KILLING FOR SPORT

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman famously noted during the Civil War that "War is Hell", and no more profound a statement can be made to describe the horrors involved when two or more armies of humans set out to kill one another, but even a general as ruthless as Sherman could not take pleasure at witnessing the death of fellow human beings, lamenting in a later speech that "War is Cruelty."

People join the U.S. military for a host of reasons. Many enlist out of a sense of patriotic duty. Others join for the opportunity of world travel. A number seek a chance to gain job training and skills that will help them later in life. Some seek the military's discipline. Others sign up for a chance to go to college. A few join because it's the only job opportunity available to them, and unfortunately, a very small cadre of individuals enlists to satisfy their own personal lust for killing. It is toward this latter group that I focus my attention.

Soldiers with a lust for killing do not share Sherman's belief that war is hell or war is cruel. Rather, they view war's theater as a welcomed stage upon which they are granted license to carry out their darkest desires. They seek not the end of war's depravity or the cessation of human bloodshed. They seek only the thrill of the kill and the adoration of an approving audience. That is why a small band of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan randomly murdered several Afghan civilians and distributed photographs of their selves standing triumphantly next to their Afghan victim's corpses. In some cases, the soldiers even kept the fingers of their victim as souvenirs.

In prosecuting the soldiers involved in these Afghanistan atrocities, our military leaders have rightfully decried the actions of these soldiers as the unsanctioned work of a small group of depraved individuals, and not reflective of the intention of our military or our nation, but if we truly wish to dissociate ourselves from the atrocities committed by those soldiers, we must take affirmative steps to weed out like-minded soldiers from our military ranks. Otherwise, we become complicit through our failure to act.

War is hell and war is cruel, even under the best of circumstances. That is why there is no room on the battlefield for those who kill for sport or take pleasure in doing it.