Snipers face less stress than other soldiers

The Canadian Armed Forces have made the shocking discovery that snipers are less stressed than other soldiers, and enjoy their work more. Gee, I wonder if that may be because snipers aren’t directly in the line of fire. I have the suspicion that the study’s finidings regarding Canadian snipers are probably true for snipers in armies the world over. As reported by Andrew Mayeda of Postmedia News on January 5, 2011:

OTTAWA — Canadian snipers who have served in Afghanistan report being less traumatized by the war than the average soldier, according to a study that offers a rare glimpse into the minds of Canada's battle-hardened troops.

Rather than expressing regret over their deadly line of work, snipers say they feel justified in killing enemies who pose a threat to Canadian troops and Afghan civilians. Moreover, most show high levels of career satisfaction, and say their job has been a positive influence in their lives.

Yet snipers report being more troubled than other soldiers when asked about specific combat experiences, such as knowing that someone has been seriously injured or killed in action, or seeing members of their unit become a casualty.

The findings are part of an ongoing three-year study commissioned by Defence R&D Canada, the research arm of the Department of National Defence. They paint a complex, at times contradictory, portrait of the carefully screened, elite soldiers who are paid to take out the enemy from afar.

A House of Commons committee has estimated that 1,120 of the 27,000 Canadian soldiers who served in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2008 showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet a number of soldiers who have returned from the war have complained that the military does not provide adequate care to those afflicted with the disorder.

After reports of snipers being traumatized, the former commander of Canada's land forces, Lieut.-General Andrew Leslie, called for an examination of their psychological well-being. Previously, little was known about the unique makeup of snipers.

"Unlike other soldiers who can deflect their responsibility for killing by rationalizing that they were led into battle by their officers, or had to kill in order to stay alive, snipers have more autonomy than conventional combat soldiers and often have discretion as to who they kill and who they don't," writes study author J. Peter Bradley, a retired lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Forces who now works as a professor at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.

In his initial exploratory study, Bradley interviewed 19 snipers who had served in Afghanistan and been back to Canada for at least six months. Most had killed someone in combat. Because of the small sample size, Bradley cautions that more research needs to be done before any firm conclusions can be drawn about the sniper community.

Compared with a general benchmark, the snipers exhibited escalated levels of psychological stress after taking a test known as the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. However, their stress levels were actually lower than the average scores of Canadian soldiers who served in Afghanistan.

Bradley notes the Canadian Forces have been developing a system of tests to filter out candidates who don't fit the right psychological profile. According to this research, snipers tend to score low on "neuroticism," high on conscientiousness and low on "tender mindedness."

According to conventional theory, soldiers typically feel an initial sense of euphoria after killing someone in combat. Most later express remorse, and in the third stage, they try to rationalize their actions — a process that can haunt soldiers for the rest of their lives, Bradley notes.

But the snipers he interviewed showed little remorse, with one third stating that they had no feelings about killing, since they were just doing their job.

Bradley says it's possible snipers truly have no regrets and are coping well. "First, killing in combat may not be as traumatic as one might think. Humans have been killing one another in combat for millennia. Second, even if we assume that killing in combat is traumatic, not everyone suffers after experiencing trauma."

However, he also suggests the snipers could have been concealing their feelings to reconcile conflicting emotions about killing, or to "protect their place within the sniper community."

"Snipers are top soldiers and weakness is not consistent with the sniper image," Bradley writes.