What is the reason so many Serial Killers are ex- Military?
Military training links string of serial killers
By DOUG SAUNDERS\
Toronto Globe & Mail
Some time after he was discharged from the army, his life turned sour, he got angry and delusional and he snapped. Wielding his gun in a suburban neighbourhood, he killed again and again: women, children, complete strangers, with military precision but without an evident motive…
This describes what police say about John Allen Muhammad, who was arrested yesterday in the Washington sniper-killing rampage. But it is also a precise description of Howard Unruh, a 28-year-old Second World War veteran who shot 13 of his New Jersey neighbours one day in 1949. His military firearms training made his "walk of death" the first modern serial-killer case.
In the 53 years that separate Mr. Unruh from Mr. Muhammad, hundreds of Americans have lost their minds and used guns to cause multiple deaths. One thing unites almost all of them: military training.
Mr. Muhammad served in the Persian Gulf war, as did Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. Both received weapons training and basic military training designed to psychologically condition soldiers to kill. They are far from alone.
Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer received military training in Texas and Alabama. David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam" killer, was an army veteran. Charles Whitman, who killed 16 people and injured 31 in a 1961 sniper-shooting rampage from the top of a tower in Austin, Tex., had just been discharged from the U.S. Marines. Arthur Shawcross, who killed 12 people, was a Vietnam veteran.
In an overwhelming number of cases, serial killers and other mass murderers learned to kill in the military. Experts disagree whether this means that the army turns ordinary people into unfeeling killers, or the military simply attracts a large number of psychologically fragile people who are prone to become murderers.
David Grossman, a former U.S. military psychologist who helped develop programs to train new recruits to become more effective killers, said that the key to military training lies in breaking down the natural human aversion to killing in a process he calls "disengagement." Once this aversion has been removed, it never comes back, and can make it easier for former soldiers to become murderers.
"The ability to watch a human being’s head explode and to do it again and again — that takes a kind of desensitization to human suffering that has to be learned," Mr. Grossman said yesterday.
In earlier wars, many soldiers were psychologically unable to shoot anyone. In order to increase the "trigger-pull ratio," the United States changed the basic training offered to all recruits and draftees so they would be aggressively desensitized to killing.
Some observers believe this may be why mass murders have become far more common in the past 50 years.
In the 1970s, some observers believed that the humiliation and social opprobrium caused by the Vietnam War, led many former soldiers to become mentally unstable, and potentially to become killers.
The Persian Gulf war of 1991 showed that this might not have been the case. Their war was popular domestically, and Persian Gulf veterans were welcomed as heroes upon return.
Yet their conflict has produced more than its share of killers. Mr. McVeigh was a decorated tank commander. His case is strikingly similar to that of Mr. Muhammad.
Both seem to have gradually developed anti-American or antigovernment beliefs while serving in the Persian Gulf war; both seem to have left disillusioned. And both seem to have used their military training to commit grave crimes.
Posted in military firearms
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
I am ex-military, so I understand completely. They demoralize you, tell you what to think, when to sleep, how to poop… they train you as a killer then throw you aside just for having special feelings for your drill Sargent and the dogs you’re training. It’s enough to plant rage in anyone. Luckily for me, I have my computer to take all my anger out on the world. If it wasn’t for that, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m 147 pounds overweight (lost three pounds this week!) and have trouble leaving the basement, I might be a serial killer, too.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Actually almost all serial killers have little or no military/police experience.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
I have to call BS like all your stuff. Links to proof, oh yeah you don’t have any.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Fail lmao. Ex military people are not criminals. they do a psychological test before then even get in… you fail
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
How about some unbiased research? Also, "mass murderers" and "serial killers" are not the same thing.
Stay in school!
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
A lot of these guys weren’t serial killers at all. McViegh? Whitman? They killed people in one act? How does that constitute serial?
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
a few out of thousands of killers have done little time in the military…
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Yes we trained Saddam Husaane and Asama Bin Laden. But they were not US military soldiers!!!
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Could be some sort of mental disorder, like post-traumatic stress disorder. My dad has a friend who fought in Vietnam, one of his squadmates died right next to him. Now he’s an incredible alcoholic. It’s just his way of dealing with it, I guess killing people is their way of dealing with their problems.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Probably a stupid comment but the amount of time you took to write your rubbish you could have been doing something useful like walking off a cliff
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Of course you believe the Globe & Mail…
You Sir are a Joke…
The article was written by an Anti American
anti US Constitution Far Left Fascist…
First what he is describing is not a Serial Killer…DUH…
The Camel Jockey was a Muslim Terrorist…
Secondly…999.99% of Serial Killers are Never
prior Military…
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
I think this question has been asked before. Maybe not by you but it has been asked by someone. Do you enjoy tearing down the American Military? Without them what would the world look like today?
Jeffery Dahmer was in the military for two years because his father forced him. He was kicked out of the Military. Before joining the military he already had problems. His problems became so bad that his grandmother kicked him out of her home. His mind was already messed up.
John Allan Muhammad converted to Islam after being in the military for a couple of years. He was a fan of Osama Bin Laden. In the military he was a mechanic, truck driver and a metal worker. He did qualify expert with a rifle but that is not proof that there is a link. A person could receivee training with a rifle from anyone who knows how to shoot correctly.
Howard Unruh was a world war 2 vet. He probably had mental problems. During the war he was a tank soldier and he would carefully note that position and description of every German dead soldier he saw. He also lived with his mother which caused him to be teased
and called a mamma’s boy.
Timothy Mcveigh was already messed up before he joined the military. He would fantasize about how he would kill those who would bully him. After leaving the army he saw the U.S. government as the ultimate bully. His parents also divorced when he was young. He would wear a KKK t-shirt to protest the black power t-shirts.
David Berkowitz never saw combat in Vietnam. He was stationed in Korea. He also became a member of a Satanic cult and always had an interest in the accult. He claimed that a demon in his neighbors dog mad him do it.
Charles Whitman lived in a disfunctional family. His mother was filing for divorce when he went on his rampage. He abused amphetamines and had horrible headaches. He also was found to have a tumor on his brain after he was killed. He also had an abusive father.
Arthur Shawcross was socially awkward as a child. He also had a low IQ which caused his peers to call him "dummy". He may have seen something in Vietnam that caused him to go crazy but when he got home from Vietnam he boasted of eating two dead Vietnamese women. He had mental issues.
All these men were in the military but there are other links between them. They all had mental issues or a bad childhood before they even entered the military. Or, they were under influence from a religious cult that messed up their thinking. With the exception of two, they all had problems before they joined the military. Joining the military just gave them training that could make their violence worse than it was. If the military is at fault, it would be because they need to screen the mental state of those who join a little more closely.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
So we should just quit training people for military service?
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
The vast majority of serial killers are white males. Hmm… what can we do to fix that?
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
How can you lump Tim McVeigh in as a serial killer?
He was a war hero and a man brave enough to see that the killers who murdered the Waco Christians would never be punished, nor even reprimanded. Most people are too cowardly to admit this monstrous truth. It’s easier to blame Tim. But he had the guts to impose justice on the police (the ATF, the hated Revenooers) taking 2 of them for every murdered man, woman and child at Waco.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Troll.