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If Hardship Brought Out The Worst In People, The Human Race Wouldn't Have Survived. Right After 9/11, For Instance, The Murder Rate Actually Went Down In New York City. In World War Ii During The Blitz, The Civilians Of London Were Bombed Almost Every Night For Six Months, But Psychiatric Admissions Declined.

-Sebastian Junger

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If Hardship Brought Out

Sebastian Junger

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If Hardship Brought Out The Worst In People, The Human Race Wouldn't Have Survived. Right After 9/11, For Instance, The Murder Rate Actually Went Down In New York City. In World War Ii During The Blitz, The Civilians Of London Were Bombed Almost Every Night For Six Months, But Psychiatric Admissions Declined.

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Well, You Got To Remember, Bin Laden Killed 3,000 Americans And, In Some Ways, He And His Ideology Killed Tens Of Thousands Of His Fellow Muslims, Including Pakistanis. I Understand That That Was Provocative And Complicated For Pakistan, But Only If You Accept The Idea That He Was An Acceptable Member Of Pakistani Society.

The Army Might Screw You And Your Girlfriend Might Dump You And The Enemy Might Kill You, But The Shared Commitment To Safeguard One Another’s Lives Is Unnegotiable And Only Deepens With Time. The Willingness To Die For Another Person Is A Form Of Love That Even Religions Fail To Inspire, And The Experience Of It Changes A Person Profoundly.

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The Negative Effects Of Combat Were Nightmares, And I'd Get Jumpy Around Certain Noises And Stuff, But You'd Have That After A Car Accident Or A Bad Divorce. Life's Filled With Trauma. You Don't Need To Go To War To Find It It's Going To Find You. We All Deal With It, And The Effects Go Away After Awhile. At Least They Did For Me.

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The Cause Doesn't Have To Be Righteous And Battle Doesn't Have To Be Winnable; But Over And Over Again Throughout History, Men Have Chosen To Die In Battle With Their Friends Rather Than To Flee On Their Own And Survive.

It's Fun To Have Money, But The More Money I Get, The Less Interesting It Becomes. If You Don't Have Very Much, You Have To Think About It. If You Are Starving, You Become Interested In Food. If You Are Struggling To Pay The Bills, Money Becomes Tragically Important.

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At 19, Your Brain Hasn't Finished Wiring Itself. So The First Time You Have A Good Friend Die, Most People Don't Go Through That At 19. Soldiers Do. They're Facing Life In This Accelerated, Compressed Form, And A Lot Of Times, They're Not Ready For It.

I Don't Think Journalists In World War Ii Were Objective About The Nazis, And I Don't Think They Should Have Been.

I Have Been Working Since I Was 20, And I'm 38. I Actually Once Averaged Out What I Had Made Over My Professional Life. I Think I Could Have Made That Much As A Waiter Or An Insurance Salesman. You Know, I Spent So Many Years In My 20's Making $10,000 A Year.

War Affected My Family A Lot, And I Was Quite Curious About It. I First Went Off To War In The Early 90's As A Journalist, Partly Out Of Curiosity And Partly Because I Needed A Career. War Reporting Has Been Very Glamorous And Exciting, And Everything Else That Young Men Like.

If Hardship Brought Out The Worst In People, The Human Race Wouldn't Have Survived. Right After 9/11, For Instance, The Murder Rate Actually Went Down In New York City. In World War Ii During The Blitz, The Civilians Of London Were Bombed Almost Every Night For Six Months, But Psychiatric Admissions Declined.

The Most Profound Question Is, "what Would I Risk Dying For?" The Natural Answer Is "for My Family." But For Most Of History, We Didn't Live In Families. We Lived In Small Communities That Gave Us Our Sense Of Safety And Place In The World, So The Natural Answer Would Be "for My People." The Blessing And The Tragedy Of Modern Life Is That We Don't Need Our Community To Survive Anymore. When We Lose That Idea, We Lose A Sense Of Who We Are.

People Who Do Really Dangerous Tasks Can't Afford To Sit Around And Discuss The Merits Of What They're Doing.

I Think Human Society For Tens Of Thousands Of Years Has Sent Young Men Out In Small Groups To Do Things That Are Necessary But Very Dangerous. And They've Always Gotten Killed Doing It. And They've Always Turned It Into A Matter Of Honor And A Way Of Gaining Acceptance Back Into Society If They Survived.

I Had Grown Up During Vietnam. I Had No Connections To The U.s. Military, And I Had A Pretty Cynical Default Opinion About The U.s. Military.

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Ironically, Though Our Society Of Affluence Brings Safety And Stability, It Doesn't Bring Psychological Health. As Wealth Goes Up, Suicide And Depression Rates Tend To Go Up. I Read One Study That Compared Women In North America With Women In Nigeria, And The Group With The Highest Rates Of Depression Was Urban North American Women, Which Is The Wealthiest. Now, There Are Obviously Huge Stresses That Come With Poverty, But The Poorer The Society, The More Collaborative People Have To Be.

I Think Objectivity Is Like This Strange Myth That People Think You're Supposed To Achieve, But Actually, The Dirty Little Secret Is That It's Not Attainable Any More Than Pure Justice Is Attainable By The Courts.

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Molotov Cocktail

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During The Air War Of 1944, A Four-man Combat Crew On A B-17 Bomber Took A Vow To Never Abandon One Another No Matter How Desperate The Situation. The Aircraft Was Hit By Flak During A Mission And Went Into A Terminal Dive, And The Pilot Ordered Everyone To Bail Out. The Top Turret Gunner Obeyed The Order, But The Ball Turret Gunner Discovered That A Piece Of Flak Had Jammed His Turret And He Could Not Get Out. The Other Three Men In His Pact Could Have Bailed Out With The Parachutes, But They Stayed With Him Until The Plan Hit The Ground And Exploded. They All Died.

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The Army Consists Of The First Infantry Division And Eight Million Replacements.

Infantry Division

I Was Surprised How Open And Unguarded The Military Was. I Expected More Scrutiny, More Supervision From Command.

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Soldiers Join The Military To Serve Their Country, But When Bullets Are Flying, It's Hard To Fight For An Abstract Notion Like Patriotism. They're Fighting For The People Standing Next To Them, And It Doesn't Matter Who's A Republican Or A Democrat, Or Who's Black Or White Or Christian Or Muslim Or Gay Or Straight. If Congress And All Americans Could Manage To Ignore Those Differences, We Would Have A Perfect Country, But Somehow We Cannot Rise To That Level Of Nobility.

The Coward’s Fear Of Death Stems In Large Part From His Incapacity To Love Anything But His Own Body. The Inability To Participate In Others’ Lives Stands In The Way Of His Developing Any Inner Resources Sufficient To Overcome The Terror Of Death. — J. Glenn Gary, The Warriors

If You Shell A Military Base And Happen To Kill Civilians, You Have Not Committed A War Crime; If You Deliberately Target Cities And Towns, You Have.

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