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The Beeb on Sniper Psychology

So we followed some silly link or another to the BBC,
where we found the attached graphic: Sniper: Devil or
Hero? We suppose that depends on which side of the rifle ones on, eh. But it certainly seemed like the graphic was an indictment of allied snipers in the war.
The story the graphic linked to, however, is more subtle and balanced than that. Yes, the author, Stephanie
Hegarty of BBC World Service, seemed to be looking for a crazed, stressed, remorseful snipers angle, but
she reported what she found, instead. The headline of the story is a more-reasonable What goes on in the
mind of a sniper? and the story riffs off the release of Chris Kyles book American Sniper which we link to
here, because the BBC did not . (Were working on the book, no review yet, but we can heartily recommend it
over Chuck Pfarrers book about the Bin Laden raid).
Kyle shot scores of bad guys and it doesnt bug him.
Savages, he says, and doesnt miss them. (It turns out
that it was the Moslem terrorists, not the BBC, that
named Kyle the Devil,although in all fairness to the
BBC, and the terrorists, its sometimes hard to distinguish the two. Conversely, an Israeli psychologist found
that her countrys snipers didnt tend to put down their enemies at least not verbally. They recognized their
enemys humanity, and some of them even respected him. Like Kyle, though, they did what they had to do,
and arent conflicted about it. We have prevented the killing of innocents, so we are not sorry about it.
The story goes on to note the high standards, rigorous selection, and intense training of snipers in various
Western countries including the US, UK and Canada. And they actually managed to find an association of
we are not making this up traumatized snipers, who have formed a mutual support group. Lord love a
duck. Anyway, read the whole thing.
In actuality, snipers, like special operations soldiers, score low on PTSD because their selection and training
inoculate them against stress. Confidence helps; Kyle says When I face God there is going to be lots of thins I
will have to account for, but killing any of those people is not one of them. A sniper never fires a shot he

4/8/2013 12:24 PM

The Beeb on Sniper Psychology | WeaponsMan

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hasnt thought about on several levels, and most organizations try to select snipers who are plegmatic and
grounded. Its not shocking, then, that they could do their duty and remain well-adjusted. Contrary to popular
myth, there was no great PTSD epidemic among the World War II bomber crews, or submariners whose actions condemned hundreds to watery graves. They did their job, they went home and got on with their lives.
Thats whats normal; the Hollywood tripwire vet isnt.
Some special operations troops are suspicious of the PTSD diagnosis. They see its application widespread
among troops who saw little or no combat, and who often had pre-service mental problems. Certainly the
physician who promoted the idea of PTSD was an antimilitary activist, looking for ways to undermine the services; that history is well explored in the book Stolen Valor by Burkett and Whitley. But Special Forces and
other high-risk military specialties may be suffering lower levels of combat stress (PTSD if you must) because
they are so well stress-inoculated in their training, as to leave them resilient in the face of stress.
That resilience isnt unlimited. In a conversation with a special operations psychologist (a big frog in that very
small pond) last year, he described advising a certain legendary commander that specific individuals had hit
the wall and needed a break. The commander felt he had to deploy them anyway and they wound up having issues that imperiled the mission. Commander became a big supporter of combat psychology. As for the
guys? After a period of psychological recharging, a stressed operators stress levels can be reset. And thanks
to stress inoculation, hes performing at a higher level than the average guy again.

This entry was posted in Media vs. Military, Weapons Effects, Weapons Usage and Employment on January
27, 2012 [http://weaponsman.com/?p=692] .

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4/8/2013 12:24 PM