The Art of Manliness - #79： On Killing & On Combat With Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

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00:01:38.380 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So last year,

00:01:43.740 I wrote a series of posts about becoming a sheepdog. So there's this analogy out there that there are

00:01:49.080 three types of people in the world. There are sheep, which is most of the population,

00:01:52.840 which are just nice, innocent people. There are wolves, which is a very small portion of the

00:01:57.140 population. And they're the bad guys, the criminals, and they prey on the sheep. And then there are

00:02:01.500 sheepdogs. And these are the individuals who protect the sheep, protect the herd. And they're

00:02:05.840 a very small portion. Anyways, I got this analogy from a book that our guest wrote. His name is Lieutenant

00:02:11.740 Colonel Dave Grossman. And if you are in law enforcement or in the military or are interested in

00:02:17.960 self-defense, you are probably familiar with Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman's work.

00:02:22.880 He's written two very influential books. The first one is On Killing, which is about just that. It's

00:02:28.840 about killing, not murder. We're talking about killing individuals who in the line of duty or in

00:02:35.080 an effort of self-defense have to take the life of another human being. And it's all about the

00:02:40.160 physiological and psychological response that happens before, during, and after the act of killing.

00:02:46.300 And it's something that a lot of people don't talk about. And we're going to talk about in our

00:02:51.080 podcast today, why that is. And the second book he wrote is On Combat, which is about preparing

00:02:57.960 your mind and your body for life or death situations for combat. Dave Grossman's work,

00:03:05.000 his research has had a profound impact and influence in the military on what soldiers are doing now to

00:03:11.020 prepare for combat. And we're going to talk about some of that stuff that he's done.

00:03:14.620 And even if you're not in the military or interested in tactical stuff, I still think

00:03:20.400 you can get something out of this podcast because it's all about, at its core, what Dave Grossman

00:03:26.000 talks about is managing stress. And the tactics, the mindset that he teaches his students are just as

00:03:34.940 applicable to corporate warriors as they are to actual warriors. So in any ways too, it's just

00:03:41.120 interesting, very fascinating topic, the subject of killing, because it doesn't really get talked

00:03:46.140 about all that much. So with that said, let's get started on killing, on combat. Here we go.

00:03:55.280 All right, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, welcome to the show.

00:03:58.360 Thank you, bro.

00:03:58.860 All right. So you have had, I mean, just, you spent your entire career studying, you know, some very

00:04:06.700 unpleasant things, killing and what happens to a human being in combat, as well as being an advocate

00:04:12.140 for trying to, I guess, diminish violence in America, and as well as prepare individuals, both in law

00:04:19.900 enforcement and in the military, and also citizens, on how they can be ready for those violent

00:04:25.220 confrontations if they were to happen. So I'd like to, if at all possible, try to cover your

00:04:30.420 huge breadth of work with a few questions and get people who aren't familiar with your work a little

00:04:36.940 bit more familiar, and then people who are familiar, because I know we have a lot of listeners who are

00:04:40.360 big fans of your books, a little bit more insight. So your first book that really caused a lot of

00:04:49.900 waves and got a lot of attention was a book called On Killing. How long ago was that published?

00:04:56.400 It came out in 95.

00:04:57.640 95. Okay.

00:04:59.400 About three years before I retired from the Army. I was on active duty. I'd been a West Point psych

00:05:03.820 professor. And the book now has got about half a million copies sold. It's translated into eight

00:05:11.920 languages. Marine Corps Commandants required reading, recommended reading is for the Army and the Air Force.

00:05:18.340 And what inspired you to, I mean, it's such an unpleasant idea, right? Killing.

00:05:23.780 Well, I enlisted in the Army in 1974. The Vietnam War did it pretty much in 72. I was a young

00:05:34.080 paratrooper. We had combat veterans all around us. And the young troops wanted to know what combat was

00:05:41.140 going to be like. And nobody would say. It was this kind of taboo topic. And I remember at the

00:05:47.180 time being fascinated by, you know, what's going to happen in combat? What's going to be like in

00:05:51.520 combat? Trying to get combat veterans to talk and tell us. And then fast forward 15 years.

00:06:01.640 And I'm in route to teach at West Point as a psychology professor. My undergraduate training is a military

00:06:10.500 historian. I said psychology. I don't want no stinking psychology. I'm a beady-eyed killer and I'm Army

00:06:16.940 Ranger. I'm a historian. But I would have taken a graduate degree in underwater basket weaving if

00:06:24.220 that's what, that's the program the Army let me take. So I said, I'll study the psychology of killing.

00:06:32.200 And the Army pounded a square peg into a round hole. My particular personality background would almost

00:06:39.000 never become a psychologist. And somebody with the personality background of studying psychology would

00:06:44.480 almost never have looked at this topic. So my graduate work was all on this topic. I published the book

00:06:51.340 afterwards as a West Point psych professor, as an Army Ranger, an infantry captain. All of a sudden,

00:06:59.640 people would talk to me and they would tell me and they would give me a depth of information that

00:07:03.280 most people will never get. And it was really an honor and an obligation to get this body of

00:07:10.020 information. And that pretty well became my book on killing. On killing. And it's interesting that you

00:07:17.380 noted, or you talked about how the veterans wouldn't want to talk really about what happened

00:07:24.200 in combat. It's like a very private thing. And on killing, you actually compare the act of killing

00:07:30.120 very similar to the act of sex. It's a private act that most people don't talk about. I mean,

00:07:35.100 how is sex and killing similar?

00:07:37.560 I retired from the Army 17 years ago now, 1998. I've been on the road almost 300 days a year,

00:07:44.460 going on 17 years. I train. I'm the only law enforcement trainer qualified to train in all

00:07:50.040 50 states. I train every federal agency. I train all of our tier one spec ops and all branches of

00:07:55.640 the service. I also do a lot of work in school safety. And as you said, civilian sheepdogs, 1.00

00:08:02.020 mental preparation for the battle. And as I talk with my sheepdogs, I get a depth of information

00:08:11.940 the average person won't get. And I ask questions others won't ask. And I found out my firefighters

00:08:17.940 after a brutal life and death for a long fire, finally get the fire out, finally get home at the

00:08:23.300 end of the shift. And cops say, knock down, drag out fight, cuffed him and stuffed him, finally get

00:08:29.240 home at the end of the shift. And cops say, gunfight, bad guy's dead, I'm alive. Finally get

00:08:34.980 home when it's all over. And they all say, the best sex I've had in months. Both partners are very

00:08:41.780 invested in some very intense sex. I tell my cops, I say, there's nothing wrong if it doesn't happen.

00:08:49.540 There's nothing wrong if it does happen. Is it the affirmation of life in the face of death? Is it

00:08:55.420 a hormonal surge? We don't know. But there's not a whole lot of perks that come to this job. You find

00:09:00.240 one, relax and enjoy it. And I always said, off duty. Wait, wait, wait, until you're off duty.

00:09:07.720 So the reproductive drive in the face of death is very powerful. And the two both are kind of

00:09:16.500 mixed together in a taboo realm. And our depth of ignorance and our lack of knowledge in those

00:09:22.000 fields. I'll give you just one example, Brett. And this is made out of me. For better or worse,

00:09:26.820 this is my concept. But you know, the necktie. You know, the necktie, it starts down at the crotch,

00:09:33.840 it comes up to your neck, it's got a big knob on the top. It's been in style for over 100 years.

00:09:39.600 Fashion's come and go, come and go. And the necktie's been there for over 100 years.

00:09:43.800 It's a dick. It's not just a phallic symbol, it's a dick. A hundred years from now,

00:09:47.420 they'll look at photographs of us with our neckties and they'll all laugh and titter and say,

00:09:52.680 couldn't they see it? Couldn't they see it? They're all wearing a big dick. They're wearing a dick.

00:09:55.820 All the time, everywhere, they wear the dick. And I tell my cops, you know, you knock on the front

00:10:00.560 door and you're both in your suits, you got your dick on. The guy that answers the door doesn't hit,

00:10:04.940 the little monkey brain goes, woo, woo, woo. And it works. It works. It's intimidating. And if everybody

00:10:10.280 has theirs on and you don't have yours on, it doesn't work. Of course, the bow tie is the guy that

00:10:14.320 should not play in the game. He's opted out. And more or less a quasi-effeminate type.

00:10:20.640 I always wear a bow tie now. You know, the cowboy bow tie. The cowboy's just not playing the game.

00:10:26.260 Here's my dick. He pulls out his gun and waves his gun at you. There's my dick. He doesn't have

00:10:31.640 to worry about this phallic symbol or this phallus that you're carrying. But I'm telling you,

00:10:37.420 once you look at it, you know, and women almost never wear it. Women will, any fashion a man has,

00:10:42.140 a woman will have. With very rare exceptions, women won't wear a tie because the monkey brain 1.00

00:10:47.860 is confused. The monkey brain sees a woman with a tie and says, oh, oh, it doesn't work. It's there.

00:10:53.920 It's powerful. It permeates every aspect of our society. And we're completely blind to it.

00:11:00.020 When we talk about things like killing insects, these are just topics where social taboos and social

00:11:06.220 blind spots are just everywhere. And our inability to pierce those is pretty powerful. And the

00:11:15.000 destructive act and procreative act are pretty interwoven. And I've pretty much dedicated my

00:11:19.880 life to studying that.

00:11:20.940 Yeah. And you talk about in the book how, because of taboos we have in our culture,

00:11:25.000 things like sex and things like killing, it's more of an abstraction for people now. They don't,

00:11:30.620 you're not really close to it anymore. You know, a hundred, 150 years ago, most people lived on farms

00:11:36.560 where they saw, you know, the slaughtering of animals, right?

00:11:40.500 Right. Saw animals reproduced all around.

00:11:42.680 And they saw animals reproduced, but now, you know, most people are just so distanced from that.

00:11:47.040 Yeah. Yeah.

00:11:47.840 I mean, what effect does that distance from killing and from sex, I mean, what does that have on a,

00:11:53.680 what kind of effect does that have on a person when they actually engage in like having to protect

00:11:59.020 themselves and kill another person?

00:12:00.860 Yeah. They're, they're far less prepared psychologically. And it's not a big deal.

00:12:05.680 We don't want to cop a pity party, but I'm convinced from a lifetime of study, the single 1.00

00:12:10.480 best way to prepare for combat is hunting. My little, I never, I had three boys and I never

00:12:16.860 was able to take them hunting. I was in the army. I was just going a hundred miles an hour day after

00:12:22.960 day after day, but I've got grandchildren now and I consider it my responsibility to take my

00:12:29.020 grandchildren hunting and block out a week or two every year for deer camp. One in Alabama

00:12:34.860 with relatives, one in Minnesota with relatives. So, and took my little grandson, my oldest

00:12:40.120 grandchild is 12 now. When he was seven, we went to deer camp the first time. And he came

00:12:45.080 back a week later. He'd gotten out of school for a week, grubby and dirty, hadn't taken a

00:12:49.840 shower or bath in a week and just absolutely on top of the world. And his mom said, what'd you

00:12:55.420 like the best? And he said, gotten the deer for a seven year old boy to see all that, that

00:13:02.140 crap and stuff inside of living creatures. Fascinating. And that's a healthy response.

00:13:07.680 That's the way it ought to be. And those early inquisitive stages, we should be confronted with

00:13:12.060 that stuff. We should be familiar with that stuff. And then in later ages, a mark of manhood

00:13:17.440 would be to kill your own food and to bring it home, to be intimately familiar with the smell

00:13:24.480 of blood and crap inside living creatures. And it means food on the table. From your youngest

00:13:29.440 days, you would wring the neck of a chicken and you would gut it. The youngest child who

00:13:33.760 was physically able to do it would wring the chicken's neck and gut it and pluck it. And

00:13:38.880 that smell meant food on the table. And it was an integral part of who we were as a species

00:13:44.720 from our youngest days. And we've really grown separate from that. Meanwhile, sex is either

00:13:50.560 pornography with a twisted, distorted, really misrepresentation of the intimacy of sex, or

00:13:56.800 it's, it's something in private. But throughout history, sex was something noisy that happened

00:14:04.480 in the night. Everybody slept in a common room and, and animals, of course, were reproducing

00:14:11.600 all around us. We were in tune with this cycle of life. So we've, we've kind of opted out of those

00:14:17.520 aspects of life. We've made sex something rather taboo and, and we either study it on in a pornographic

00:14:23.920 realm or we, we repress it. And the same thing we're killing. We either study it on a, in a pornographic

00:14:30.320 realm with violent movies, which don't give you remotely the, the proper understanding of what happens,

00:14:36.560 or, uh, we, uh, we, we, we repress it and refuse to even, uh, participate or, or discuss it in any

00:14:44.640 way. So they, these two represent really the great taboos of our era. Uh, and it's, and it's all around

00:14:50.960 us, uh, violent symbology and, uh, and sexual symbology, like I said, the necktie and, uh, uh,

00:14:58.960 future generations, of course, our whole problem with, uh, with media violence and violent video games

00:15:04.000 inflicted upon children, uh, threatens the very fabric of our civilization. Mexico's our future. 1.00

00:15:09.840 Uh, Mexico's had more loss of life than Iraq and Afghanistan put together. Mexico's been at war 0.74

00:15:15.060 with the cartels. A generation of kids, uh, trained on video games and trained on violent movies are,

00:15:22.180 are ripping Mexico apart at the seams and they're coming at us like a freight train. 1.00

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00:17:02.680 So you get, you make the argument in your book that, um, you know, naturally as human beings,

00:17:07.160 we have a resistance to kill other humans. Um, but you make the case that things like video games

00:17:13.740 and violent movies is actually reduces that resistance. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we, uh, you

00:17:21.460 know, the, the after effect of it, post-traumatic stress disorder, I cover my book on combat, uh,

00:17:27.660 after 10 years on the road, uh, training cops and military daily, uh, my, my repertoire had evolved

00:17:35.820 until it was a totally different topic than on killing. I called it the bulletproof mind and the

00:17:40.740 bulletproof mind was turned into the book on combat. We did a two hour, uh, a two day presentation

00:17:47.480 of, uh, the bulletproof mind and we, we audio taped it and we transcribed it and that became

00:17:53.080 the foundation for on combat, which is really the next step in this evolution of understanding PTSD

00:17:59.480 and, and the aftermath and the physiology and how the, what happens in the heat of battle,

00:18:05.120 how in the hell could we have had 500 years of gunpowder combat and not known that people don't

00:18:12.020 hear their shots? I'll get an audience of 500 people. I said, how many hunters we got out

00:18:17.140 here? Half of them will raise their hand. I said, you ever notice something? You take your

00:18:20.720 rifle to the range, you fire one shot from your hunting rifle in the range without hearing

00:18:24.700 protection, ears are going to ring. You go to shop, you go to drop a deer. Boom. The shot echoes

00:18:30.240 across the valley. People a half mile away hear the shot. Hunter, what do you hear? They all say,

00:18:34.360 nothing. I say, how many, how many of you experienced that? What we're talking about?

00:18:37.640 Come on, raise your hand. Boom. They all raise their hands. Uh, they didn't hear a sound with

00:18:42.160 the auditory exclusion that the shots are quiet when you're killing. And it's not about an arousal

00:18:50.380 level. It's not about physiological arousals, but the act of killing when, uh, when the predator

00:18:55.180 shuts down his roar. But I've got case after case of, uh, of police officers who in, in the heat

00:19:02.800 of a gunfight stopped firing because they couldn't hear their gun and they thought something was

00:19:06.340 wrong. Yeah. Think about it. 500 years, five centuries of gunfighter combat. And we never

00:19:12.460 bothered to let people know ahead of time. Hey, by the way, you probably won't hear the shots at

00:19:15.980 the moment or two. Uh, the magnitude of our ignorance, the depth of understanding, the failure

00:19:20.820 to, to, uh, uh, analyze and assess and, and examine this topic. It's just stunning.

00:19:29.780 Well, yeah. So what's, um, let's talk about that, the whole bulletproof mind and, you know,

00:19:33.640 on combat, because that's, um, something we've written about on the site, like, you know,

00:19:37.660 the idea of being a sheepdog, right? Yeah. Um, so let's talk about some of that research. What

00:19:43.060 happens? You mentioned auditory exclusion is one thing that happens, not just in high stress

00:19:48.400 situations, but just in the act of killing. But let's say you are in a, um, an active

00:19:53.360 shooter situation or a home invasion. What happens to the body, um, physiologically into

00:19:59.740 the mind, psychologically when that sort of thing happens? Well, forgive me for a minute

00:20:03.540 while we make a little. Sure. Discursion. The term you just use active shooter. Okay. It's

00:20:09.500 active mass murder. A shooter's an active shooter is what happens on the range and actually

00:20:14.660 shooters. The guy got lucky during deer season, but we're in such denial that we can't have

00:20:19.280 a use of proper term for what's happening. These are active mass murders. These are massacres.

00:20:24.620 Uh, um, the Boston massacre, five dead in the Boston master. And one of the things set out

00:20:29.700 the American revolution, St. Valentine, the massacre, seven dead murdered in the St. Valentine

00:20:34.680 massacre. Uh, and it was world famous. Add them up, add up the Boston massacre. They say

00:20:40.760 Valentine massacre, you still got more dead in Columbine. Double that number. You still

00:20:45.240 got more dead at Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook. Yeah. These are massacres and they're mass

00:20:51.780 murders, multiple homicides. And we can't even call them what they are. Yeah, that's

00:20:55.800 true. And then, you know, uh, what do we call the most horrible criminals in history? The

00:20:59.720 Columbine shooter, the Virginia Tech shooter, the Sandy Hook shooter. These are not

00:21:04.320 shooters. The shooter's a guy at the range. The shooter's a guy, uh, the, you know, they

00:21:08.400 got lucky during deer season. These are, these are the Sandy Hook mass murderer, killer. These

00:21:14.520 are vicious slaughterers. And then the very fabric of our society is such, such intense

00:21:19.620 denial that we call them shooters. And I ask my cops, is the word shooter a synonym for

00:21:26.280 horrible mass murder? When you open the dictionary, look up the word shooter. Does it say number

00:21:30.400 one, horrible mass murder, the most horrible criminals in human history? No. But I tell my

00:21:35.400 cops, if you use the word shooter to refer to these horrible criminals, anytime you're

00:21:40.480 a shooter, you're condemned by your own words. We, we, we refer to these horrible

00:21:45.240 criminals as shooters. We refer to these horrible acts as shootings. And then when the

00:21:49.980 cops, the shooter, the media condemns you because you're the shooter. And you told them

00:21:54.880 the shooter is a horrible mass murder. I said, cops, you will always be condemned. The

00:21:58.600 media will eat you alive. If you take what you are a shooter, what you do shooting and make

00:22:04.560 it a horrible match, please, please help us stop using that word shooter or active shooter

00:22:09.640 situation. It's an act of mass murder. And he could be throwing Molotov cocktails. You

00:22:14.600 know, he's throwing bombs. I'm sorry. I only turned for active shooter. I can't deal with

00:22:18.300 this one. Or he's got knives. A kid in Pennsylvania in his high school just a couple of months ago

00:22:22.920 slashed 19 people with knives. Well, it's an active slasher. I only turned for active shooter.

00:22:27.500 I'm sorry. I can't deal with this one. Our very language is tied up in knots, trying

00:22:32.520 to, trying to not talk about the reality of what's happening. That's a good,

00:22:36.540 this life and death event. That's a good, we're going to take a quick

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00:23:24.780 Good point. I think it's a, it's a symptom of not wanting to imbue morality into the

00:23:30.480 discussion. We want to keep it very distance, right?

00:23:33.500 Well, it was more than that. It's a, it is a moral statement. If we, if we say cops are

00:23:41.080 shooters and shooters is, is a, is an ugly word that will immediately condemn the cops.

00:23:46.440 It's not just an attempt to distance ourself. It's a, it's an attempt to not even talk about

00:23:51.420 it. An attempt to, instead of saying mass murder or even active killer, we talk about the most

00:23:59.700 innocuous aspect of what happens shooter. And so, uh, it's a little bit different than,

00:24:04.900 than that. But in the moment of truth, when a human being is trying to steal your life away and,

00:24:09.740 and you have to steal their life, you have to take their life, uh, and in defense of your own life, 0.52

00:24:15.740 a variety of things are going to happen. First and foremost, with the vast majority,

00:24:19.040 the greatest proportion, they don't hear the shots. Now, if you're hunkered down and hiding,

00:24:24.360 the shots can be boom, boom, boom, overwhelming. But as soon as you turn your predator neurons on,

00:24:30.160 as soon as you start shooting, the shots get quiet, almost without fail. Now, then, uh, then we have

00:24:36.220 tunnel vision, the next most common thing, around 80% tunnel vision. Some people talk about tunnel

00:24:41.920 vision, like looking through a toilet paper tube. Other people call it a soda straw, very, very intense.

00:24:48.000 And you'll get, uh, you'll get, uh, uh, uh, uh, slow motion time. And the slow motion time runs around

00:24:55.420 maybe six out of 10 or so we'll experience that. And it's very powerful. And I'm convinced that it's

00:25:01.260 real. I've had thousands, no exaggeration. I'm, uh, I'm on the road 300 days a year for 17 years,

00:25:08.840 plus all the research before I retired. Every day I talk to people who've been in killing situations

00:25:13.440 and life and death situations. Every day I get to interview people who come up and talk with me

00:25:18.480 in exchange of information. And I've had thousands that tell me they could track the bullets in

00:25:23.020 combat. Not like the matrix where the bullet crawls past. It's kind of like paintball where the bullet's

00:25:27.880 slow enough, you can track it with your eyes. And in two different cases, people tell me they

00:25:32.720 tracked the bullet to where it hit in one case of wooden fence, in one case of brick wall. And

00:25:37.580 afterwards they were able to, uh, walk up to that spot and point to where the bullet hit.

00:25:43.440 Just a tiny hole in a, in a wooden fence or a little smear in a brick wall. And there's no

00:25:48.840 way they could have done that if they weren't tracking them with their eyes, like they said

00:25:51.440 they were. So this, uh, this business of, uh, of the slow motion time is wild and it can mess

00:25:59.380 people up. And then, then about half of all trained seasoned cops have memory gaps, blackouts.

00:26:05.520 Uh, data is just coming in so fast and so furious that all kinds of things seem to get stacked

00:26:11.580 up and they aren't processed. And after a couple of nights sleep, some of that stuff comes back.

00:26:16.800 Guy named, uh, Bill Lewinsky, Dr. Bill Lewinsky has started something called the Force Science

00:26:20.780 Institute. Just one of the great geniuses of our time, one of the great initiatives of our time.

00:26:26.020 And they've got scientific research to establish a foundation for police policy.

00:26:31.740 And what they say, and this has become national best practices,

00:26:34.580 after a deadly force incident, you did not get a statement from the police officer immediately

00:26:40.320 after the gunfight. You're going to get garbage in military. We've always known the first report

00:26:45.580 of combat is always wrong. Uh, and if you talk to somebody right after the shooting, you have

00:26:50.200 auditory exclusion, slow motion time, you have memory gaps and memory distortions upwards to one in five.

00:26:56.740 We'll just flat remember things that didn't happen. Sometimes tiny things, sometimes big things.

00:27:00.460 So the best practices, uh, national standards is you wait for 48 hours before you get a full

00:27:08.180 statement. Otherwise you get garbage and you have to live with that garbage in court. And you take

00:27:12.860 this officer to the scene and you have them walk through the scene and tell everything that happens

00:27:18.360 with the memory cues and the actual scene that they're at. And then you'll get a far more detailed

00:27:23.040 thing to have this memory gap. And then, uh, like I said, you get the memory distortions. It was,

00:27:27.840 it was one of our tier one spec ops medics. Uh, um, he said, why did the wounded hallucinate so much?

00:27:38.880 And then that's a good word for it. You know, remember things that didn't happen. It's

00:27:42.480 hallucinations. And he said, why did they always hallucinate bad things? You know, I'm paralyzed,

00:27:49.120 I'm blind. I let everybody down. I'm going to die. I'll never have babies. Uh, uh, uh, you know,

00:27:54.100 just, uh, just once he said, uh, in the heat of battle, I don't like to see some wounded

00:28:00.560 guy hallucinate something good. Well, under stress, we envision possibilities under extreme

00:28:06.200 stress. What we envision possibility in our mind can become reality. And when we've been

00:28:11.960 wounded, we very seldom envision good things. And so these hallucinations and this auditory

00:28:19.100 exclusion and this, uh, this slow motion time, uh, uh, set aside the fact that somebody's

00:28:24.800 trying to kill you, just set aside the facts. I'm trying to kill. If you sat there right

00:28:28.920 now, boom, uh, auditory exclusion, slow motion time, uh, uh, uh, tunnel vision, uh, uh, autopilot,

00:28:37.640 your body's doing things without conscious thought, blackouts, gaps in their memory,

00:28:41.800 hallucinations, just those things by themselves will scare the daylights out of you. The fact

00:28:46.960 that somebody is trying to kill you is bad enough without being forewarned for and about

00:28:51.300 the things that happen in combat. So, so we warn people about what happens in combat and

00:28:56.340 then we warn them about what's going to happen after combat. And that's a critical, critical

00:29:01.500 piece of the equation. You kind of expect crazy things in combat when weird and wild things

00:29:06.800 happen after the event, they can really mess you up unless you've been warned.

00:29:11.560 What are some of those things that can happen after combat? Is it the memory blackouts or?

00:29:15.380 No, no. Well, what happens is you re-experience the event. Now, you know, if, if, if you're a kid,

00:29:23.880 you touch a hot stove, you'll never touch this stove again. A powerful network of neurons,

00:29:30.040 a neural pathway has been established. Whenever there's fear and pain associated with learning,

00:29:35.620 a, a instantly, a powerful, strong pathway of neurons is established. I got, I got a German

00:29:41.960 shepherd. When the dog was a puppy, she walked across the threshold and caught her, just caught

00:29:46.340 a, a, a, a claw on, on the threshold and yelped in and something bitter when she crossed that 0.88

00:29:52.820 threshold. And I'm telling you for the next six months, I couldn't get that puppy to cross that

00:29:57.000 threshold without dragging her. A powerful neural network. There's something there that'll bite me.

00:30:01.160 I can't go there. I got to avoid that. Well, under the stress of a combat situation,

00:30:08.220 the neural pathways are vastly greater than touching a hot stove or having your claw caught

00:30:12.800 in a threshold. Uh, deep and powerful neural pathways are established, but you don't even

00:30:18.280 know that they're, uh, a week later, a random gunshot goes up and you don't expect it. Like a cop. And

00:30:24.360 he told me, he said, um, I'm a week after my gunfight, I'm sitting up in the bleachers with my wife,

00:30:30.100 watching my daughter at a swim meet. A starter's gun goes off and I didn't expect it. Boom.

00:30:36.520 It is as though the event was happening again. Your heart is pounding. You're, you're, you're, uh, you,

00:30:42.820 you, you, you re-experience the event. And this act of re-experience of the event is normal

00:30:48.680 by itself. It is not PTSD, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder happens. When you try to not

00:30:56.620 think about it, you will literally drive yourself crazy. You cannot not think about something.

00:31:02.780 You will drive yourself crazy trying to not think about it. You got to make peace with the memory.

00:31:08.460 You got to delink the memory from the emotions. And the easiest and most effective way to do that

00:31:13.520 is to talk about the event without the emotions come along for the ride. And the breathing exercise

00:31:20.120 is one of the tools we use and, and the shortcut to get people to read. And here's just a little

00:31:24.440 nugget. You know, when I tell my cops, you're going to take one little nugget of the manly art

00:31:28.700 and put it at the top of your list of, uh, in your little toolbox, your little toolbox of response tools.

00:31:35.140 Whenever you're dealing with somebody who's angry, upset, anxious, frightened, including yourself,

00:31:40.240 make them stop and take a drink of water. I don't do counseling. I do don't do therapy,

00:31:47.340 not qualified, but I have had the honor to debrief an awful lot of people about very traumatic events.

00:31:53.540 And the one tool I use, I set a bottle of water in front of them. And every time they become emotional,

00:31:59.080 stop, take a drink, regain control. If you talk about the event and become emotional,

00:32:04.540 then you're reinforcing the link between the memory and the emotions. If you talk about the event and

00:32:11.400 remain calm, then you're separating that link between the memory and emotions. And that's the

00:32:16.980 path of healing. And one of the, one of the tools we have is, uh, every time you come emotional, I tell

00:32:22.280 my cops, you know, you've got a citizen who's a victim of a crime, a very traumatic event has happened

00:32:26.900 to them. You get a witness statement from them. If they become emotional, a, you're not getting the,

00:32:32.220 the quality, calm information you need, but B you're spinning that person down the path of mental

00:32:39.240 illness. But if they talk about the event and every time they become emotional, you make them take a

00:32:44.080 drink, they regain control. You'll be amazed at how well it works. This, this fundamental tool is taken

00:32:49.960 off across the therapeutic world, like a grass fire. We used to do the breathing and now we realize

00:32:54.940 it's a shortcut to get people breathing. It works for two reasons. This, this business is taken on

00:33:01.000 drinking water. Works for two reasons. A deer is being chased by a wolf. A deer is being chased by a

00:33:05.680 wolf. Does he tell him to get a drink? Ah, I can't get a drink. I'm being chased by a wolf. He's really

00:33:10.860 thirsty, but he ain't got to get a drink. The very fact that you stopped and took a drink, sends a

00:33:17.160 message to the midbrain. Hey, we're safe. We got time for a drink. It literally puts in the clutch and

00:33:23.520 puts that midbrain in a different gear. But it's also a natural way to get people to breathe.

00:33:29.140 Study what you do when you take a drink. You breathe in, you hold your breath, you let it out.

00:33:35.080 You cannot take a drink without taking a breath. So the path to healing is to de-link the memory from

00:33:42.300 the emotions. And the way to do that is to talk about it. And every time you talk about it, if you

00:33:48.200 become emotional, stop and take a drink. That's why talking over beer. Cops call it choir practice.

00:33:53.300 You know, they get together after they shift and they talk over a beer and, and they, you know,

00:33:58.760 they start to become emotional. They stop, they take a drink, they regain control and they keep

00:34:02.420 going. Just the act of talking over beer. It's the act of, of taking a drink that allows you to

00:34:09.620 remain calm and de-link the memory from the emotions. And you've taken the critical necessary

00:34:14.740 first step on the path to healing. When you can talk about the event, Hey, what happened in that

00:34:20.020 con fight with you guys? Tell us about it. What happened? Well, you know, here's what happened.

00:34:23.640 Take a drink, take a breath, talk about it. Begin to lose control. Stop, take a drink, regain control,

00:34:30.680 talk the way through it. Pilots, you know, did a debriefing, uh, uh, on a beer in the mess after every

00:34:37.020 mission. Uh, and we always talked around the, uh, around the campfire, but then starting in World

00:34:43.980 War I, we no longer had the luxury of taking the nights off and talking around the campfire.

00:34:48.600 Uh, we had day and night combat for months on end and we lost something we've always had,

00:34:53.360 which is the ability to debrief around the campfire every night about the battle.

00:34:58.040 And, and so understanding what will happen after combat, understanding how to leash that in and the

00:35:05.080 age old process of talking around the campfire or the, the pilot at the mess, you know, with the beer

00:35:09.820 in hand and his hands weaving around and showing what was happening. And then every time he begins

00:35:15.100 to lose control, take a drink, regain control. It's as old as alcohol in the campfire. It's as old

00:35:20.520 as warfare to talk over the event, to de-link the memory from the emotions, regain control. Uh, and

00:35:26.420 we've lost it. And what we've done now is, is recreated it. Uh, and, and it's powerful. And we do it now

00:35:33.360 with the depth of understanding and, and it's been my life's work to, uh, to communicate these things and

00:35:38.220 to let people know what's going to happen to them before the life and death event, stress

00:35:43.540 diarrhea, very common LAPD SWAT. Uh, they're in combat every day. They told me, you know,

00:35:49.720 it was always 17 years ago. I first started working and they said, you know what? We're

00:35:53.260 LAPD SWAT. We're in life and death events every day. We, uh, we try to have people give

00:35:58.660 us a 20 minute warning. We're standing by and all right, negotiation is broken down. You're

00:36:02.800 going in, here's your 20 minute warning. What does LAPD SWAT do with that 20 minute warning?

00:36:06.860 They call it the battle crap. It's a battle crap. Your body will help. It's called stress

00:36:11.380 diarrhea. Do it now. Later on, it may be what's called explosive stress diarrhea. Your body

00:36:16.400 wants to dump the toxic waste inside every human body. There's a toxic waste site and the

00:36:21.940 lower abdomen, some of those toxic stuff on the planet. If the wound happens and that

00:36:26.860 stuff leaks out, it'll infect the wound. And prior to penicillin, it was a guaranteed death

00:36:31.400 sentence. So be warned about what happens before the event here. Your body might want to dump

00:36:36.040 that toxic waste. Uh, be, be warned about what happens during the event and be warned

00:36:42.440 about what happens after the event. And at every stage before, during and after the tool

00:36:48.040 that we're using to leash in is the breathing exercise. And of course, the shortcut to get

00:36:54.140 people to breathe is, is to take a drink, take the drink. So that's kind of the whole dynamic

00:36:58.660 in a nutshell of, of the ride and where we've been and what we've done and how we've recreated

00:37:03.280 it across time and laid the foundation for our warriors to be far more capable of performing in the

00:37:10.480 heat of battle and in life and death events, whatever that may be. That's really, really

00:37:14.240 fascinating. Um, I thought it was interesting in your book and you kind of mentioned there a little

00:37:17.700 bit about possibly kind of make the argument that possibly one of the reasons why there's been an

00:37:22.700 increase in PTSD is that for most of modern warfare, we didn't have that debriefing period,

00:37:28.840 right? After the battles, like you went to battle and then you were back in your bunk and the next day

00:37:34.460 you're in battle. And then when the war was over, you know, anciently you had to like march home and

00:37:39.760 it took maybe a month to get home. So you had that time to talk with your comrades about what happened.

00:37:45.540 Um, and you'd go take part in some like ritualistic activities to sort of cleanse yourself of,

00:37:51.360 of war and then you can integrate back into normal society in a healthy matter. But you make the

00:37:56.760 argument that because of the rise of rapid transport, like you could be in Fallujah one day and the next

00:38:01.440 year you'll be back in Baltimore and you don't have that time to, to cool off. You know, uh, the

00:38:07.080 Canadian army has kind of set a standard for this, Brent. And when the war first began, uh, it was

00:38:12.520 Canada's first shooting war in 50 years. Korea was the last time Canada was in a shooting war

00:38:17.540 and, uh, they wanted to try to do it right. When they sent the first regiment off to Afghanistan,

00:38:23.120 they did everything they could think of, including having me come and present to the troops.

00:38:28.300 When that first regiment came home, they said, okay, what worked? They said, Grossman. Grossman

00:38:32.840 told us what it was going to be like. He told us what to expect. He told us how to deal with it

00:38:36.540 head and shoulders far and away. The most valuable thing we had was to have Grossman warn us.

00:38:41.660 And one of the things they did with all of this was all the Canadian units coming back from

00:38:46.280 Afghanistan. Now stop for a week in Cyprus, Cyprus. I mean, this is, this is one of the most 1.00

00:38:52.820 beautiful places on the planet filled with beautiful women and booze and beaches and 0.99

00:38:59.240 the Mediterranean Cyprus. I mean, this is, this is so cool. And they stop, they're headed home,

00:39:06.200 but you know, you don't want to, and they do their processing and they do the debriefing and they

00:39:10.660 blow off steam and they get an opportunity to, to go out and, and, uh, and, and partake of alcohol

00:39:16.660 and talk and women and, and all the things they couldn't have in the war zone. And then they bring

00:39:20.860 them home. It is so brilliant. Uh, the, the, you know, and it's something that we could learn from

00:39:27.280 that, uh, we we've lost a lot of that dynamic of, of marching home together and talking at night

00:39:34.800 over the campfire. So, uh, uh, we're learning and, uh, the Canadians had done a great example

00:39:41.100 about how to, how to get it right. Uh, barring the, uh, the fact that it's not done with our

00:39:47.140 military, we should try to do it ourselves with the returning warriors. Take off a week, take a young 0.98

00:39:52.120 warrior someplace, cool and fun and, and, and spend a little time depressurizing and, and partying and,

00:39:58.660 and, uh, and talking and, uh, and help them be there at that moment. I give them that, that

00:40:04.700 depressurization time if we can. Okay. So let's talk a bit about, um, your new, your new project.

00:40:10.860 Uh, it's Grossman Academy. Yeah. Um, what, who's it for in? Commandants required reading. And when we

00:40:17.540 take the book, uh, on combat and it is the textbook and I teach the class and there's tests, uh, there's

00:40:24.500 no paper required, but there's tests and you get a three semester credit hour class. Uh, in a lot of

00:40:30.720 states, it serves as in-service training for health providers, for law enforcement, for firefighters. So

00:40:36.620 a lot of states you can get required in-service training credit for it. And in most college

00:40:41.500 programs, you can get three semester credit hours elective, uh, uh, credit for the class. And we've got

00:40:47.580 on combat out. It's taken off. It's enormously, or the, the, the on combat class and the Grossman

00:40:54.460 Academy, grossmanacademy.com. Just, just go to grossmanacademy.com and there's the on combat

00:40:59.640 class. And within six months, we hope to have the on killing class out. And, uh, these are

00:41:04.860 the two books on combat and on killing. Uh, and then there are other astounding leaders

00:41:10.960 in the community who I want to have do their own semester credit hour class using their books

00:41:17.440 as textbooks. And I'll introduce them and I'll, I'll understand, I'll explain why their books

00:41:22.620 are so important and, and then have them teach their class. And, and the student, and in this

00:41:28.080 case, the student gets an electronic copy of bond combat as, as, as part of the class. Uh, very,

00:41:34.200 very many, many of our people have already read the book and are able to blow right through the class

00:41:37.720 and, uh, you deserve it. You deserve three semester credit hours for, for having read this book and

00:41:42.660 having this depth of understanding in this field. So we're both in psych electives and, uh,

00:41:47.480 criminal justice electives and, uh, military history electives. Uh, and, and just, just any

00:41:53.940 general ed where you've got a general elective, you can tag, uh, this course fits in and the,

00:41:58.940 and the follow on courses are going to be a big deal. It's kind of funny to think about,

00:42:03.700 you know, I, I may be dead and gone. Uh, I'll be 58 tomorrow. Uh, uh, you know, uh, my dad only

00:42:12.020 lived until he was about 60. I hope I'm in real good health. I plan to fight the good fight for

00:42:17.180 another 20 years. But if I, uh, if I cashed in my chips and, uh, went home tomorrow, um,

00:42:25.620 this would be a legacy where people could attend my class and learn straight from my mind,

00:42:33.000 straight from my mind. Uh, not just reading the book, but actually taking that class.

00:42:38.120 And there's something interesting here, Brett, you might get a kick out of it. Sure. And in the

00:42:42.480 year 2000, they did a study of all of the institutions in Europe that were there on the

00:42:51.300 year 1000 and the year 2000. Isn't that interesting? No nation was city set aside cities now cities

00:42:58.180 set that aside, but no nation existed with the same name and the same structure in the year 1000

00:43:05.480 is the year 2000. No corporation, no entity. The only thing was the Catholic church and several

00:43:13.080 hundred universities. That's all the universities, uh, uh, the institutes of higher learning,

00:43:20.160 uh, the classes that we can record on modern material and, and be teaching the class potentially

00:43:27.000 hundreds of years from now. It's, it's fun to have a book published and think that a hundred years

00:43:31.520 from now, somebody might still be reading that a legacy, a kind of immortality, but it, it, it's

00:43:36.720 even more so kind of look at this class and think that it might be available to people down the road.

00:43:41.540 It's kind of exciting stuff. And, uh, I think I'll be able to find some of the great leaders in

00:43:45.820 various fields to be able to, to do courses and I'll be part of the Grossman Academy and, uh, and, uh,

00:43:51.540 to, you know, Shaolin Temple, uh, uh, a focal point of what I call the warriors to this warrior

00:43:57.360 renaissance. We're in a renaissance. We've learned more about the reality of combat in the last 50

00:44:05.500 years than the previous 5,000 years put together. And this warrior renaissance is this explosion of

00:44:11.500 knowledge. Uh, maybe we can capture it. And certainly we're done with the first, uh, the first

00:44:16.140 course. And I encourage any of your readers to, to go to grossmanacademy.com and, and take a look at

00:44:21.440 that first course, uh, just for the joy of learning or, or, uh, to pick up three semester credit hours

00:44:27.080 and or in-service credit training in your profession. So it is open to civilians as well,

00:44:31.780 not just law enforcement. Absolutely. Open to all. Fantastic. Well, Lieutenant Dave Grossman,

00:44:36.900 thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure. Brett, I'm a big fan of what you're

00:44:41.000 doing. You're part of the warrior renaissance. You're part of that explosion of knowledge and

00:44:46.380 depth of understanding that what it means to be human, what it means to be a male, uh, in our

00:44:51.580 species and in our times. And it's an honor to work with you. Well, thank you that I'm honored and

00:44:56.080 humbled by your words. Our guest today was Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. He is the

00:44:59.560 author of on killing and on combat. You can find both those books on amazon.com, uh, really

00:45:05.220 two very interesting reads. Then you can also check out his website, killology.com for more

00:45:10.380 information about his work. And then also check out grossmanacademy.com where you can sign up

00:45:15.440 for his class on combat, which is about getting ready for those combat life or death situations

00:45:21.720 and preparing yourself physically and mentally for it. Grossmanacademy.com.

00:45:27.260 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:45:32.320 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com. And if you enjoy our

00:45:36.960 podcast and you get something out of it, I'd really appreciate it. If you go to iTunes or Stitcher or

00:45:42.540 whatever it is you use to listen to the podcast and give us a rating or review that will help us out a lot.

00:45:48.220 And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - August 29, 2014

#79： On Killing & On Combat With Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

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