Stark Reality

Sebastian Junger speaks the truth about war:

[W]e may be disgusted by seeing U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters, but we remain oddly unfazed by the fact that, presumably, those same Marines just put bullets through the fighters’ chests. American troops are not blind to this irony. They are very clear about the fact that society trains them to kill, orders them to kill and then balks at anything that suggests they have dehumanized the enemy they have killed.

But of course they have dehumanized the enemy — otherwise they would have to face the enormous guilt and anguish of killing other human beings.

War is an ugly business. It makes the obscene normal. Every now and then that obscenity may intrude on the public consciousness but mostly we leave it to the soldiers.

And we wonder why they explode when they come home.