The Art of Manliness - #100： The Kill Switch with Phil Zabriskie

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:19.340 So a while back ago, we had on the podcast, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, he wrote

00:00:23.900 the book on killing where he goes into detail about the psychological effects that killing

00:00:29.260 has on soldiers and law enforcement officers.

00:00:33.040 And since his book, there hasn't been too much else written about the topic of killing

00:00:37.540 in the context of war, I imagine because it's an unpleasant topic to think, research, and

00:00:42.640 write about.

00:00:43.600 But our guest today has recently published an Amazon Kindle book called The Kill Switch,

00:00:48.100 in which he interviews and talks to soldiers and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars

00:00:53.960 and asks them what it was like to kill and what effect it's had on them in their lives

00:00:58.800 after their service.

00:01:00.300 Our guest is Phil Zabriskie.

00:01:02.040 He's spent nearly a decade working and doing journalism overseas.

00:01:07.480 He has covered both Afghanistan and Iraq, along with news and events in Pakistan, Israel, the

00:01:13.500 Palestinian territories, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

00:01:16.220 He's been a staff writer for Time Magazine.

00:01:18.760 He's written for the National Geographic, the New York Magazine, Washington Post.

00:01:22.580 And he recently, again, his book is The Kill Switch, and that's what we're going to talk

00:01:25.360 about today, a really fascinating discussion.

00:01:28.100 So let's do this.

00:01:32.700 Phil Zabriskie, welcome to the show.

00:01:34.540 Thank you.

00:01:35.000 It's great to be here.

00:01:35.840 So your book is The Kill Switch.

00:01:37.680 It's about killing in combat, particularly in the recent Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

00:01:43.260 But can you tell us about your work that led up to this book and what caused you?

00:01:48.080 Was there something specific that caused you to write this little Amazon Kindle single?

00:01:52.360 Sure.

00:01:53.600 I had not set out to cover conflict.

00:01:56.860 That wasn't my intention, and I don't think of myself as a war correspondent in any shape

00:02:01.940 or form.

00:02:02.920 It just so happened that I think like a number of people of my generation, so to speak, got

00:02:08.920 caught in this slipstream that happened after September 11th and led to more stories that

00:02:13.340 had to do with conflict.

00:02:15.700 So I'd been spending time in conflict zones in a host of different countries, looking primarily

00:02:20.720 at how people were affected by what was going on around them, and primarily civilians, the

00:02:25.700 people who were living through it.

00:02:28.020 And I went to Afghanistan first, and then later to Iraq, and mainly was unembedded.

00:02:32.680 I wasn't doing military.

00:02:34.840 I wasn't focused on the military, but trying to cover the broader story.

00:02:38.800 And this is when I worked for Time Magazine, so I was part of bureaus in these places and

00:02:41.860 part of teams that were collectively trying to cover these things.

00:02:44.700 But I did, on a few occasions, spend time with the military and did, especially 2004, when

00:02:51.640 the war was really turning, wind up in some firefights and saw some people who were wounded

00:02:55.960 and killed, saw soldiers and Marines coming back after being in firefights and got a sense

00:03:02.480 of how they responded and how what had just happened or what had been happening over the

00:03:06.660 previous weeks or months was affecting them or weighing them.

00:03:10.040 I saw some instances where civilians got shot.

00:03:13.760 One in particular was a man who got shot in the face when he drove through a checkpoint,

00:03:18.820 probably out of panic.

00:03:20.520 And the guys who shot him were incredibly distraught.

00:03:22.740 So there was a whole range of things going on that very clearly showed there was much more

00:03:30.920 than just what happened on that day.

00:03:32.700 And I did one story in particular about combat stress, which was an effort, had to do with

00:03:41.960 an effort the military was making to put counselors closer to the front lines so they could talk

00:03:46.060 to guys as things were happening in case anything came up that might make them less combat ready

00:03:51.800 or might be particularly troubling, whatever the case might be.

00:03:56.940 So the psychological issues in the moment and beyond were very much on my mind.

00:04:01.600 And then later years, I went back to Afghanistan several times.

00:04:06.080 I spent time in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including Gaza and some other places

00:04:10.580 touched by conflict.

00:04:12.220 And even when the wars were over, ostensibly, you could still see the traces of them.

00:04:17.500 You could see the impact.

00:04:18.820 And it was quite clear that they would last far beyond the time when the last bullet was fired.

00:04:23.940 And when I moved back to the States a few years back, you know, I was always reading and watching

00:04:30.940 the coverage of the wars.

00:04:32.320 And there was amazing work done and some great books, great documentaries, things like that.

00:04:37.060 But oftentimes it felt like something was missing.

00:04:39.760 And to me, that piece that was missing, especially in coverage of the U.S. forces over there, was the killing.

00:04:45.500 It seemed like it was not talked about as much as it was being done.

00:04:50.800 It seemed like a real blind spot.

00:04:54.480 You know, I had myself gotten married and had a daughter, so I wasn't about to go back to these conflict zones.

00:05:00.120 But looking at this question gave me a way to continue to address it, you know, because I did not feel done with it.

00:05:07.460 I didn't feel it was done with me, so to speak.

00:05:09.380 But I wanted to keep working on this, and this was a way of doing it.

00:05:13.800 And then I got lucky in that some of the people I contacted were willing to talk about it.

00:05:18.540 Yeah.

00:05:18.940 I mean, that's the interesting thing is that the only other book that I am aware of that goes into the psychology of killing is David Grossman's book on killing.

00:05:29.840 But for the most part, people don't like to talk about this aspect of war.

00:05:35.480 You know, what is that?

00:05:36.380 I mean, that's why we go to war, right? 0.93

00:05:38.420 I mean, that's sort of like we try to avoid conflict, and we want to avoid it.

00:05:41.100 But in the end, you're there to inflict harm on the enemy so they stop inflicting harm on you.

00:05:46.660 What's with the reluctance, particularly in modern times, of talking about that?

00:05:51.800 I think it's – psychologically, it's a very dark subject.

00:05:55.900 I mean, it's not the easiest thing to look at.

00:05:58.560 And I know that my wife could tell you over the time I was really deep into this stuff, I wasn't in the greatest mood, and it certainly affected me.

00:06:08.420 I think as political leaders, they're not going to talk about it because they don't really want that piece of it being considered if the public's trying to decide, are they for this or against this?

00:06:18.000 Even in the military, they don't talk about it all that much because – at least the psychological piece of it and the potential for its lingering afterwards because they might lose some people.

00:06:31.520 And it just kind of gets in the way of doing the job in certain ways.

00:06:35.560 So all of that combines, but in some other factors as well, it's just something that gets left out.

00:06:43.540 And I think also a country is probably not terribly anxious to look at the killing it's doing because you can say it's this soldier or this Marine or this Navy SEAL.

00:06:55.880 But in a way, they're fighting for us.

00:06:58.040 They're fighting in our name.

00:07:00.440 So it's kind of all of us are involved in it one way or another.

00:07:04.780 Yeah.

00:07:05.480 So in your book, you mention the study.

00:07:08.840 It's a very famous study done by – done in World War II or after World War II by S.L.A. Marshall.

00:07:14.840 And the conclusion of that study is that 75 percent of soldiers during World War II or in combat never fired at the enemy.

00:07:22.700 They either fired over the head or just didn't even aim.

00:07:26.300 In recent years, those numbers have been called into question and that it wasn't that high.

00:07:33.520 But has there been any updates, updated studies on the reluctance of soldiers to fire at the enemy?

00:07:40.100 Not that I know of, but if you look at just – and I, of course, know about the controversy you're talking about.

00:07:47.200 I mentioned Marshall in the story.

00:07:49.280 I didn't really get into – I mentioned that there's controversy about his numbers, but I didn't really want to get into it all that much because I'm not really qualified to judge his work.

00:07:57.100 But I did say that even if half of that number was true in a war against Adolf Hitler's Nazi soldiers, that's pretty remarkable. 0.98

00:08:06.020 And it would suggest a very strong reluctance to take life, especially if you can see someone who's right in front of you.

00:08:11.960 At the same time, though, you look at World War II, tens of millions of people were killed.

00:08:16.580 In World War I, tens of millions of people were killed.

00:08:18.600 I don't know that we – I certainly hope we won't ever have a war like that again, but I doubt it.

00:08:24.540 I mean, now we're talking thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and it's a huge, huge number.

00:08:30.040 But you're not having cities that get carpet – maybe outside – maybe in Syria you are, but you're not largely having cities getting carpet bombed as a matter of course, as a tactic of – as an accepted tactic of military strategy.

00:08:44.960 But overall, there's just not a whole lot of studies on this sort of thing.

00:08:51.460 I mean, killing in general, not that I could find or locate it.

00:08:53.960 There were a handful that – the military, when I contacted them, they said they didn't track how many soldiers kill other people.

00:08:59.700 They didn't track how it affects them afterwards.

00:09:02.700 And there's a chance that's not true and that they don't talk about that stuff because of the body count stuff that happened in Vietnam, during Vietnam.

00:09:11.200 But it's pretty surprising to me because, I mean, even if – like you say, it's part of their job.

00:09:15.740 It's part of what they need to do.

00:09:16.900 So you figure as an organization that wanted to track its performance, they would look at these things.

00:09:21.380 You have Grossman.

00:09:22.480 More recently, a woman named Shira Magoon, I think is how you say her name, at the San Francisco VA.

00:09:29.280 One of the San Francisco VAs has done some studies showing that soldiers who kill are twice as likely to deal with PTSD and other mental health issues as those who don't.

00:09:37.760 And, you know, it's not that everyone is going to be deeply affected by it.

00:09:43.060 But I had a West Point instructor tell me that – the phrase it as killing being the biggest moral decision one can make and the biggest moral taboo one can break.

00:09:53.760 So it stands to reason that those who killed other people will be carrying something that those who did not are free of.

00:10:01.480 You know, they may have their own catalog of traumatic incidents that they've encountered, but that wouldn't be one of them.

00:10:06.020 So in this past war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the nature of the enemy and the nature of the fight, you also have a lot of people who aren't really sure if they killed somebody or not.

00:10:14.940 You know, you would come back and they would say, well, I think I got somebody, but they couldn't really see them.

00:10:21.720 And, you know, an IED would go off and some gunfire would come out of an alley or something like that.

00:10:26.980 They'd shoot towards it, but they might never see anyone there.

00:10:29.280 So you have a lot of people who may come home and even when they get asked, if they're ever asked about it, they may not be sure what the answer is.

00:10:39.660 So we may not know the exact number of, you know, how reluctant, you know, what percentage of people in combat, you know, actually don't fire at the enemy.

00:10:47.680 But the military understands that there is a reluctance to kill other humans.

00:10:52.700 And you talk about what the military has done over the years to train soldiers to prepare themselves to kill.

00:11:00.160 Can you talk about a bit of that training that has developed since World War II?

00:11:04.560 Sure. Yeah.

00:11:05.120 I mean, this being their job and part of the job, I think they've put a lot of effort in the designing programs that will help their charges carried out.

00:11:18.580 One way to put it is that they want people getting to combat, getting into combat, feeling almost as if they've been there before, like it had happened before.

00:11:26.880 So whatever they have to do is a series of, you know, learned memories and habits more than trying to figure something out for the first time.

00:11:33.860 So back in the training, when that starts, almost from day one, there's a process where the military is creating a context in which killing and dying will make sense.

00:11:43.680 And then also training and the mechanisms need to carry it out.

00:11:46.760 So you might have or you do have language being a big part of it where, you know, even in boot camp, an order will be given.

00:11:55.220 And, you know, instead of saying yes, they'll say kill, like, you know, run that hill, you know, kill, run that, you know, that's the response.

00:12:02.200 And there's a lot of talk. 0.99

00:12:03.560 Are you a killer? 0.93

00:12:04.300 You know, can you be a killer?

00:12:05.500 You're not a killer.

00:12:06.280 And that sort of stuff sort of becomes everyday language.

00:12:10.840 And it normalizes something that would have, I think, been very abnormal prior to that.

00:12:16.480 You know, there's jokes that kind of devalue life a little bit and, again, make it almost like a softer sell.

00:12:23.200 And then you have chaplains and superior officers who are on hand to talk about some of the philosophical or even religious aspects of it.

00:12:31.800 You know, the distinction between thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not murder.

00:12:35.900 You know, how that – if it's thou shalt not murder, then there's some space to kill in the right context.

00:12:42.120 And to say that killing can be protecting an act of protection whereby you protect the guys you're with but also perhaps even, you know, you kill more, you end the war sooner, fewer people die, things like that.

00:12:56.220 And that it all fits into this warrior ethos where it's part of the duty, part of looking after each other, part of upholding the oath they've taken.

00:13:04.920 And then at the same time, you've got the physical aspects, learning to handle weapons, learning to fire those weapons, clean those weapons, become very familiar with them, then firing them in certain conditions under stress, then specific scenarios, and moving up from paper targets to human-shaped targets to ever more lifelike facsimiles of actual people, and then even some drills that involve other people playing insurgents.

00:13:33.260 And as the war went on, you had more and more commanders realizing, I need to do more than just the basic training.

00:13:39.020 So they would call in specialists who could create villages with fake insurgents, and they would – you know, special effects and bombings and sort of things like that to, again, make it feel like they've been there before.

00:13:50.500 And one of the units that I looked at in the story – or one of the main guys was in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which fought in Fallujah in 2004.

00:14:03.260 And they, before they deployed for that battle, worked with a Hollywood studio guy who made this kind of village, and they had a Vietnam veteran and a guy who had worked with the New York Police Department for a long time come out as well and talked to them about urban combat in particular and how to conduct themselves in that specific environment. 1.00

00:14:20.120 And he had this mantra that he gave them, which was slow as smooth, smooth as fast, never make an uncover move, and see the motherfucker and kill the motherfucker and quit thinking about it. 0.99

00:14:30.020 And all of that was designed to say, you know, don't panic. 1.00

00:14:34.020 Remember your responsibilities.

00:14:36.400 If it comes to that, just take care of business and carry on.

00:14:40.860 And I've heard – and, you know, I know Grossman has said that hunters have a leg up on this because they maybe have had an experience of having killed another being before.

00:14:48.460 And that makes some sense, but I think it's kind of limited or, you know, only applicable to a point when you're in these actual places and there's actual people in front of you.

00:14:58.900 I thought it was interesting you highlight one of the soldiers who killed an insurgent, and he talked about it like it was a training exercise.

00:15:05.980 He saw the target, and he just sort of like habit, reflex came in, and he just followed through.

00:15:11.220 Like he was back in the States training for this, and that's what it was like.

00:15:15.600 Right.

00:15:15.960 Yeah, he said he raised the rifle, took the shot, then lowered the rifle, looked for the next target.

00:15:20.500 And I think his exact words was it was like a 25-meter target at that moment.

00:15:23.960 And then it was only later on when he was looking back at it did he think like, oh, that was actually a person.

00:15:30.220 So throughout the book you talk to several soldiers and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war about their experience on killing.

00:15:38.920 My first question, how do you bring a topic up like that?

00:15:41.800 Like how do you broach the subject with a soldier on that?

00:15:45.900 You know, in this case, I think it made a huge difference that I had been over there and that I had met these guys before.

00:15:55.380 You know, I'm not going to claim we were friends or that I knew them well or it's been, you know, there's a lot of people who spent more time over there than I did

00:16:01.460 and a lot of people who were in many, many more firefights than I was.

00:16:04.240 But just even having some experience and them knowing they saw you there, like in a way I'd gone to their place of work to learn about what they did,

00:16:13.640 I think that engendered a level of understanding that was very helpful.

00:16:18.780 And then, you know, really I just asked them.

00:16:20.280 I was very upfront about what I was trying to do.

00:16:22.180 I wasn't trying to, you know, pretend I was talking about one thing and then ask them about this.

00:16:26.140 I was very unclear that I understood it was not a small thing to be asking them to discuss publicly.

00:16:31.440 And then, you know, I said that I just wanted to look at this squarely and soberly.

00:16:38.920 I didn't want to make too, you know, I didn't want to sensationalize anything.

00:16:42.540 I didn't want to say, oh, this is crazy.

00:16:44.220 People are killing, they're bloodthirsty, whatever.

00:16:46.100 I just wanted to understand how this was playing out for them when they were deployed and then afterwards.

00:16:52.340 And I think something about that, you know, existing trust was, I guess, made them feel somewhat comfortable or at least willing to try to do this.

00:17:03.020 And then I would go do the interviews and do long interviews and often in many cases.

00:17:07.080 And there wasn't really any one kind of answer that would come out when I would ask them about this specific stuff.

00:17:12.220 But they were frank and they were forthcoming and in certain instances it almost felt like they wanted to talk about it.

00:17:20.140 You know, like they were glad to have the chance because there had been so little opportunity before other than, you know, maybe they're on an airplane and someone says, hey, did you kill anyone?

00:17:28.300 You know, that kind of stuff that is really reductive and that a lot of guys really hate.

00:17:32.620 Yeah. Was there a story that you heard from one of the soldiers you interviewed that was particularly jarring?

00:17:41.940 Well, I mean, there were a lot of stories and I think there were, you know, a few things that I recalled from my experience that I'd maybe packed away and hadn't thought, you know, consciously tried not to think about for a while.

00:17:53.620 And I think that, you know, at one point, a former battalion commander says that when war is declared, guys will inevitably be put in impossible positions where they have to make choices that are extremely difficult.

00:18:10.020 There's one guy in the story who, during the initial invasion, his unit, you know, they were fighting Iraqi soldiers in southern Iraq and they killed one and then everyone turned away except for him.

00:18:27.060 He had to sort of watch that spot and then a kid ran up and picked his gun up and pointed at the Marines and so he shot him and that was his job. 0.83

00:18:34.900 That was within the rules of engagement. But it's shocking, you know, I mean, there's just no way that's kind of right in any moral sense.

00:18:43.980 And everyone knows that. It's not as if, you know, and for some of those reasons, he had trouble even telling anyone about it for a long time.

00:18:54.220 You know, he didn't tell the other guys that day. He didn't tell them, you know, because it just felt wrong.

00:18:58.140 And when guys were all excited and they felt like they were making progress towards Baghdad and they were carrying out their mission as they were supposed to, even some guys would say, yeah, I took out a, you know, a nester. 1.00

00:19:08.000 I took out a sniper. I took out this or that or the other. He wasn't. He said, I'm not going to say, like, I just took out a seven-year-old.

00:19:12.720 And so, you know, and it also became clear over time, like how much that weighed on him too.

00:19:18.740 So, you know, stories like that are, I think, implicitly going to be the most jarring, but there were quite a few others that are shocking in different ways as well.

00:19:29.360 Yeah. You talk about in the book how one philosopher calls those sorts of decisions and the effects of them a moral wound and not necessarily a psychological wound.

00:19:43.300 Some of these guys, they don't have any really PTSD, but there's something that's bothering them.

00:19:48.160 I mean, how do you, I mean, what is, how has their experience in Afghanistan or Iraq affected them in their post-military life and how are they dealing with what they did there?

00:20:02.000 What's the common response there?

00:20:04.820 You know, I tried to resist the, I knew I couldn't, I couldn't answer those questions in terms of the military or in terms of veterans.

00:20:14.780 You know, I, in part, tried to focus on a couple of specific people because I knew that it was, it's going to be different depending on who you're talking to.

00:20:21.300 And it's going to be different depending on their circumstances, how they came back, when they came back, what they did afterwards.

00:20:29.560 You know, when you talk about moral injury, the term that was coined by Jonathan Shea, who wrote a book called Achilles in Vietnam,

00:20:36.560 which is a terrific book about what happens when, when the process of coming home, of being in war and then coming home.

00:20:44.220 And that's when you have a situation where something you did so thoroughly and deeply transgresses your sense of right and wrong that it is akin to an injury, a psychological injury that can be in some cases debilitating

00:20:57.700 because you sort of walk around thinking, wanting to think you are this sort of person or that sort of person, but somewhere in your head you think, oh, I did that thing though.

00:21:04.960 And I, I will always be the person who did that thing.

00:21:07.180 How can I pretend I'm, I'm this or that?

00:21:12.460 And like I say, you know, another, another psychiatrist called said that a lot of guys, it's almost, they treat killings as like a personal trial.

00:21:20.760 And they put themselves on trial in their mind and they have to figure out, was it just, was it right?

00:21:24.700 Was it effective?

00:21:25.620 Was it, in some cases, you know, some might be thinking in the long run, was it worth it?

00:21:30.580 And how that, they judge themselves on that scale could matter as well.

00:21:35.100 With, with the two guys that I focused on, you know, one who was in the 2-5 Marines, Ben Nelson, he was wounded.

00:21:41.640 And he was wounded in an incident where everyone else in this home view was killed when they were ran by a car bomber in November of 2004.

00:21:50.040 So he, well, he went to Germany for treatment.

00:21:53.320 He went back to D.C. for treatment, or Bethesda, Maryland for treatment, and then back to the West Coast where he was based.

00:22:00.340 And he was almost by himself.

00:22:01.680 I mean, he was still connected to the, to the Marines, but he couldn't fight.

00:22:04.200 He couldn't be part of his unit.

00:22:05.440 He, you know, his best friends and his commander, his company commander had just been killed and he blamed himself for that.

00:22:10.280 And his commander told him not to shoot at the bomber.

00:22:12.660 Explicit said, do not shoot at that car.

00:22:14.640 But he still felt that it was his fault in part.

00:22:17.760 And so just his own surviving was, was an affront in a way.

00:22:24.320 So he was, he was a bit adrift and he struggled a lot.

00:22:27.460 And he, he's, it's taken years for him to get right with certain things.

00:22:30.380 And then only finally did he get some help from, from a, you know, very attentive and, from what I can tell, quite insightful counsel through the VA.

00:22:38.120 But this was just a couple of years ago.

00:22:40.280 So, um, meanwhile, the other guy, Brian Chontosh, he, he, he was, he'd been scheduled to rotate out of Iraq for the battle of Fallujah in late 2004.

00:22:50.440 But he talked his way into staying with his guys because he wanted to lead them into that battle.

00:22:54.760 But towards the end of it, he, he, he, he was actually sent home according to his orders.

00:22:59.920 And it was, you know, two days maybe of plane rides and car rides before he was back in an, in the Baltimore airport with the same boots he was wearing.

00:23:09.020 You know, you know, in Fallujah just days earlier, um, with some of that same dirt and some of that same blood on them.

00:23:15.840 But he went, he stayed in the military.

00:23:18.400 He went, he had, uh, an instruction role, a role as an instructor at the basic school.

00:23:22.580 He had other roles, um, in the, in the following years and then eventually worked at the Naval Academy as a, as a company commander and almost like a mentor in a lot of ways to midshipmen.

00:23:34.480 And the, the, the, the cadets there, not the cadets, sorry, the midshipmen at the Naval Academy who in all likelihood were going to be going to war at some point and be leading other men.

00:23:42.560 So he had a structure around him that I think was extremely helpful.

00:23:47.020 And then eventually these midshipmen started asking him questions about his own experience, which provided a form in which he could talk about these things and look at them himself and consider them at the same time.

00:23:56.420 You know, he, he also was going a hundred miles an hour all the time as, as he admits, um, his marriage fell apart.

00:24:03.640 And he says it was his fault.

00:24:05.080 He kind of neglected his family to a certain extent.

00:24:07.920 Uh, he, he, and later he said he was affected by, he didn't want to say he had, he, he didn't say he had PTSD or something like that, but he said he was affected by what came out of his combat experience in a way that he needed to get a little bit of help.

00:24:20.760 And he did get some help, but it was all within the military structure, which I think was extremely important and very beneficial for him.

00:24:26.720 Yeah. So I guess a lesson from there, I guess, would be that don't let these soldiers be by themselves, keep them in some sort of structure when they get back.

00:24:37.560 Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's, uh, a lot of, you know, a lot of these guys are, like, Chantash is a career soldier.

00:24:44.080 He was in 20 years. He only recently retired last year. Um, he's, he was, he was older when he went to battle. So he had a bit more of a maturity about him, a bit more ability to put things in a broader perspective.

00:24:56.820 And some of these guys who are 19 or 20, but then, you know, many of them do their service and they're out and then they have to go find other things when they're in their early twenties, uh, mid twenties, maybe.

00:25:07.680 And doing these things in isolation is really difficult. Um, doing things where, because you're already in a situation where what happened, what you were just doing over there makes little sense over here.

00:25:19.400 And the contexts are so different. Like that alone can be jarring yet. You're, you're walking around this, this world, wherever you are, you know, you're in your car, you're at the mall, you're at the, in the, the, at your job.

00:25:30.540 And people are talking about other things. So that thing that was most important to you, that that was really life and death, literally to you days earlier is, is inconsequential or seems inconsequential to the people around you.

00:25:40.840 So even on that social context, exactly like, you know, that isolation can be damaging. Some people like it. I mean, some people really don't want to talk about it and they're, they've got a way to make sense of it on their own.

00:25:52.980 But, but the guys who need help, um, you know, having them adrift and, and here's another aspect of the whole VA problem, which is that having them wait for months for an appointment or just being handed some pills or whatever it might be, just these limited bandaid type approaches to, to, um, counseling or treatment, or even just listening, uh, can be even further isolating.

00:26:16.840 So, yeah, I guess it goes to my next question. I mean, we know the military does a lot to help a soldier actually kill, but I mean, it sounds like they don't do too much to help these guys deal with it afterwards.

00:26:29.360 No, not, not explicitly. And I, and I heard that from a lot of people, soldiers, um, psychiatrists, counselors, you know, various sorts of people who study the military. Um, and it's, it's hard. Yeah. I, it's, it's, it just seems like it's not very well.

00:26:46.100 And I don't know if it's just not very well understood or they don't have the money or the time to pay attention to these sorts of things, or they don't really want guys thinking about them ahead of time.

00:26:53.820 Because again, you, you would have a situation where, you know, I think from what I understand, I think it'd be really hard to go into a place and be killing other people when you're thinking like, Hey, I wonder if that guy has a family, you know, or I wonder if this is going to bother me later.

00:27:08.060 I wonder if I'm going to have a, I'm going to see that guy's face in a couple of years when I have a dream or when I, you know, smell something similar or hear, hear a truck backfire and there's a similar sound.

00:27:17.760 Um, all those things can make someone hesitate. And if they hesitate, then they might not achieve their objective and someone else could get hurt.

00:27:24.880 You know, uh, things could go wrong in one way or another. Um, and, and they are, as Chanto says, you know, we are a tool of a tool of the government in the violent realm.

00:27:35.780 And that's what they have to be readied for. That's the job they're supposed to do that they signed up for. Um, and, and that they, they take pride in doing well.

00:27:45.460 At the same time though, um, you know, you have this sense of moral injury where how to, you know, something that, that, that just did something that, that is hard to feel good about over the longterm.

00:27:55.740 Um, Ben Nelson says that, that, you know, dealing with people he killed, he wishes there had been some lessons about it ahead of time, like some warning that this might happen because for years he said he was just angry.

00:28:09.960 He had this rage inside him. He was anxious and frustrated every time he thought about it and he didn't have any way to contextualize what was going on with him.

00:28:18.240 And so he was just dealing with it on his own. And, and, you know, he was lucky in that he has a kind of incredibly mature and, and steadfast wife who, who fought through it all with him. Um, but you know, some have not, have not been so lucky.

00:28:35.800 And, and, and the other thing is as it goes on, it can get harder. You know, you, you might want to think that, that this gets easier to deal with, like, cause you carry, you know, over time you get used to it.

00:28:45.980 And, and, and it starts, uh, it becomes clear, like what it was all about and why, you know, you can contextualize.

00:28:53.940 And the guy like Chantash has a, has a very, um, effective and impressive in a way ability to compartmentalize things.

00:29:02.800 Like that's what happened there and then. And that's why we did it. And this is today. And so I'm doing this other thing. And, but not everyone can do that. Um, if they could teach shelters that, then that might be better for them.

00:29:13.800 I don't know if it'd be better for everyone else, but, but, uh, later on in life, um, you're thinking some of those thoughts, like, I wonder if that guy had a family.

00:29:21.780 I wonder if, if, if, you know, what could have been in his life or what happened there or was it worth it?

00:29:27.420 And, and, and especially with the question of, of wars like this one or Vietnam, where the outcome is, you know, equivocal at best, where you can't say, yeah, we did that so we could beat back the Nazis.

00:29:40.160 But there's some, some real questions about, uh, whether it was a success or not. That factors in as well. And already now you had, you know, I saw these guys on consecutive days in January and it was days after insurgents had retaken Fallujah and Ramadi.

00:29:54.560 And a whole host of questions came up around that with veterans. And when I asked these guys about it, and again, this speaks to the different kinds of personalities involved in the different perspectives.

00:30:05.420 Chantaj said, well, you know, that was then and there and we did our best. And, and it, that's as unfortunate as it turned out this way, but it's not going to make me think differently about my service.

00:30:13.540 And Ben Nelson said, well, then what did those guys die for?

00:30:17.280 Yeah. I think that you mentioned a statistic about how it gets harder the longer to go, that most of the suicides from veterans are veterans over 50 years old. So these are men who fought in Vietnam.

00:30:31.940 Right.

00:30:32.520 Yeah. And I guess they're sort of dealing with their mortality.

00:30:36.780 Yeah. I think it comes up. I mean, you start thinking, what have I accomplished? What do I have to, what may I have to answer for, you know, based on whatever,

00:30:42.940 whatever your faith is, and then however you, you know, think you may pass through this life to the next.

00:30:50.860 What was all that for? And is this good? And does the, does the disenchantment, does the isolation or that, that feeling of, of whatever it might be, does it just increase or does it ever get better?

00:31:00.140 So, and, and I think that, that in a way now, this is pure supposition, but I think in a way now it's, you know, the Vietnam war has been supplanted by these wars.

00:31:11.060 So those guys are almost afterthoughts in a way that, that I would imagine be troubling for them and feel quite, quite distancing.

00:31:21.280 So why do you think it's important for civilians to understand what it's like for a soldier to kill?

00:31:28.620 You know, I think on a few different levels, I think there's a political level in which they should understand that when war is discussed or declared, this will happen, that, that people will be sent to go do these things and find themselves in these situations.

00:31:44.520 But then, and then they'll have to deal with it afterwards and that they should not, you know, we all have to take some responsibility for this because it's our country.

00:31:53.280 I think also there's such a casual use of war metaphors and imagery and video games and all the rest and popular culture that, that having people take a real square look at what war actually is and what it actually does and what it actually involves is important.

00:32:12.980 And I think that, you know, even on just a very personal level, understanding that there are guys like this out there now and that it's really not enough to just say, you know, thanks for your service or I support the troops or all the rest.

00:32:25.920 I mean, that's, I mean, that's, that's shorthand for, for addressing them and addressing these things and that if there really is going to be support, it should be based in a, in a real understanding of, of the actual experience.

00:32:41.860 And I think also it's, it's, it's good to understand what the training that is done and the kind of focus and, and kind of lethal energy and, and that's required to carry out this job.

00:32:53.960 I mean, this was one of the things I actually liked about American sniper, that, that, that is useful in a tactical sense for commanders trying to carry out their objectives, but at the same time, those commanders have to control it.

00:33:07.000 You know, they have to figure out how do we as leaders direct that so it doesn't get out of hand in the worst case scenarios.

00:33:14.340 And there've been a few where, where it's turned into actual murder and just getting, you know, completely goes outside the boundaries of what's even acceptable in wartime.

00:33:24.580 And that, that responsibility is not just on the battlefield.

00:33:30.200 I mean, it goes back to whoever declares the war, who plans the war, who says, this is a good idea, we should do this. 0.82

00:33:35.800 You know, all that stuff is, is, is part of it.

00:33:39.120 So I think it's an interesting thing.

00:33:42.080 And I was just talking to a friend about this regarding American sniper with, with, you know, some of the criticisms that, oh, Chris Kyle is a, he's barbaric and blah, blah, blah.

00:33:49.280 You know, you know, yes, but that was his job.

00:33:53.720 And so what does that make the person who sent him there?

00:33:56.460 I mean, I just, to me, these are, these are questions that are worth looking at.

00:34:01.360 And if someone wants to understand what war really is, it's, I think the onus is on them to look at these sorts of questions.

00:34:10.940 Well, Phil, where can readers learn more about your work?

00:34:13.380 Uh, well, I, you know, this is the big thing I've been working on over, of late, the, the kill switch.

00:34:20.120 It's on Amazon and, um, it's a, it's a Kindle single, but you don't need a Kindle to read it.

00:34:24.460 You can, there's a Kindle app and you can download that and you can read it on anything.

00:34:27.520 So I would hope, uh, or, you know, hope anyone who wants to know more about this would, would have a look.

00:34:33.360 I did a review of American sniper for foreign policy, you know, older things.

00:34:37.100 There's some stories on time or national geographic and that could be tracked down and then I'll, you know, have to figure out what I, what I do next.

00:34:46.820 All right.

00:34:47.240 Well, Phil Zabriskie, thank you so much for your time.

00:34:48.820 It's been a pleasure.

00:34:50.200 Sure.

00:34:50.600 Thank you, Brett.

00:34:51.180 I really appreciate it.

00:34:52.160 Our guest today was Phil Zabriskie.

00:34:53.460 He's the author of the Amazon single, the kill switch.

00:34:56.320 You can find that on amazon.com and download it to your Kindle app.

00:34:59.760 It's just $2 and 99 cents.

00:35:02.240 Recommend you go pick it up.

00:35:03.260 It's a very fascinating and jarring read.

00:35:05.400 You can follow Phil on Twitter at kill switch story, and you'll find links and references that supplement what he wrote about in the kill switch.

00:35:13.620 So give him a follow.

00:35:16.620 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast.

00:35:20.340 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website at theartofmanliness.com.

00:35:25.940 And one way you can support the podcast, support the website is buying something from our store, store.artofmanliness.com.

00:35:32.220 You'll find t-shirts, you'll find really cool manly coffee mug.

00:35:36.780 We also have our Ben Franklin Journal.

00:35:38.780 It's an art of manliness exclusive.

00:35:39.980 You can't find this anywhere else.

00:35:41.640 So it's store.artofmanliness.com.

00:35:43.820 I'd really appreciate your support.

00:35:45.540 Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - February 05, 2015

#100： The Kill Switch with Phil Zabriskie

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript