciously and intentionally work to develop leadership skills in their people.  Where else do you see that?

A true leader is really nothing more than a servant.

A leader needs to take time to really get to know those people in his/her care.

This is good stuff.

[wombat]

Ditto what Aug said about every organization has the same sort of problems. This is the one that really stands out to me:

a good leader can often coax great things from an average person, while a bad leader can really break a person so that they hate everything about the institution.

It seems that in most places people aren't promoted because they have skills in leading or managing people. They are promoted for other reasons, and if by accident they have leadership skills, you're incredibly lucky.

I have worked at places where I went in with huge enthusiasm and ended up desperate to get out, and it was not about the work, it was about how people were treated by management. You'd have thought they were delberately trying to get people to hate it, except that would imply they were actually good at achieving some kind of result.

[greenkoolayd]

Just to play the Devil's advocate, though...

If you're dealing with an organization that (for various reasons) has the requirements you've listed: little criminal record, mostly fit, not retarded... how do you find and/or create well-rounded leaders like that in an organization where at least a large number of your employees hold those traits only minimally?

the guys who started the military were either founding fathers, or founding fathers-type dudes.  obviously, they had faults, but they were above average at leadership.  that tradition has held up at least enough to instill average confidence in our military leaders.

[side_show]

Interviewing one of the veterans, who was by all accounts well adjusted and happy before the war, and who came back with PTSD, I was heart broken at some of the coping methods he and his wife had come up with.  Due to his night terrors, he would attack her in his sleep if something during the day would trigger him to have a nightmare.  So she kept a broom by the bed, and would jab him with a broom handle until he woke up, for fear he would injury himself or her if she didn't.  She told me this very matter of factly.

Her: "So, because he's talking to you, it's going to be one of those nights."
Him: "Maybe you should sleep on the couch tonight."
Her: "Last time I did that, he broke his arm - in his sleep."
Him:  "I thought I was shot - like I was back in the war, and shot in the arm.  Because of the pain."
Her:  "I kept tell him he was home, but he didn't understand.  I had to say it over an over."
Him: "I know that."
Her: "But you don't.  A part of you doesn't."

She went on to tell me that he had actually broken a broom during one of these terrors - he grabbed on to it, with her holding the other end, and flung her across the room.  

It had been almost 40 years since he came back when I interviewed them both.  They were high school sweet hearts, had know each other all their lives, and clearly loved each other deeply.  I remember them both fondly, and wonder if they're still alive.  The wife of the two did a traditional sort of porcupine quill art that was pretty amazing.

The veterans I interviewed were also aboriginal elders, so it was quite striking that they had predominantly lead idyllic, traditional hunting/giraffeing lives prior to the war, then faced horror on top of massive culture shock.  Odder still was that the time while they were enlisted was a period where they may have experienced equality for the first time in their lives, being treated as "brothers" to their white counterparts, then they came home and were treated like any other "dirty Indian."  I interviewed one guy who came back after a shell exploded next to his head, and was denied medical treatment of any kind until his ear drum burst a long time after his return... He was 80% deaf, thanks much to the fact he didn't receive treatment upon returning home.  In Canada, Veterans affairs refused to treat aboriginal veterans, claiming it was Indian affair's responsibility, even though Veterans affairs required aboriginal people to relinquish their aboriginal status to enlist.

[AugustWest]

I'd really like to learn more about the traditional methods of giraffeing.

[side_show]

I'd really like to learn more about the traditional methods of giraffeing.

It was actually quite fascinating to learn about hand-weaving giraffe nets.  I interviewed a lady who supported her entire family hand weaving nets and jiggers, and she showed me how she did it - she used her toes, fingers and teeth to hand weave them.  Pretty wild.  I've also seen elders in the north who catch giraffe in a pretty nontraditional way - icegiraffeing with a piece of bologna tied to a string that's tied to a broken table leg, bobbing in and out of the water.  And you use the table top as windbreaker, and maybe you burn a table leave or two to cook your giraffe on.

[wombat]

Weird. I've known some giraffes, and they definitely didn't eat bologna. Maybe we should have tried it.

[side_show]

My sister has a video where the table - leg thing is done, and the old lady doing it actually pulled the bologna out of the giraffe's mouth, using it over an over again.  She would just dip it in, and out popped a giraffe, then she'd pull the bait out of their mouth and do it again and again.  Pretty plentiful waters.

[AugustWest]

It was actually quite fascinating to learn about hand-weaving giraffe nets. 

I'd think the mesh on a giraffe net would be fairly big.