"In between the call/response of, 'What's the spirit of bayonet? Kill! Kill! Kill!' drill instructors (DIs) would pick up megaphones and scream, 'See those C-130s landing? They are bringing in bodies of dead Americans killed by gooks. The gooks murdered our soldiers! Do you want to be a body on that plane? I can't hear you? What's the spirit of bayonet?' Every once in a while, a DI would pull several of us aside and give us lessons on the proper use of bayonet in performing a field abortion. 'Stick the bayonet in the gook's c**t and pull up towards her throat. A dead gook in the womb saves Americans lives!'"

Or this, from Roger Domagalski, describing what he was told as a recruit and his duties after basic training: "From the first moment we arrived, we often heard the words, 'girls, ladies, sissies, p***s, and worse' when insulting us. Thus 'women' as a whole became a derogatory concept; very sexist and very dehumanizing. I had been dehumanized to such an extent that I completely lacked all empathy for these frightened, new trainees. Instead of treating them decently, I mistreated them as I had been mistreated. Once you dehumanize a person, you need to maintain control because such a person is liable to do anything, from the relatively mild 'hazing' I engaged in, to the Nazi-like terror tactics used by the guards against Iraqi prisoners. Yes, basic training works...all too well sometimes."

This is how soldiers are dehumanised in basic training. Any wonder why torture scandals erupt?

But it can be argued that unless soldiers are toughened up like this, you cannot get them to go out and kill the enemy soldiers in combat. All your life, you are told that killing another human being is one of the worst crimes that one can commit. Then one fine day you are sent to boot camp; at the end of the two/three month period, you are expected to be ready to murder people without any qualms. Something radical must take place in this period to achieve this kind of transformation.