Soon after returning from Afghanistan, I bought a book I had heard about: On Killing by Dave Grossman.
It was one of those books that I purchased with good intentions, only to let it sit around collecting dust for a while. At one point I even thought I might read it while I was in labor with my youngest child. If that labor went anything like my first, it was going to be long and tedious. I planned to send my kids’ father home to stay with our oldest for most of it, so I figured I would need something to read. My plan was simple—read a little, watch Desperate Housewives in between contractions, and pass the time.
Of course, life rarely follows the plan.
My kids’ father deployed a few weeks before our youngest was born. Welcome to military life. With everything happening again in the Middle East right now, that reality hits home in a way it hasn’t for a while. It’s probably one of the reasons this book has been on my mind again.
My sister ended up coming to stay with me so I would have help through labor and afterward with the kids.
This labor, as labors go, did not go like the first. It moved much faster. I wasn’t on preventative medication because my body had started attacking itself due to high blood pressure.
And my youngest? She came out screaming.
My oldest had entered the world silently, looking around like she was calmly assessing the situation. My youngest announced herself immediately. I remember actually asking the doctors to put her back because something had to be wrong.
To this day, that moment perfectly reflects their personalities.
My youngest is my outspoken, wild child.
My oldest is stoic—though she can still be wild, just in her own quiet way.
Both are incredible kids, and I’m unbelievably lucky to be their mom.
Despite my plan, I never really read On Killing in the hospital. I tried a few times. I tried again in the months that followed. But I couldn’t get into it. My mind simply wasn’t in the right place for that kind of book.
Then at some point, something shifted.
When I picked it up again, the way Captain Grossman explored the psychological toll of killing in combat throughout history completely fascinated me. It sparked something in me—an interest in understanding the human mind and how it works.
One story from the book has stayed with me ever since.
During the Civil War, there were accounts suggesting that some soldiers would only load weapons while others did the shooting. Some people physically and psychologically could not bring themselves to kill another person. So their role became loading the weapons. Others would carry the mental burden of pulling the trigger.
Combat for most of human history was close—hand-to-hand or face-to-face. Killing happened within arm’s reach. You saw the person. You saw their eyes. You saw their emotions. You saw their humanity.
And that closeness made it psychologically harder.
Over time, warfare evolved. Weapons were developed that allowed soldiers to kill from further and further away.
Enter modern warfare.
Today, much of combat happens at significant distances. In some cases, soldiers never even see the person they are fighting. With drones and advanced technology, war can look more like a screen than a battlefield.
The drone aspect wasn’t part of Grossman’s book—it’s just my own reflection as warfare has continued to evolve since 2001.
But the psychological question still remains.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is often, at its core, a crisis between someone’s moral code and the environment they were placed in. Combat has a way of forcing people into situations where survival, duty, and morality collide.
Once I finally reached the right headspace, I turned the pages of On Killing quickly.
Looking at one of the darkest realities of war through a psychological lens completely captured my attention.
I know so many people who have gone through deployments and made choices they had to make—sometimes to survive, sometimes because they were ordered to.
Some people walk away from those experiences without struggle.
Others don’t.
On Killing didn’t provide simple answers, but it gave me a new way to understand the psychological weight that can come with those choices.
And for me, it was the first step toward wanting to understand the human mind a little more deeply.
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