[split] Psychology of the Roman soldier

[Bryan]

There are plenty of infantryman's non-fictional account of WWII where the writer, a combat veteran, describes a clear lack of compassion for the enemy, where they killed many more individual enemy than Chris Kyle did and had no qualms at all about it, especially the SS. It was that sort of war, where often the enemy is evil and killing them is a good thing. Call it de-humanizing, but do you know who dehumanized their enemy on a regular basis, who literally coined the term barbarian to refer to all outsiders? Greeks and Romans.

Adrenaline dumps aren't a bad thing. Some people choose to have very dangerous, on the edge hobbies, sky diving, downhill mountain biking, motorcycles, all because they love the thrill of an adrenaline high. It doesn't have to mean fear, often it means euphoria, which includes the combat high, which I can flat out say is one of the grandest feelings I've ever felt in my life, a level of "Right now is so awesome its hard to describe it" feeling that few people really can describe.

That comment you're talking about came from Matt Bissonnette, one of the Navy Special Warfare Development Group, the unit's common but incorrect nickname is SEAL Team 6. Nobody that is selected to a unit like that is shy of an adrenaline dump, meaning someone who interprets it as fear. To even get onto one of those teams means years of being a vanilla SEAL, then getting personally selected to go to their selection, then a "rigorous" vetting process and probationary period that is famous for a level of hazing that makes the pretty nasty hazing normal SEALs do seem like nothing. If you take Bisonnette's comments to mean he stopped fighting when he stopped getting scared, you're wrong in that assumption. I've worked with those guys, they don't get more "Type A" than units like DEVGRU.