Dave Grossman

Yeah.

Even, um, uh, had, uh, Dave Grossman a couple of times, and he talks about, you know, the proximity of the kill has a, a different impact, and obviously a bayonet kill is very different than a drone kill, for example, even if they're both instigated by, you know, a soldier.

So conversely, maybe you have more insight on this side.

Another area that is totally underreported when it comes to war is the kindness and compassion amidst this chaos on a battlefield, because we tend, or the media tends to tar an entire nation with the same brush.

Uh, both of us I think, uh, fall back on the, uh, idea, we talk about Colonel Grossman.

Dave Grossman has said for years, "You do not rise to the occasion.

Uh, you fall back on your training.

You come back to your amount of training." And you just, you can't figure it out in that split second, man.

And listeners may recall, and, and John, like you, you've probably heard at least a couple times before the, you know, the body of literature out there in war studies and combat studies about the disinclination that humans have to kill other beings, uh, particularly other humans.

Um, uh, there, there are certainly folks out there who have read Grossman's "On Killing." Some of you have encountered S.L.A.

Marshall's "Men Against Fire," and some of this science is disputed.

The point here is not to wade into that.

That reckoning looks different than it does for soldiers who have experienced, say, close combat.

We published an, uh, a review several years ago by an Air Force drone pilot named Joe Ritter.

He reviewed, um, you mentioned Grossman's "On Killing." Dave Grossman wrote this very influential book, sometimes considered divisive, um, but this influential book called "On Killing." He also authored a book that came out, I believe, in 2021 called "On Killing Remotely," which was specifically looking at this dynamic.

And, and our reviewer, this Air Force, uh, officer, reviewed it in a, in a review he titled, uh, "When War Is Shift Work." And it's this idea that we had drone pilots in Nevada that were, you know, come- driving from their home with their morning cup of coffee, maybe stopping at the gas station, filling up, getting to work, clocking in for their eight-hour shift of fighting a war.

She is a licensed clinician, the author of over a dozen books, and a warrior healer who deployed to the Oklahoma City bombing, ground zero on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Dallas police ambush, and the Uvalde shooting.

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman nicknamed her the warrior healer because she does not analyze us from an ivory tower.

She speaks our language, she understands our humor, and knows the exact weight of the carnage that we carry.

Tonight, we step past all the clinical, sterile talk and stare directly into the wreckage left behind.

It's like I play that and then I go right to bed.

Bill, was your classmate, was she Dave Grossman? Because that sounds like Dave Grossman's argument.

You know, her last name was Grossman.

Well, here's the thing.

Two months later, two months of the day later actually, on December the 1st, 1997, a freshman at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, opened fire at a prayer group meeting before school, killing three people and wounding six.

We've covered this one in the past, and we'll be covering this again a little bit later in this show.

On March the 24th, 1998, two students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, our old buddy Dave Grossman's hometown... pulled a fire alarm and opened fire on classmates and teachers as they fled the school, killing five people and wounding ten others.

And on May the 20th, 1998, a freshman at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, killed his parents.

And by the way, we're going to spend the hour with a Ranger.

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman served as a U.S. Army Ranger for 24 years.

He has five patents to his name.

He has published 12 books, including his perennial bestseller On Killing, with over half a million copies sold, and On Combat.

And it's all that he asks of us is our love.

Oh, I tell you, this is going to be a fabulous conversation on spiritual combat.

30 Missions for Victorious Warfare with Dave Grossman.

He is renowned in his area of expertise, and he loves Jesus.