
Spanish: 
Tnte. Cnel. Dave Grossman es autor del libro "On Killing"
sobre el costo psicológico del acto de matar.
Hobbes dijo que la vida humana en la naturaleza
es brutal, cruel y corta
y que el ser humano posee un
instinto asesino y agresivo.
Tras entrevistar a cientos de soldados
que mataron en la guerra,
Ud. saca una conclusión muy diferente sobre 
la naturaleza humana y el acto de matar.
Toda especie tiene una resistencia innata a 
matar a sus congéneres.
Los animales con cuernos luchan de manera 
inofensiva, con golpes de cabeza,
pero atacan a otras especies
de lado, para herir y matar.
Las pirañas muerden a otros animales, 
pero entre ellos dan golpes de cola.
Si no, las luchas territoriales y de 
apareamiento destruirían la especie.

English: 
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, you wrote an engrossing book 
on the psychological costs of killing
Hobbes said that man's life in nature 
is brutish, cruel and short
that man has a built-in instinct
to kill and be aggressive
Having interviewed hundreds of soldiers 
who have killed on the battlefield
you draw a very different conclusion 
about human nature and killing
Every species has a built-in resistance 
to killing their own kind
Animals with antlers and horns fight each other 
harmlessly, slamming head to head,
but against other species, they 
go against the side to gut and gore
Piranhas turn their teeth on anything and everything, 
but they fight each other with flicks of the tail
Otherwise, territorial and mating battles
would destroy the species

Spanish: 
Los humanos tenemos la misma resistencia innata, 
pero sabemos cómo superarla.
Esto se observa a lo largo 
de la historia.
Antiguamente, las batallas eran como 
grandes partidos de empujones.
Alejandro Magno no perdió más de 
700 soldados en todas sus batallas,
pero mató a cientos de miles de enemigos, 
por que nunca perdió una batalla.
Las muertes no se daban durante los 
partidos de empujones,
sino cuando uno de los dos ejércitos 
daba la vuela y huía.
Siempre que daban la cara al adversario...
– Cuerpo a cuerpo, era muy difícil matar.
Pero esto contradice lo de Hobbes 
sobre la naturaleza humana,
el luchar o huir, el instinto asesino,
la supervivencia del más fuerte.
Luchar o huir se aplica en toda situación, 
salvo dentro de la propia especie.

English: 
Humans seem to have a similar inherent resistance, 
but are extremely efficient at overcoming it
We can track this throughout history
Ancient battles were little more
than great shoving matches
In all his battles, Alexander the Great 
only lost about 700 men in total
but he killed hundreds of thousands 
of his enemies because he never lost a battle
These great shoving matches 
were not where the killing happened
The killing happened when one of the sides 
turned their backs and fled
-- But as long as a man faced his opponent directly... 
-- One on one, it was extremely difficult to kill him
But that runs contrary not simply to what 
Hobbes said about man and nature,
but to our whole notion of fight or flight, 
the survival instinct, survival of the fittest.
Fight or flight is true in every situation
except when fighting your own species

Spanish: 
Dentro de la especie, se agregan además 
el amague y la rendición.
Por ejemplo, en una pelea entre 
dos perros o dos gatos.
Tratan parecer más grandes. 
Emiten sonidos temibles.
Los tambores y gritos son para intimidar 
al enemigo y mostrar ferocidad.
Cuando una de las partes es amilanada, 
da media vuelta y huye.
Se piensa que las batallas son grandes choques 
con bayonetas, sangre y matanza,
donde cada soldado es un héroe 
y mata a miles de enemigos.
En realidad, Ardant du Picq, en todos 
sus análisis del siglo 19,
sólo encontró un caso donde las bayonetas 
dieron con el enemigo.
Fue por accidente en una densa niebla 
en la batalla de Beaumont.
En realidad, el soldado promedio 
rechaza tales actos.
Ud. creó la disciplina de "killology", pero el 
asesinato existe desde Caín y Abel.
¿Por qué nadie antes había 
investigado el tema?

English: 
Within the species, instead of fight or flight, 
they start to posture and submit
Think of two dogs or two cats 
fighting each other
They puff up to be as big as possible.
They make as loud a noise as possible.
Bagpipes, bugles, rebel yells are all to daunt the enemy 
and convince us of our own ferocity.
Ultimately, one side or the other 
is indeed daunted, and turns and flees.
We have this vision of warfare as a great clash 
of bayonet charges and blood and gore
with every man being a hero 
and slaying thousands.
The reality is, in Ardant du Picq’s studies in the 1800s,
in all of his studies and research,
he could only find one case where a bayonet
charge actually closed with the enemy,
and that was by accident in a heavy fog
during the battle of Beaumont.
The reality is that the average individual is 
profoundly uninterested in doing this.
Now, you called your field of study "killology".
Murder is as old as Cain and Abel.
Why has no one ever really
investigated this subject?

English: 
We have investigated homicide...
-- Urban crime and the sociological antecedents.
Yet we have never looked at 
what happens on the battlefield.
Up until 100 years ago or so, 
nobody had really studied sex
Only in the last two decades did Kinsey and 
Masters & Johnson develop modern sexology.
And now we accept this new field. Why had nobody 
ever studied the actual intimacy of the sexual act?
Why has nobody ever studied the 
actual intimacy of the destructive act?
The procreative and the destructive acts 
were two taboos.
"All is fair in love and war”. 
They were two things we always lied about,
two things that represented 
profound human taboos.
In recent years, we have begun to 
pierce the veil on sexuality.
And now, for the first time in human history, 
I'd like to believe we have begun piercing the veil

Spanish: 
Se ha investigado el homicidio… 
– la sociología de la delincuencia urbana.
Sí. Pero nunca se analizó lo que 
pasaba en el campo de batalla.
Asimismo, hace cien años, 
nadie estudiaba el sexo.
Hace apenas dos décadas, Kinsey, Masters 
y Johnson fundaron la "sexología",
un nuevo campo, ahora aceptado. ¿Por qué nadie 
antes estudió la intimidad del sexo?
¿Por qué nadie estudiaba la intimidad 
real del acto destructivo?
La procreación y la destrucción eran tabúes: 
"Todo se vale en el amor y la guerra”.
Eran plagados de mentiras 
y tabúes sociales.
Recién comenzamos a rasgar 
el velo de la sexualidad.
Y ahora, por primera vez hemos 
comenzado a rasgar el velo

Spanish: 
de lo que sucede en la guerra, no sólo 
generalidades sobre la guerra
o de la naturaleza humana,
sino el acto mismo de matar
Ud. ha entrevistado a personas que 
han matado, y me decía antes
que siempre se interesó por 
el estrés post-traumático
y los veteranos que no analizaban su 
experiencia del acto de matar.
¿Le sorprendió lo que dijeron los 
veteranos de Vietnam?
Mi sorpresa inicial era que nadie hablaba de eso.
No me contaban sus historias.
No respondían mis preguntas. 
Era un asunto muy tabú.
Después de lograr credibilidad como 
profesor de psicología en West Point,
presentar ponencias sobre el tema, 
y atraer interés académico,

English: 
on what actually happens in war, 
not vague generalities on the nature of battle
or the nature man, but the innate, 
fundamental process of killing.
Well, you talk to people who have killed.
And you were telling me earlier,
that you are always stunned at people 
who had post-traumatic stress.
Veterans would not analyze what they 
went through in the process of killing.
Were you surprised at the things 
veterans told you about Vietnam?
My initial surprise was that nobody talked about it. 
Nobody would tell me about it.
Nobody would answer my questions. 
Clearly I had entered a realm that was very taboo.
It was only after I gained credibility and authority 
as a psychology professor at West Point,
had presented information on the topic, 
demonstrated a degree of scholarly concern,

English: 
and could make it clinical, that people 
would begin to come and talk to me.
And then the surprise was the magnitude 
of the trauma and the horror.
And time after time, people would come up 
and want to talk to me after a presentation,
And we would get together 
in a bar like this, and they would say,
“I've never told anybody about this before.”
Then they would share their deepest, darkest secret.
Remarkably, all of those secrets 
had a lot in common.
When I would talk to a veteran’s group,
I would speak to them and say,
“Look, there's nothing wrong with you 
if you reacted to killing differently,"
"but the average individual reacts to killing like this.”
The first thing you feel when you
have actually killed somebody, is euphoria, exhilaration. 
You have hit your target, done your job,
you have saved your life, and your friends’ lives.
This brings satisfaction.
Anybody who has hunted a deer or a rabbit, 
feels good when they hit it and it falls.

Spanish: 
de manera científica, 
la gente comenzó a hablar.
Entonces me sorprendí del tamaño 
del trauma y del horror.
La gente me buscaba después 
de mis presentaciones,
y me decían: "Nunca he 
hablado con nadie de esto."
Procedían a compartir su 
secreto más profundo.
Y los secretos tenían 
mucho en común.
En mis presentaciones a los 
veteranos, les decía:
No es malo reaccionar de
otra manera al matar,
pero la mayoría reacciona así
cuando mata a alguien,
primero se siente euforia, alegría. 
Dió en el blanco, cumplió su cometido.
Salvó su vida y la de sus compañeros. 
Esto causa satisfacción.
Al cazar a un ciervo o conejo, 
se siente bien dar en el blanco.

English: 
But then when they walk up to that deer or rabbit, 
especially the first time,
most feel empathy for the creature. 
Indians would ask forgiveness of their spirit.
Likewise, when it is a human being, 
there is a profound remorse and nausea.
And this is not just psychological, 
this a physical reality, isn’t it?
It becomes very physical, 
and many people vomit.
When you kill somebody at close range
and watch them fall, at first it feels good,
but then a backlash of remorse sets in 
and you turn around and say,
“My God! I just killed a man, and it felt good. 
What is wrong with me?”
I think this is one of the keys to the whole thing. 
When I tell veterans this, I say,
“There is nothing wrong with you if it felt good.
That is the way most people react.”
I look out at the group of veterans and 
can see the ones I have struck home with.
Their faces turn red, and 
their eyes start to well up.
It is as if you had taken their 
deepest, darkest secret

Spanish: 
Pero al acercarse, al 
menos la primera vez,
la mayoría le tiene empatía. Los indígenas 
piden perdón a su espíritu.
Cuando es un ser humano, hay un 
profundo remordimiento y náuseas.
¿Una reacción no sólo 
psicológica, sino física?
Muy física. muchas 
personas vomitan.
Cuando se mata de cerca,
al inicio se siente bien,
Después viene el remordimiento
y se piensa:
"¡Dios mío, he matado y me 
sentí bien. ¿Qué me pasa?"
Este es el meollo del asunto. 
A los veteranos les digo:
"No es malo sentirse bien. 
Es una reacción muy común".
En un grupo de veteranos, 
puedo ver a quiénes he tocado.
Se colorean sus rostros. 
Hay lágrimas en sus ojos.
Es como tomar sus 
secretos más profundos,

Spanish: 
mostrarlos a todos y resulta 
ser el mismo secreto.
En su libro, Ud. trata las etapas que 
se pasa al matar a alguien.
Parece muy similar al duelo.
-- Sí, las etapas de Kübler Ross.
Como con Kübler Ross, puede 
aplicarse mal, diciendo:
“Ahora viene el duelo, ahora la negación, 
después la negociación...”
No todos reaccionan igual, pero 
suele comenzar con euforia,
después es el remordimiento y la 
náusea en reacción a la euforia.
Finalmente hay un proceso vitalicio 
de procesamiento y aceptación.
Si no, se sufre de estrés post-
traumático toda la vida.
Toda sociedad guerrera 
tiene ritos de purificación.

English: 
and rolled it out on the table, 
and they all had the same secret.
In your book you talk about stages people
go through after killing someone,
This sounds very similar to the process of grieving. 
– Yes, Kübler Ross on death and dying stages.
Sure, and like Kübler Ross, you can misapply it. 
There are those who say,
"Okay, time for grieving, it's time for denial, 
time for bargaining."
Not everybody reacts the same way, 
but there is usually that exhilaration,
and then the remorse and nausea 
as a backlash to the exhilaration.
And then comes a lifelong process 
of rationalization and acceptance.
If they fail in this process, the result is PTSD 
or some type of trauma that ramains for life.
Every warrior society has a purification ritual.
-- Explain that to me.

Spanish: 
Desde la infancia nos 
enseñan "No matarás”.
Se aplica el máximo 
castigo al asesino.
Pero un día nos dicen: 
"Vayan y maten”.
Los psicólogos lo llamamos
"disonancia cognitiva".
Entonces nos vamos a la guerra, 
y la presión social es muy fuerte.
Matamos, volvemos a casa, pero en 
el fondo, el niño interno dice:
"He sido muy malo.
Seré castigado".
Necesitamos que nos digan 
que hicimos lo correcto.
Como dije, las tribus guerreras 
tienen ritos de purificación:
la separación ritual, el baño ritual,
el retorno al seno la tribu.
En nuestra sociedad, otorgamos 
medallas y condecoraciones.

English: 
All your life as you were raised, 
you were told not to kill anybody.
We hold the ultimate punishment for 
somebody who kills another person.
Then one day they get you together and say, 
“Go over there and kill those people.”
In psychology we call this 
“cognitive dissonance.”
And so you do. You participate in it, 
and the social pressures are very intense.
You go, you kill, you come back, and 
in the back of your mind is that child,
who says, “I’ve done something very bad.
I'm going to be in trouble.”
And you must be reassured that 
what you did was right and good.
As I said, in all major warrior tribes 
there is this purification ritual,
which usually involves ritual separation and bathing,
acceptance back into the tribe, etc.
In our society, we have things like 
medals and decorations.

English: 
Soldiers do not fight for medals and decorations. 
They do it for their friends.
But those medals are like 
a “get out of jail free” card.
They are a physical proof that what you did was right,
that your society says it was good,
and that we honor this. So you wear those medals 
when you return home.
There is a cooling-off period, and then come
the parades and monuments,
but most important of all is the open, warm 
acceptance of society, which says,
“What you did was good. We honor this.”
-- And that is part of overcoming the trauma of killing.
Knowingly or unknowingly, 
the military has made this a part.
Now, yours is more than simply a 
psychologist’s approach to these problems.
You have gone through a tremendous 
amount of historical analysis.
I was struck that, whether in Gettysburg or WWII, 
you find that very few combatants actually shot to kill.
As low as 15-20%.
-- In WWII, people were actually firing,

Spanish: 
El soldado no lucha por las medallas, 
sino por sus compañeros.
Pero las medallas 
representan la absolución.
Dicen que hicimos lo correcto,
que la sociedad lo acepta,
que fue un acto honorable. Y usamos 
las medallas al volver a casa.
Hay un período de descanso,
y luego los desfiles y monumentos.
Lo más importante es la aceptación sincera 
y cálida de la sociedad, que nos dice:
"Hiciste algo bueno; lo honramos".
Ayuda a superar el trauma de matar.
Consciente o inconscientemente, 
los militares lo han integrado.
Su análisis trasciende lo 
meramente psicológico.
Incluye muchos 
estudios históricas.
En Gettysburg y la 2a Guerra Mundial,
pocos soldados disparaban a matar.
Apenas un 15% a 20%.
– En la 2a Guerra, sí disparaban,

Spanish: 
pero muchos amagaban. 
Disparaban al aire para intimidar.
El 2--4% de los varones de 20--30 años 
padecen de sociopatía.
No son capaces de sentir 
empatía por otros.
Y en batalla, sólo el 2--4% 
tiraba a matar.
En la 2a Guerra Mundial, el 2% de los pilotos
causó la mayoría de las muertes aéreas.
La mayoría no derribó ningún 
avión ni intentó hacerlo.
Y lo mismo sucede en el campo de batalla.
– Así es.
Ud. encontró que en Gettysburg, 
sólo un 15% había disparado.
Los otros sólo cargaban 
sus armas, sin dispararlos.
La mayoría de las armas recuperadas 
en Gettysburg seguían cargadas.

English: 
but we do not know how many were posturing – 
firing over the enemy’s head to daunt them.
The incidence of sociopaths in society – 
people who feel no empathy for others
appears to be around 4% 
among males in their twenties.
It seems the firing rate, those who actually try to kill, 
could be brought down to this low 2-4%.
Two percent of all the fighter pilots in WWII 
did the vast majority of killing in the air.
The majority of pilots never shot anybody down, 
and never tried to.
You said the same thing happens on the battlefield.
-- Absolutely.
When you looked at the Gettysburg numbers,
only about 15% were doing all the killing.
And the others were stuffing their muskets 
full of shot that wasn't going to go off.
The vast majority of the weapons recovered 
after Gettysburg were loaded weapons.

English: 
So you get this image of a person standing 
in the firing line next to his friends.
Bravely and valiantly he stands, 
he loads, he does everything,
but when it comes to the moment of truth, 
everybody else fires and he does not.
He brings it back down, and 
goes through the process again and again.
Some weapons had 23 rounds 
tapped all the way down the barrel.
As Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall said,
at the moment truth,
you are facing another person and become 
a noncombatant, a conscientious objector.
Now, you say that while killing may be an inherent taboo
it is something that can be learned,
And that following Korea, the military was worried 
that only 15-20% were shooting to kill,
and started to develop techniques 
to increase that rate.
Tell us about this period 
and the techniques employed.
It is a fact, this incredibly 
low firing rate.

Spanish: 
Imagine el soldado, de pie
junto a sus compañeros.
Valientemente carga 
su arma y la levanta,
pero a la hora de la verdad,
pocos disparan y el resto no.
Bajan su armas, cargan de nuevo 
y repiten el proceso.
Algunas armas quedaron 
cargadas con 23 balas.
General de Brigada Marshall dijo:
en el momento de la verdad,
el soldado se hace no combatiente, 
un objetor de conciencia.
Aunque el matar tenga un tabú innato,
también se puede aprender.
En Corea, fue motivo de preocupación 
que sólo el 15-20% tiraba a matar.
Y desarrollaron técnicas
para aumentar el índice.
Háblenos de ese periodo y 
de las técnicas empleadas.
Sí, hubo un índice de 
disparo muy reducido.
Para resolverlo, se aplicó las 
herramientas modernas

English: 
So we systematically applied all the tools 
of modern psychology to overcome it.
By ‘we’ I mean Western civilization.
-- The inherent resistance to killing,
The military sector says, 
“We must break it down.”
In WWII they would fire at a bulls-eye target, 
but today it is operant conditioning.
The conditioned stimulus is a 
man-shaped silhouette that pops up.
The conditioned response is that 
you have a split second to engage the target.
The stimulus feedback is that 
when you hit the target, it drops down.
The reward is a marksmanship badge. 
-- So that becomes a conditioned response.
As soon as you see an enemy, you kill. 
-- It is Skinner's operant conditioning. 
We build a conditioned reflex.
Police departments throughout America 
had a similar problem in the sixties.
They found on many occasions 
that the majority of police officers,
Faced with a situation where they 
could and should have fired their weapons,

Spanish: 
de la psicología, para superar la 
resistencia innata a matar,
Los militares dijeron:
“Acabemos con eso”.
En la 2a Guerra hubo el tiro al blanco,
pero hoy es el condicionamiento.
El estímulo es una silueta humana 
que aparece de repente.
Se tiene una fracción de segundo 
para disparar contra el blanco.
Cuando se da en el blanco, 
éste desaparece.
Se premia la buena puntería. 
Es una respuesta condicionada de matar.
Es el condicionamiento operante de
Skinner -- un reflejo condicionado.
La policía de EE.UU tuvo un 
problema similar en los '60.
En muchas ocasiones,
la mayoría de oficiales
Cuando podían y
debían disparar,

Spanish: 
no lo hacían. Morían 
muchos policías.
El FBI desarrolló 
un programa similar.
Se proyectaban películas de 
diversas circunstancias.
Ante las señales adecuadas, el oficial 
disparaba y se repitía el proceso.
Se hizo un reflejo con la
prácticas repetida.
Para llegar a matar, hay 
dos "filtros mentales".
El primero es el cerebro anterior, 
la mente consciente y racional.
Sirve para poner al soldado en el 
campo de batalla con su arma.
Esto lo hacen los políticos, los 
mandos militares y otros.
El segundo filtro es el cerebro medio. 
El miedo y la ira paralizan la mente humana.
Sólo se piensa con el cerebro medio, 
el sistema límbico, el hipotálamo.

English: 
would not fire their weapons. 
And they were losing many police officers.
The FBI developed a shoot/no shoot 
program that was very similar.
A rear-projection movie of a perpetrator 
in various circumstances was shown.
Under the right circumstances, a police officer 
would draw and fire, and repeat the process.
And it becomes a reflex because
you practice it and rehearse it.
The thing to realize is that the mind has to 
go through two filters to kill someone.
The first filter is the forebrain – 
the conscious, rational mind.
It will put you on the battlefield 
with a weapon in your hand.
Politics will do that, leaders and 
other things will do that.
The second filter is the midbrain. When frightened or 
angry, you stop thinking like a human being.
You turn off the forebrain and use the midbrain, 
the limbic system, the hypothalamus.

English: 
You start thinking with the 
exact same brain as an animal.
You are no longer 
a rational creature.
You have to get to the second filter 
to make somebody kill.
The only way to make a frightened person 
react in a certain way is to drill it into them,
to make it a conditioned response, 
using operant and classical conditioning.
Does that make sense? 
Do you understand that?
Absolutely. You also talk about 
desensitizing, and demonizing the enemy.
Absolutely. People have always 
tried to demonize the enemy,
but it is a flawed tool, because it produces
too much violence and atrocities.
It causes situations like the My Lai 
Massacre, and what have you.
So we must be terribly 
careful with that.
In liberal democracies, armies need to 
turn violence on and off like a faucet.

Spanish: 
Esta parte es igual 
al cerebro animal.
No se actúa como 
persona racional.
Para matar, hay que pasar 
el segundo filtro.
La persona asustada sólo 
responde bien si ha practicado.
El condicionamiento logra tales 
respuestas automáticas.
¿Tiene sentido?
¿Me explico?
Sí, claro. Háblenos de la insensibilización 
y la satanización del enemigo.
Siempre se ha procurado 
satanizar al enemigo,
pero es una herramienta fallida que
genera excesos de violencia y atrocidades.
Situaciones como la masacre de 
My Lai y otras atrocidades.
Se debe tener muchísimo
cuidado con esta técnica.
En una democracia liberal, el ejército debe poder 
abrir y cerrar la violencia como un grifo.

Spanish: 
Esto hace el condicionamiento
operante y clásico.
Ya no se sataniza al enemigo, sino que 
se supera la repulsión innata a matar.
Al correr, los soldados entonan: 
"¡Mataré! ¡Mataré! ¡Mataré!"
Decir "mataré" va contra
su formación anterior.
El hecho de matar al enemigo.
-- Sí.
Apuñalan a un objetivo 
con bayonetas.
Y el sargento grita, "¿Cuál es el 
espíritu de la bayoneta?"
Se responde al unísono:
"¡Matar! ¡Matar!"
"¿Qué hace crecer el pasto?" 
"¡Sangre! ¡Sangre!"
Se supera la resistencia asociando 
la violencia con el placer.
El propósito es superar una 
resistencia muy poderosa.
Fuimos del 15% en la 2da Guerra al 
55% en Corea y al 95% en Vietnam.
En la Guerra de las Malvinas 
hubo una situación similar.

English: 
So what they use is operant conditioning 
and classical conditioning.
They do not demonize the enemy, but rather try 
to overcome the innate revulsion to killing.
As they run or do bayonet training, 
they chant: “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
And understand, “kill” is the ultimate bad word. 
To kill someone is a bad thing.
To engage the enemy.
-- Yes.
So they stand there with bayonets in their hands, 
and they bayonet the target.
And the sergeant shouts, 
“What's the spirit of the bayonet?”
And they respond, “Kill! Kill!”
Everybody chants together.
“What makes the grass grow greener?” 
“Blood! Blood!”
So this resistance is overcome and they 
begin to associate violence with pleasure.
The thing to realize is that they are 
overcoming a powerful resistance.
The firing rate was raised from 15% in WWII 
to 55% in Korea and to 95% in Vietnam.
-- That is stunning!
It is. The British in the Falkland Islands
found themselves in the same kind of situation.

Spanish: 
Los británicos tenían un índice 
de disparo de casi el 100%,
Los argentinos, mal entrenados, 
tenían un índice del 15%.
Los británicos dicen que esto fue 
una de las razones de su éxito.
Su análisis pone un giro distinto a
varios aspectos relacionados,
como el estrés post-traumático 
en los veteranos de Vietnam.
Siempre pensé que se debían al
rechazo y condena de la sociedad.
No pudieron procesar su 
trauma tras la guerra.
Pero su alto índice de disparo acarrearía 
problemas sin importar su acogida.
Es parte del problema, pero 
en el caso de Vietnam
hubo dos sucesos 
sin parangón.

English: 
Their soldiers were firing at as close to
100% as they could determine,
and the Argentineans, poorly trained 
in the old style, were firing at a 15% rate.
The British are convinced this is one of the 
fundamental reasons for their incredible success.
Your analysis puts a very different spin 
on many related military issues,
particularly the PTSD, especially in 
Vietnam veterans coming home.
I always thought they had so many problems 
because they were not welcome or integrated.
That backend process of killing
never took place for them.
But since more killed than in any other wars,
they would have more problems, no matter what.
That is part of it. 
Two things occurred in Vietnam,
neither of which – to my knowledge
– ever happened before in history.

Spanish: 
Primero, los soldados lograron 
matar más que nunca antes.
Tomaron una decisión a un 
nivel muy profundo.
Pudieron hacer combate de
manera nunca antes visto
Se eliminó su opción de ser 
objetores de conciencia.
Objeción de conciencia operativa.
-- Correcto.
Segundo, al volver de la guerra,
hubo un rechazo social singular.
El rito de purificación
se dio al revés.
En vez de ser absueltos, fueron acusados 
de "mata-infantes" y "asesinos".
Y esa pequeña voz en la cabeza decía: 
"Me he comportado muy mal."
Fueron atacados y tachados de 
"mata-bebés" y "asesinos",
y su niño interno decía: "¡Dios mío, 
tienen razón! ¡Soy un asesinato!"
No pudieron racionalizar sus actos 
ni procesar su duelo.
Lo enterraron profundamente y su 
duelo se hizo una herida enconada.

English: 
Number one, individuals were enabled to kill 
in a way that had never occurred before.
They had made a decision at some 
fundamental, deep level in their minds.
So they were enabled to fight in a way 
that had never occurred before.
This took away the option of 
becoming a conscientious objector
a functional conscientious objector.
-- Right.
Another unprecedented thing was that we 
attacked returning veterans like never before.
The purification ritual 
was stood on its head.
Instead of purification, they were attacked 
and condemned: “Baby killer!” “Murderer!”
And in the back of the mind, a little voice said, 
“I've been very bad.”
So they were attacked, condemned, 
and called “baby killers” and "murderers"
and that little voice in the back of their mind said, 
“My God! They are right! I am a murder!”
So that grieving rationalization 
process could not occur.
So they buried it deep inside of them, 
and it became a festering wound deep inside.

Spanish: 
Hablé con muchas personas con
profundos traumas no procesados.
Eran como jovenes asustados de 18 años 
que no habían dormido en dos días.
Nunca lo habían analizado, 
procesado y resuelto.
A sus 50 años no podían analizarlo, procesarlo, 
resolverlo, compartirlo con amigos.
Es por ello que mi libro ha sido 
tan relevante y valioso.
Mientras lo escribía, los veteranos se 
pasaban copias de copias del manuscrito.
Las esposas preguntaban a los maridos:
"¿Así es como te sientes?"
Les daba un entendimiento 
más clínico de su condición.
Por primera vez podían tratar lo intratable,
y lo compartían con otros veteranos
y con sus esposas,
y se repetía el ciclo.
Fue un medio para hacer decible 
lo indecible, para la sanación.

English: 
I interviewed many of these people who 
had never addressed the trauma.
They approached what happened with the mind of a 
frightened 18-year-old who hadn’t slept in two days.
They had never pulled it back out, 
never dredged it up, never addressed it.
So 50-year-old's mind never got to look at it, 
rationalize it, deal with it, give it to friends.
That is one reason this book has been 
so important and had such value.
In writing the book, copies of copies of the manuscript
were passed around the veteran community.
A wife would read it and ask her husband, 
“Is this what it's like?”
So he would read it, and 
suddenly it became very clinical.
Now they could discuss the undiscussable.
Then he would force it on another veteran,
who would read it, and that veteran’s wife would 
force it on others and they would read it.
It became a tool to make the unspeakable
speakable, a tool for healing.

English: 
Has that had a salutary effect 
within the military community?
Are there peers who resent you bringing 
these techniques out into the open?
No, and that is a good question. I had wondered 
whether the military would react negatively,
but not at all. Not in the least. 
There has been a tremendously positive reaction.
Sales have been very high among two groups: 
the veterans, and the active-duty military.
The US Marine Corps has incorporated it 
into their professional development reading.
One of the most intriguing yet problematic 
parts of the book for the uninitiated,
who haven't really confronted and 
dealt with this subject before,
is that killing is a taboo, that there are 
strong inherent sanctions against it.
Yet our propensity to kill outside the battlefield, 
in urban, civilian settings, is going up. What gives?

Spanish: 
Ha tenido un efecto saludable 
en la comunidad militar.
¿Hay personas que resienten el haber 
divulgado estas técnicas?
Buena pregunta.Yo me preguntaba 
si habría reacciones negativas,
pero no, en absoluto. 
Ha sido muy bien recibido.
Se ha vendido más entre los veteranos
y el personal militar en servicio activo.
La Marina de EE.UU usa el libro
para su desarrollo profesional.
Un aspecto intrigante y problemático
para la gente común,
que no ha analizado 
el tema a profundidad,
es que el matar sea tabú, con 
una fuerte resistencia innata.
Pero hay más asesinatos urbanos y civiles. 
¿A qué se debe?

English: 
Yes. First I want you to realize 
the magnitude of the problem.
When we talk about crime in America, 
we usually focus on murder rates.
The thing to realize is, if you were wounded in WWII, 
you had a 90% chance of dying.
But if you were wounded in the same way in Vietnam, 
you had a 90% chance of surviving.
Now, we can accept that, the advances and 
leaps in medical technology…
But understand what that means 
on the battlefield of our cities.
If we had the same medical technology now as in 1939,
it is very conservative to say that the murder rate
in Washington DC, New York City or Toronto 
would be 10 times higher than it is today.
Yes, it should go down with those improvements.
-- Yes, but it has almost doubled in America.

Spanish: 
Primero hay que 
dimensionar el problema.
Cuando se habla de delincuencia,
por lo general se refiere a homicidios.
Hay que considerar que se moría el 90% de 
los heridos en la 2da Guerra Mundial.
En contraste, en Vietnam sobrevivía 
el 90% de los heridos.
Es entendible, dados 
los avances médicos.
¿Qué significado tiene para 
la violencia urbana?
Si hubiera hoy la misma medicina que en 1939,
un cálculo muy conservador daría
10 veces más homicidios en ciudades como 
Washington, Nueva York y Toronto.
Debería bajar con los adelantos médicos.
-- Pero se ha duplicado en EE.UU.

English: 
The aggravated assault rate... -- A far better indicator.
... Yes, that is just escalating, skyrocketing,
completely out of sight, 
without any sign of going down.
We should ask ourselves why. How could this happen? 
-- Especially given the sanction against killing.
We know why. The military knows how to 
take the safety catch off a human being.
We know what works and what does not. 
We went from 15% WWII to 95% in Vietnam.
I have no doubt that the exact same processes 
that the military applies to its soldiers
are being applied indiscriminately
to our cities, to our children.
It is the same desensitization and learning to kill.
-- Minus the safeguards and discipline that come with it.
Let me give you an example, starting at a 
fundamental level: classical conditioning.
You can classically condition an earthworm 
if you associate one thing with another.

Spanish: 
La agresión con agravantes va en 
aumento. Está por las nubes.
Sin ninguna 
tendencia a la baja.
¿Por qué? ¿Cómo puede ser?
-- Dada la resistencia a matar.
Sabemos por qué. Los militares sabemos 
cómo prender y apagar la violencia.
Sabemos cómo funciona. Pasamos del 15% 
en la 2da Guerra al 95% en Vietnam.
Yo creo que los mismos métodos 
que se aplican con los soldados,
están siendo aplicados en las
 ciudades, con nuestros hijos.
La misma insensibilización y condicionamiento,
pero sin las salvaguardias del caso.
Un ejemplo, al nivel más básico 
del condicionamiento clásico.
El condicionamiento clásico funciona incluso en lombrices, asociando estímulos con respuestas.

Spanish: 
En la película "Naranja Mecánica”
se ata a un sociópata en una silla,
y se le muestra imágenes de 
intenso sufrimiento humano,
que asocia con la náusea 
causada por un fármaco.
Hoy existe lo opuesto de 
la Naranja Mecánica.
Los chicos ven películas de 
intenso sufrimiento humano.
¿Con qué lo asocian? Con su golosina 
favorita. Con su novia a su lado.
Las películas de terror muestran
intenso sufrimiento humano.
Pregunto a mis audiencias,
“¿Qué hace la gente en las películas de terror,
cuando hay un asesinato?”
¡Se ríen!
Ante el asesinato, todos se ríen.
– Sí. ¡Les parece divertido!
Aprenden a asociar la tragedia humana, 
la muerte y el horror con el placer.
Después entran a las 
salas de videojuegos.

English: 
A lot of us have seen Clockwork Orange.
You take a sociopath, strap him in a chair,
and have him watch vivid depictions of 
human suffering on a screen,
and he associates it with the nausea he feels 
from a drug you slipped into him. -- Right.
Today we have a reverse 
Clockwork Orange.
We have children who sit in a movie theater
watching vivid depictions of human suffering.
And what do they associate it with? 
Their favor candy bar or soft drink.
Their arm around a girlfriend.
We watch Pulp Fiction or Friday the 13th, part 28 – 
vivid depictions human suffering.
And I ask the audience every time, 
"What happens in Pulp Fiction,
when somebody is depicted 
as being killed? They laugh!
When they are murdered in the backseat, 
everyone laughs. We laugh! It is funny!
We have learned to associate vividly depicted 
human tragedy, death and horror with our own pleasure.
Then we go to the video arcades 
and play video games.

Spanish: 
Sólo se necesita practicar un reflejo condicionado 
cada seis meses para reforzarlo.
Y se practica a diario con los videojuegos.
Un ejemplo es Operation Wolf.
Se tiene un UZI en las manos, 
se dispara contra un ser humano.
Al dar en el blanco, la víctima se agita, se cae, 
sangra, y el jugador se ha condicionado.
Después un joven sociópata, condicionado 
de esta manera, sale a la calle.
Tiene un arma , pues le han dicho 
que es un mundo violento.
Y el arma ha sido idealizada 
como signo de virilidad.
Varios factores lo han predispuesto: 
la pobreza, las drogas...
Otro factor es la falta de 
una figura paterna.
Buscaba un modelo a seguir y se le 
dio un modelo guerrero y violento.

English: 
Police and military forces know that just once every six 
months is enough to build in that conditioned reflex.
We go to the videoarcade and play these games.
Operation Wolf – I can never get past that level 3.
The UZI is there rocking in your hands, and you hear 
the rounds as you shoot them into a human being.
You hit him and he splats, twitches, falls, and bleeds,
and the reflex is built into you.
Then some young sociopath that we have built 
walks out on the street.
He has a gun in his hand, having been taught 
that it is a violent society out there,
and the gun is the essence of manhood. 
The gun has been glamorized.
There are so many factors that will put him there:
poverty is a factor, drugs are a factor.
All of these things will predispose him. 
Fatherless America will predispose him,
because he is looking for a role model 
and has been given violent war models.

English: 
But in the moment of truth, when a frightened,
angry human being looks at another human being
over the gun sight, only one thing teaches
you to kill, and that is teaching killing.
So this youth has a gun in his hand and kills reflexively. without even thinking, and quite accurately, too.
Then he shows no remorse whatsoever. 
He may even show a bit of pleasure.
Then we have the audacity to wonder why, 
when he has watched vivid depictions
of human suffering thousands of times and
derived pleasure and reinforcement from it.
We taught him to kill, 
and we taught him to like it.
But it seems a bit more insidious than this.
You have taken up the cudgel of many people
who say the Roadrunner desensitizes,
it impersonalizes death.
Roadrunner falls off a cliff, lands in a puff,
then stands up and walks around again.

Spanish: 
En el momento de la verdad, ese 
joven asustado y enojado ve una persona
por la mira de su arma, ya ha aprendido a 
matar; ha sido condicionado.
Toma su arma y mata por reflejo,
sin pensar y con mucha precisión.
No muestra remordimiento, 
sino tal vez algo de placer.
Y tenemos la audacia de preguntar por qué. 
Miles de veces ha visto representaciones
de intenso sufrimiento humano y obtenido 
placer y refuerzo al hacerlo.
Nosotros le enseñamos a matar.
Y le enseñamos a disfrutarlo.
Me parece más insidioso que eso.
Muchas personas afirman
que el Correcaminos insensibiliza 
e impersonaliza la muerte.
Cae por un precipicio, aterriza, 
se recupera y sigue corriendo.

Spanish: 
No me preocupa tanto eso.
Tampoco Mario Bro,
donde se golpean en la
cabeza con martillos.
Son las imágenes de intenso sufrimiento humano
lo que nos insensibiliza al dolor ajeno.
El otro lado de la ecuación es simplemente
hacer cumplir las normas existentes.
Las películas son clasificadas, 
y los menores a 17 años
no deben ver películas adultas sin 
consentimiento de sus padres.
Simplemente apliquemos la 
clasificación existente.
Enjuiciemos a quienes alquilen o proyecten 
películas adultas a menores.
Sólo hace falta aplicar la 
clasificación existente.
No es algo draconiano. Es proteger a 
nuestros hijos. Podemos hacerlo.

English: 
I am not particularly concerned about that,
anymore than I am concern about Mario Brothers,
where they bop each other 
on the head with hammers.
I would say it is vivid depiction of human suffering 
and blood that desensitizes us to human suffering.
What I would say is the other half of the equation, 
in which we simply enforce existing regulations.
Our movie rating system 
says that kids under age 17
cannot go to an R-rated movie 
without parental consent.
It would be a simple to take the 
existing rating system and say that
if you rent an R-rated movie to children or let them in 
to see one, we will bring legal action against you.
Now once again, all we are doing 
is enforcing an existing code.
That is not a Draconian step. It's a simple matter of
protecting our children, which societies can take.

Spanish: 
Prohibamos los juegos de apuntar y disparar.
Es fácil sacar la olla del fuego,
y dejará de hervir muy pronto. Otros aspectos
tomarán generaciones en corregirse:
la muerte y destrucción urbanas; 
no saber si cumpliremos los 30 años.
Esta sanación 
tardará más tiempo.
Pero el condicionamiento 
operante de los videojuegos,
y el condicionamiento clásico del cine,
desvanecerán pronto.
Los estímulos artificiales que generan la
violencia se disiparán en un par de años.
Despúes sólo quedará tratar la
violencia real y sus ramificaciones,
y podremos detener la espiral de 
violencia en la sociedad.

English: 
We can make point-and-shoot video games illegal.
A few tiny steps, to take the pot off the fire,
and the pot will very quickly stop boiling.
Some things will take generations to react:
the real death and destruction in our inner cities, 
the people who grow up expecting not to reach age 30.
Those people are going to 
take a long time to heal.
But the operant conditioning 
that happens in video games,
and the classical conditioning that happens in movies,
this decays very quickly.
This outside, artificial stimulus that creates violence, 
in just a couple of years can very quickly wear off.
And then all we have to live with is 
the real violence and its ramifications,
and we can start to de-escalate the spiral 
of violence that is occurring in our society.
