Deeply disturbing

[alvarezadams]

""I came over here because I wanted to kill people.""

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072801492.html

[soothsayer]

1. They say that surgeons would be slashers if they didn't channel

it into something acceptable. (They have a psychotic ability to view human beings as parts rather than as a whole, and to not be bothered slicing into people.) So, yeah, some folks who gravitate into the military are looking for an acceptable expression for their bloodlust. This dude is just one sick puppy.

[YOY]

2. 'Deeply disturbed'

is more like it.

[Xipe Totec]

3. An inevitable consequence of lowered recruiting standards

caused by pressure on military recruiters to meet quotas.

Now we have disturbed individuals, receiving military training, who will eventually be returned to live among us like ticking time bombs.

God help us.

[jbnow]

4. Quite an article

It would be startling even if it wasn't Green. One of the more startling parts is that the reporter just thought Green was unusually blunt. Many of the statements sound that way, that Iraq isn't for anything, that they are being used, the story about his sergent dying,that you get use to death.

But "I came over here because I wanted to kill people."??? That didn't shock the reporter? Kill people? I can understand saying you get use to having to kill people not being shocking...but coming because you wanted to?

"The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be. I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever"

The statement helps you get what Green did later, the next month when he killed the family and raped and killed the teenager. Since he didn't get the charge he wanted from killing people he had some excuse to, maybe he thought killing a family, a toddler, a teen he raped, would be more than "whatever."

It certainly will have life changing consequences for him, but only because he was busted for it. I use to wonder how the guys could eat one meal after they did that, stand to see their own face, do anything normal after what they had done. I have a feeling it was no problem for him.

[Igel]

6. It was meant to be shocking.

Sometimes simply reporting words with no editorial comment is quite effective. And it's usually more effective than the reporter trying to recreate the sense of outrage felt hours, days, or weeks before when s/he first heard the statement. Kierkegaard's "there is no repetition" holds water here. Such recreated outrage frequently comes out false.

But the article was also meant to convey the attitude of the average soldier. It's likely Green wasn't the average soldier.

[KKKarl is an idiot]

5. ..

Awful. It just the kind of small town mentality that people are breed on. If I got Jesus, my gun & watch Nascar then I am the all American.