Requirements to be a Good Soldier

[Martin Hash]

Lots of sociopathic soldiers in the movies.

p.s. Not psychopaths.

[Smitty-48]

Because to Hollywood, the American Soldier is the bad guys.

But notice how they can blubber for the rat Elias and condemn Barnes for putting him down, but at the same time Willard is the hero for assassinating Kurtz?

Yeah, OK, whatever. The hard chargers are the villains, the men who try to stop to them are the heroes, that's HPLW's in a nutshell.

[Martin Hash]

Soldiers are a true archetype because it’s volunteer, and the people attracted to join are those to whom the archetype appeals.

p.s. Sociopathy being one of the attractive features.

[Smitty-48]

Well I liked American movies when I was growing up, but in terms of the actual military I was going to join, my archetypes were real people, all my military heroes were Canadians who had fought in the First and Second World War, to include one great grandfather and two grandfathers.

My great grandfather was like Captain Canada, he fought with the Canadian Corps all the way from Ypres to Mons, in every major operation, including Vimy Ridge, so I didn't have to look to Hollywood for inspiration.

[Speaker to Animals]

We booted sociopaths from the Air Force. The whole enterprise runs on trust.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's not even about that chivalry stuff that was going on in WW1, if that ever even happened. Air warfare is fatalistic. If your number is up, you are done. The whole thing is like an industry pumping out sorties. We actually call it sortie production. Everything has to work together from the unit to the wing, and even beyond with all the support and other wings operating in a theater. Without trust, none of that is possible. A sociopath has no place there.

Sociopaths, psycopaths, and every form of biological "alpha" have no place in a modern military or even in a civilization of any kind. Civilization is the antithesis of the alpha, which is why alphas becomes criminals for the most part (or, at best, businessmen who lie and cheat but within the law). I don't think anybody in this forum is an alpha. An alpha wouldn't even bother with something like this.

[Martin Hash]

Dude, would you say you have a healthy integration with society? (Be honest, I’m a professional, I know.)

[Smitty-48]

The appeal of the military for me, was to endure hardship gladly, to put the unit above self, and to serve the Commander-in-Chief.

[Martin Hash]

The appeal of the military for me, was to endure hardship gladly, to put the unit above self, and to serve the Commander-in-Chief.

I’ve never met you personally, and I can never tell until heads butt, but you debate like an Alpha. Since I have no crossover experience, I can’t tell if there’s a correlation or not? It would be interesting to find out.

[Martin Hash]

By my definition, as I'm using it in this thread, a robot is a sociopath. It will perform as it is programmed to with no "conscience," so-to-speak, only logic. A soldier that makes decisions based on orders is little more than a robot.