posted on Mar, 20 2010 @ 12:42 AM
In relation to the original post, I am interested to read what is said in the book you mention but the bold statements you sell it with do not
convince me without futher research that what you are saying is true.
Drawing from my own experiences in life I already know that as a civillian I am still perfectly capable of reacting quickly and efficiently in an
extreme situation. I have never been in combat but the same adrenaline and survival instincts kick in automatically if your body is used to coping
with various high stress situations. Of course training can help people react on reflex more quickly so perhaps I would not be as good as a trained
soldier, but I have had various opportunities in my life to react quickly and keep my head in situations either life threatening to myself or others
around me and on every single one of those occasions I was the first to react, have a plan and communicate it efficiently with those around me. Please
don't judge me as boastful or arrogant(egos are a waste of time and serve no purpose in the advancement of the species) I am only mentioning these
things to explain why I am so sure that 2% is too low a figure and that you are wrong in assuming that only soldiers can cope with extremes.
I am 28, and in my short life I have survived and driven off an attack by four drunk soldiers who were stationed at Colchester barracks(4 on 1, I
guess they skipped on some training then?), saved a blue faced friend from choking on a lump of pork(yes the heimlich really does work but not on 1st
try), been first on the scene of a suicide attempt where the man had cut down the veins on both arms with a lot of blood lost, fast action stopped him
losing much more and he lived(I know some of you are very caring people so in case you were wondering he is still fine to this day, has a job and
rents his own place), assisted in an accident where a lorry hit a car by calming down the shocked and uninjured while my mother(a trained NHS nurse)
dealt with a man's badly injured right arm(I was about 14 and that was the first time I saw what the inside of an arm looked like), also I have been
a passenger in a car accident and realised before the driver what had happened and what we needed to do... I could go on but you'll get bored of
reading it and I feel like a chump writing it. The point I'm making is I have never been in combat with guns but what really is the difference in the
biological response to any of these situations? Any person can learn to work with their adrenaline at any point in their life and once you've got
used to it you can handle pretty much anything as long as you're not seriously injured yourself. I am some random guy and I've experienced enough
different scary things and found myself to have a consistent reaction in every case, I am not some 2% hardcore warrior, nor did I need to be to manage
any of the situations I mentioned, so if I can do those things by 28 imagine what your average 40 year old can cope with mentally with all that extra
life experience? My personal feeling is that perhaps being in the millitary makes men forget that they are just that, men. Training is no different to
schooling and there are plenty of fast learners in this world, and a fast learner in any species is a survivor.
As a soldier I assume you know your military history, and if that is the case you must therefore agree that yes, some people do not react well to
combat stress but a strong leader can turn a disorganised rabble into a working army and that rule rings true all the way down from army to squad. Of
your 100 people in the room you are forgetting to count the natural leaders who's instinct is to look after the group and the followers who are
schooled to follow a barked order since childhood.. we are all on autopilot a lot more than we sometimes like to acknowledge. To me the numbers don't
work and for them to be credible then we are to assume that most of the population are spineless and thats simply not true.