On Killing

Rating:
Summary: The most comprehensive study of how killing affects society.
Review: Dave Grossman has gone to great lengths to educate us on how killing in combat effects soldiers and society. From how we train our soldiers to kill, and how we are conditioning society's children to do the same. Endless quotes from sources, interviews, and first hand accounts of Grossman's combat training as an Army Ranger complete this books content and makes it enjoyably easy to read. Make no mistake, if you are faint of heart some of the stories might make you wish had never bought this book, but if you're looking for an education in combat pyschology, you've found a great book. From start to finish, Grossman educates you on ALL aspects of this pyschology and when you reach the end of this book you will definitely be glad you bought it.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent thesis but redundant writing
Review: This is a truely unique book in the way that it explains killing in war and society. As a psychologist myself, it has given me a great deal to think about and reassess in terms of the aftereffects of combat and how the military trains its soldiers. My only complaint is that the book is very redundant: 1% of all fighter pilots account for 40% of the enemy planes shot down; the firing rate in WWII was 15-20% and was increased to 90-95% in Vietnam. These same statistics are cited over and over and over again. I don't blame the author though, I blame his editor. One other problem that bothered me throughout the book -- the author never questions the basic truth behind the military figures that he uses, or the validity of SLA Marshall's thesis on the non-firing rates of soldiers in combat. I hoped for a more thorough and skeptical inquiry, but this book is so unique that I'm using it as a base text in a class I teach on War and its portrayal in literature and film.

Rating:
Summary: A superb dissection of our current problem with violence
Review: At a time when high-profile juvenile killers fill the airwaves, Grossman's book sheds some useful light on what is going on. It's not availability of guns -- guns were much *more* available fifty years ago, yet teen school killers were unknown! As Grossman points out, even soldiers who are given guns and ordered to kill find it difficult. To make it easier for them, the military have developed various programs of conditioning and desensitization to overcome their inborn human resistance to killing fellow humans. Sadly, Grossman points out, we have replicated these programs almost exactly in violent movies and videogames, causing inhibitions against killing to be much lower among civilians than they used to be. Grossman's work should be at the center of discussion regarding violence in contemporary society.

Rating:
Summary: All Americans should read this book!
Review: I am grateful to this author for tackling this topic. As a combat Marine in Viet Nam I was confronted with the dilemma described in the book (overcoming the aversion to killing a human being) and justifying it to be able to live with it. I often wondered-- many times since then-- on the way "We" justify killing and the different degrees of responsibility we attach to it. Did we kill the VC "because" they were Vietnamese?...Of course not!!! We killed them because "THEY" were the "ENEMY"and because of their ideology and the fact that they "chose" to use force to implement their ideas. That being said, what seperates "them" from people in this country that held to the same ideology and used force and subversion to enact their ideas? Is it a matter of geography? Since this government "trained" me to kill, shouldn't I kill ALL who are enemies of this country? What about the oath I took saying I would defend my country from all enemies both foriegn and DOMESTIC! THINK ABOUT IT.... Well, read this book and make up your own mind--at least you will have a MUCH greater understanding of the multitude of scenarios that can cause deep psychological effects on veterans.

Rating:
Summary: The PAWNS know the TRUTH about the GAME, this is THEIR tale.
Review: If you are a virgin preparing for your wedding night, or if you or your partner are having sexual difficulties, or if you are just curious ... then there are hundreds of scholarly books on the topic of sexuality available to you. But if you are a young (virgin) soldier or law enforcement officer anticipating your baptism of fire, or if you are a veteran (or the spouse of a veteran) who is troubled by killing experiences, or if you are just curious ... then, on this topic, there has been absolutely nothing available in the way of scholarly study or writing. Until now...

Review and comments on On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman:

...well written on a subject that has never before, to my knowledge, been drafted for public consumption.
General W.C. Westmoreland

...illuminating account of how soldiers learn to kill and how they live with the experience of having killed...This book concludes with an impassioned plea for regulating media violence through social censure and pressure. This surely, is a sensible and welcome recommendation.
Washington Post

An excellent book.
Dr. Joyce Brothers, in her nationally syndicated column

An important book that should be read by anyone in the profession of arms and by anyone concerned about violence in our Nation.
Marine Corps Gazette

On Killing is destined to become a classic.
Army (Journal of the Association of the U.S Army)

A tremendous book.
Peace Magazine

...both disturbing and oddly reassuring ... a valuable contribution, full of arresting observations and insights of the sort that make you alter the way you have thought about certain subjects, most notably the nature of battle and the dramatic rise in the murder rate that has taken place in the United States in the last two decades...powerful...persuasive...incisive...Grossmans case is too carefully presented, too well grounded in actual observations, not to be taken seriously.
New York Times

...a provocative look at how and why we kill...One can only hope On Killing has not arrived too late.
Stars and Stripes

...truly revolutionary.
Dr. Eduardo D. Faingold, Argentine and Israeli combat veteran,Assistant Professor of Spanish, Dept. of Languages, University of Tulsa

I want to congratulate you on your book. It is important both as research and as an argument for acknowledging the violence in our society and its roots.
George Levenson, Ph.D., Director of Informed Democracy

Colonel Grossman¹s perceptive study ends with a profoundly troubling observation. The desensitizing techniques used to train soldiers are now found in mass media -- films, television, video arcades -- and are conditioning our children. His figures on youthful homicides strongly suggest the breeding of teenage Rambos.
William Manchester, author and WWII vet

MAGNIFICENT!
Paddy Griffith, Sandhurst history professor and author of Battle Tactics of the American Civil War and Forward into Battle.

...brilliant...a fine and necessary piece of work.
Arthur Hadley, author of Straw Giant

...a splendid book...it establishes a new line of scholarly inquiry, which is a remarkable achievement.
Bill Lind, author of The Maneuver Warfare Handbook, Free Congress Foundation Fellow, and co-host of Modern War (a national cable TV show)

I enjoyed (if that is the right word to use) On Killing enormously, congratulations on a fine piece of work.
Richard Holmes, author of Acts of War and Sandhurst History Professor

...honest, gutsy, patient disclosure of what¹s happening to our military kids -- and civilian kids as well.
F. Andy Carhartt, West Point class of Œ45, Presbyterian minister

It is very good, thoughtful and helpful on a subject of great importance. Humanistic and pacifistic in the way of the best soldiers.
Dr. Ted Nadelson, Chief of Psychiatry, Boston VA Medical Center.

...my deep appreciation for your book...because it said so many things I had felt were probably so, and because, also, it said so many new things.
Dr. Lloyd Gardner, the Charles and Mary Beard Professor at Rutgers

...this systematic examination of the individual soldier¹s behavior, like all good scientific theory making, leads to a series of useful explanations for a variety of phenomena...This important book deserves a wide readership. Essential for all libraries serving military personnel or veterans, including most public libraries.
Library Journal, Starred Review

...a provocative new book...the first scientific examination of how and why men kill in battle.
Little Rock Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

...an explosive look at why there is so much killing not just in wars but in modern society...it is a must read. I recommend it highly. His research...is frightening, and should be a wake-up call to society. I couldn¹t put it down.
Walt Gochenour, WWII vet, in 82d Airborne Division Association Journal

A study of relevance to a society of escalating violence.
Publishers Weekly

...excellent explications of what goes through a soldier¹s mind during war.
Portland Oregonian

I congratulate you on writing an important book which I find very helpful in understanding the human condition. Indeed, it serves to greatly increase my belief in the basic goodness of my fellow man.
Ladislav R. Hanka

I am thankful for work like yours which promotes the slow but very sure process of maturation which I see occurring in the collective human race.
Alison Wilson, Ontario, Canada

I very much appreciate your challenging and perceptive look at warfare and the act of killing. You are right that it is a taboo topic in our culture. As a long time antiwar activist it was palpably painful to read; never-the-less I valued the information and discussions.
Gregory W. Frux, Brooklyn, NY

On Killing may be the On War of the 21st Century.
Michael Anton Laurano, Attorney at Law, Boston, Massachutetts

My sincere congratulations on your extremely interesting book. Besides the subject itself with all its implications for civil society and military establishments, my wife and I were most impressed with your balanced and broad presentation. The fact that a professional military can write for the widest spectrum of political and moral persuasions with conviction and tolerance speaks highly of your intellectual and human qualities...It is a fact that all the modern media everywhere, but particularly those in the Latin American subcontinents, are under the good and bad influence of the American products for the movies, TV, video games, etc. Even though the local levels of violence do not reach yet those prevailing in the worse derelict areas of large American cities, the trend is clear and points in the same direction. We hope that a translation of your book will soon be available for the benefit of Spanish speaking readers.
Herman Schwember, PhD, writing from Chile

My deepest congratulations on what I believe to be an extremely important book. I salute your bravery, courage and insight. Your work is indispensable for our future.
Bob Hughes, Chevy Chase, MD

Thanks for writing On Killing and being so straightforward in stating your case. It is a compelling, profoundly moving book. I am recommending it to my friends and at all my speaking engagements. Also, my sons, now 13 and 15, will be encouraged to read it as they get into their later teens and tackle coming-of-age personal issues.And thank you for caring and compassion. You may be a trained killer, but your life journey has crafted you into a warrior with heart -- the kind of male hero we need a lot more of in our society.
Gloria DeGaetano, National Speaker and Expert on Media Literacy,Author of Screen Smarts

For Further Information or Speaking EngagementsContact Colonel Grossman at:
The Killology Institute
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Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Disection of a Interesting Topic.
Review: Grossman tackles the tough topic of why people kill. The book consentrates on military killing (i.e. soldier v. soldier) but includes theories and examples on violent crime in our own culture. Overlaid is the psychological process that humans navigate when faced with the possibility of taking another's life. He explores the surprisingly low number of soldiers that are able to fire their weapons with the intent to kill (15-20%) and explains varies methods that are being used in modern Army training to overcome man's internal aversion to killing. Shockingly, many of these methods are being forced on our children today. The psychological explanations of the mental process of killing, and the illness that develops when derailed, are critical in understanding an individual's ability to become a functioning member of society after a conflict. In essence, this book investigates a dark side of human nature that has yet to be fully understood, but Grossman is close.

Rating:
Summary: An exception to the maxim "study war no more."
Review: This book turned out to be shockingly personal to me. My father had killed during the Korean War, and had seen more than a year of combat on the front lines as an infantryman. Through various family clues, I had learned that he was never the same after that experience. The trouble is that I had been born more than ten years after his experience, so I never knew my Father's "pre-war" personality. This book explained much, and helped me understand him. From a strictly scholarly point of view, however, the book is weak in its use of quantitative data -- and a military historian type may find it marred. However, the anecdotal information is strong and provocative, and perhaps more relevant: war is, after all, hardly an exact science. I have read much military history, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get beyond guns and strategy to truly understand the horror of what war is. This book is an exception to the maxim "study war no more."

Rating:
Summary: unique historical and psycological thesis
Review: Grossman takes the reader into a field one might think simple, even if you have given it thought before. His insight clarifies and elucidates many an angle I haven't seen explored in such a work (of the few that there are). This isn't, thankfully, a book reeking of macho, morbidity or medical fluff. Grossman takes the time to explain killing --how it used to be commonplace and expected in society under certain constraints. Killing has 'gone in the closet' in recent years, and this author does justice to bringing the subject to the light of day

Rating:
Summary: Necessary examination of a difficult subject.
Review: The good news is that there is a natural aversion to killing our own species. The bad news is that we are unintentionally but effectively training our children to overcome that aversion.

Starting with S.L.A. Marshall's famous study of low firing rates in WWII soldiers, Colonel Grossman has combed military writing to discover this reluctance throughout history, in campaigns ancient and recent, in cultures modern and primitive. Historically, much of military training has been designed to compensate for this natural inhibition. In less sophisticated times success was marginal, producing such unlikely scenes as regiments of Civil War infantrymen blazing away at each other at point blank range for hours, while producing few casualties.

Modern techniques of desensitization, conditioning, and training increased firing rates in Vietnam to some 95%. Today these same techniques, applied by the entertainment media to our most vulnerable youth, are producing an "acquired violence immune deficiency" which has allowed a "virus of violence" to flourish throughout our civilization, with tragically familiar results.

Colonel Grossman's analysis illumionates not only this most dangerous problem, but also sheds new light on the psychology of the warrior, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychiatric casualties, and the uniquely unjust damage done to our Vietnam veterans.

This book deserves the widest dissemination, and discussion at the highest levels, for although it imparts some truths we would rather not know, the heretofore prevailing repression and obsession around this subject are allies of the dark forces that threaten us.

Rating:
Summary: Necessary examination of a difficult subject.
Review: The good news is that there is a natural aversion to killing our own species. The bad news is that we are unintentionally but effectively training our children to overcome that aversion, Starting with S.L.A. Marshall's famous study of the low firing rates of WWII soldiers, Colonel Grossman has combed military writing to discover this reluctance in combatants throughout history, in campaigns ancient and recent, in cultures modern and primitive. Historically, much of military training and tactics has been designed to compensate for this natural inhibition. In less sophisticated times success was marginal, producing such unlikely scenes as regiments of Civil War infantrymen blazing away at each other at point blank range for hours, while producing few casualties. Modern techniques of desensitization, conditioning, and training increased firing rates in Vietnam to some 95%. Today these same techniques, applied by the entertainment media to our most vulnerable youth, are producing an "acquired violence immune deficiency" which has allowed a "virus of violence" to flourish throughout our civilization, with tragically familiar results. Colonel Grossman's analysis illuminates not only this most dangerous problem, but also sheds light on the psychology of the warrior, post traumatic stress disorder, psychiatric casualties, and the uniquely unjust damage done to our Vietnam veterans. This book deserves the widest dissemination, and discussion at the highest levels, for although it imparts some truths we would rather not know, the heretofore prevailing repression and obsession around this subject are allies of the dark forces that threaten us.