I'm in the army myself. I've got to say that on some points you're right. Eventually we're supposed to be killing machines, and we will be. But don't think that we live for killing, the army from these days is more for peace-keeping than for anything else. But if people shoot us ... no matter who ... we'll have to shoot back, not thinking of the people you're shooting. That's why they put targets on training that looks as much like a real man as possible. To make the soldier think that he's still on training when he's actually shooting human beings. There are many other ways to make us think that. But I won't explain them all here.

 

What these guys did is wrong. Nobody will disagree with that, even those guys know that that they're wrong, and don't underestimate the punish that they got. These guys are just under so much pressure. They know, as mrcool011 and brandon313 said, that they could get killed every minute. The things they do and see there (what none of the american civilians will ever see) is horrible, it creates scars in their mind which will never go away. Some guys can't handle that and start beating up random people. They should be removed from the army.

 

Well said!

I'm in the army myself. I've got to say that on some points you're right. Eventually we're supposed to be killing machines, and we will be. But don't think that we live for killing, the army from these days is more for peace-keeping than for anything else. But if people shoot us ... no matter who ... we'll have to shoot back, not thinking of the people you're shooting. That's why they put targets on training that looks as much like a real man as possible. To make the soldier think that he's still on training when he's actually shooting human beings. There are many other ways to make us think that. But I won't explain them all here.

 

What these guys did is wrong. Nobody will disagree with that, even those guys know that that they're wrong, and don't underestimate the punish that they got. These guys are just under so much pressure. They know, as mrcool011 and brandon313 said, that they could get killed every minute. The things they do and see there (what none of the american civilians will ever see) is horrible, it creates scars in their mind which will never go away. Some guys can't handle that and start beating up random people. They should be removed from the army.

 

Yep, you are right. Some of the things you have described fit with what I was told by my friends. I also really understand that far worse thing will be going on and that the mental scars are seriously damaging to someone whole life.