On killing : the psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society / by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. Psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society.

section 1. Killing and the existence of resistance: a world of virgins studying sex -- Fight or flight, posture or submit -- Nonfirers throughout history -- Why can't Johnny kill? -- The nature and source of resistance -- section 2. Killing and combat tra uma: the role of killing in psychiatric casualties -- The nature of psychiatric casualties: the psychological price of war -- The reign of fear -- The weight of exhaustion -- The mud of guilt and horror -- The wind of hate - The well of fortitude -- The b urden of killing -- The blind man and the elephant -- section 3. Killing and physical distance: from a distance, you don't look anything like a friend -- Distance: a qualitative distinction in death -- Killimg at maximum and long range: never a need for r epentance or regret -- Killing at mid- and hand-grendae range: "you can never be sure it was you" -- Killing at close range: "I knew that it was up to me, personally, to kill him" -- Killing at edged-weapons range: an "intimate brutality" -- Killing at ha nd-to-hand-combat range -- Killing at sexual range: "the primal aggression, the release, and orgasmic discharge" -- section 4. An anatomy of killing: all factors considered -- The demands of authority: Milgram and the military -- Group absolution: "the in dividual is not a killer, but the group is" -- Emotional distance: "to me they were less than animals" -- The nature of the victim: relevance and payoff -- Agressive predisposition of the killer: avengers, conditioning, and the 2 percent who like it -- Al l factors considered: the mathematics of death -- section 5. Killing and atrocities: "no honor here, no virtue" -- The full spectrum of atrocity -- The dark power of atrocity -- The entrapment of atrocity -- A case study in atrocity -- The greatest trap o f all: to live with that which thou hath wrought -- section 6. The killing response stages -- What does it fell like to kill? -- Applications of the model: murder-suicides, lost elections, and thoughts of insanity -- section 7. Killing in Vietnam: what ha ve we done to our soldiers? -- Desensitization and conditioning in Vietnam: overcoming the resistance to killing -- What have we done to our soldiers? the rationalization of killing and how it failed in Vietnam -- Post-traumatic stress disorder and the co st of killing in Vietnam -- The limits of human endurance and the lessons of Vietnam -- section 8. Killing in America: what are we doing to our children? -- A virus of violence -- Desensitization and Pavlov's dog at the movies -- B.F. Skinner's rats and t he operant conditioning at the video arcade -- Social learning ans role models in the media -- The resensitization of America.