Soldiers who perform best under extreme stress have higher levels of chemicals that dampen the fear response, a finding that could lead to new drugs or training strategies to help others cope better, a U.S. researcher said. [More]Cool--we can give them to angst-filled adolescents who have trouble socializing and focusing on their school work!
What could go wrong?
[Via Ed M]
UPDATE:
A comment made me remember--everybody knows the origin of this term, right?
Hasn't the military been drugging its property for years?
ReplyDeleteRight. We really, REALLY need more zombies who have no inhibitions at all and will "just follow orders."
ReplyDeleteMamas, do NOT let your children become soldiers. And stop allowing your children to be drugged in "school" now. That is working very successfully to achieve the same as the above.
I talked to a woman the other day who gushed that the "medicine" had "helped" her son SOOOO much. She was very flustered when I asked: Helped him to what? To be a real man, or a zombie?
I know that kid, and underneath the thin film of the zombie lies a very frustrated and ANGRY young man. God help them if he ever gets out of the wrapping.
He'll be old enough to join the Army in a year. Won't that be peachy.
I call bullshit on the study. Those who remain cool, do so because they taught themselves how to do so. That kind of control comes from bumping into ugly realities and surviving by being smart enough and scared enough to not panic.
ReplyDeleteThat's absolutely right, but possibly only in my opinion. People I respect have said of me more than once, you just don't panic or get scared do you?
I always truthfully replied "I was too scared to panic or act like I was scared, that shit gets you killed."
I do not believe the cool under fire have a biological advantage, I do believe the evidence of chemicals in their blood is accurate. But I also believe it is a result of their mental and emotional control, not the cause of it.
Anyone who spends a lot of time in dangerous situations has seen this happen. When neophytes are involved they sometimes require a lot of mentoring and sometimes protection to survive it. In a very short time those no longer neophytes become reliable and "cool under fire" because they have learned the internal mechanisms of survival and their ability to whittle odds if not in your favor, at least as lessened as is possible against them.
A good way to determine my above theme or to disprove it, would be to start with neophytes and check their blood chemsitry. Now some of them will have had experiences that already place them in the "cool under fire" blood chemistry group before the initial collection of data.
ReplyDeleteThen follow-up with the same people, or as many as have survived after they have had to deal with ugly realitise,and note whether the ranks of the "cool under fire" has swelled within that same group.
I believe they will find the ranks of the "cool under fire" have swelled within that same group, while the ranks of the "less cool under fire" has depleted. At this point that is probably the belief of only myself, but until that type of study is done I am unwilling to go against my experiences and what I have witnessed.
straightarrow,
ReplyDeleteI concur with your hypothesis. That 'calm under pressure appearance' is usually a case of someone who has learned to harness their fear. It is earned the hard way and doesn't come in a pill.
"Cool under fire" ? I've been in some sticky situations over the years. After the dust cleared and the screaming stopped and I had time to reflect, I found that, mostly, I was just too busy getting the job done or just staying alive and didn't have time to get scared.
ReplyDeleteStraight Arrow, you're very correct. The ability to learn to take advantage of the odds and always work with an edge against your opponent seems to have worked for me. You have to make your own luck.
No shortage of insurgents doping themselves up prior to fighting the infidels.
ReplyDeleteYou are never what your first firefight says you are.
ReplyDeleteI would add Fits, that you never know if you are what you last firefight said you were, either.
ReplyDelete