Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners

Evidence

Alfred de Vigny wrote, “The paid man, the soldier, is a glorious pauper, victim, and executioner.” A soldier wields violence and is also exposed to it; he is both an executioner and a victim. But what does he become once the very possibility of being exposed to violence is removed? The fatal conclusion is that he becomes a mere executioner. And that is why he must somehow continue to be a victim if he wishes to continue to be called a soldier. There is a difficulty, though: what could he be the victim of? The only possibility is that he is psychically the victim of having to act as an executioner. That is the only way he can be defined in his own eyes, as in those of society, as the fighter that he no longer is. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s framework of how the drone transformed the physical space of combat — the executioner/victim pairing collapses here. — connects to: Removing risk reduces the soldier to a mere executioner in need of new victimhood; Suppressing conscience in soldiers led directly to military torture; Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Removing child soldiers from combat does not immediately eliminate their violent behavior #corroborates (0.80) — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 516
• Blindfolding condemned victims also reduces the executioner’s stress #corroborates (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 965
• Traumatic combat loss triggered uncontrolled firing and emotional numbness in child soldiers #corroborates (0.70) — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 460