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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. As related in Chapter 5, Stellman and Stellman studied what?

2. What cold consolation for Vietnam vets does Grossman acknowledge in Chapter 2?

3. Which of the following is not a means of recuperation Grossman endorses for PTSD in Chapter 3?

4. In Chapter 2, what is a socially humiliating act regarding modern media?

5. In Chapter 1, what weapon does Grossman use as an example of a homemade killing implement?

Short Essay Questions

1. What factors does Grossman say are contributing to youth violence in Chapter 1?

2. Which essential qualities makes a role model desirable as listed in Chapter 4?

3. What warning about video games does Grossman make at the end of Chapter 3?

4. According to Grossman, why do young people idolize entertainment figures more than police and politicians?

5. What are the defining characteristics of a natural warrior?

6. What is the Weinberger Doctrine?

7. What are the three categories of atrocity as delineated in Chapter 1?

8. Describe the strange dichotomy between nudity and killing in Western culture?

9. Why was combat in Vietnam particularly dirty, as described in Chapter 2?

10. What factors traditionally assist in rationalization and acceptance after combat?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the first sections of ON KILLING, Dave Grossman discusses how a myriad of causes are often cited for causing psychiatric casualties in combat. He goes through them an refutes all by the trauma of killing. Write a three part essay in which you discuss the argument for and against several of these potential causes. What effect does each cause have on a soldier in combat? How has this manifested itself in the field? What argument does Grossman use to refute the assertion that it is the primary cause of psychiatric casualties?

Part 1) Exhaustion.

Part 2) Fear.

Part 3) Hate.

Essay Topic 2

Much of the last part of ON KILLING deals with comparing the way the military conditions soldiers and media conditions young people in America. Write an essay charting and analyzing this comparison. What are the means of traditional and conditioning in either arena? How do the authorities of the military training compare to those that young people in America listen to? What finer points does military training place on conditioning that the media in civilian life does not?

Essay Topic 3

Near the end of the book, Grossman illustrates the hardship faced by Vietnam veterans with a hypothetical return home from the war. Write an essay analyzing this hypothetical. Which types of soldiers are represented in the scenario, and what other war veterans are they compared to? How are these two wars different from one another? Why is the Vietnam experience so much more conducive to PTSD?

(see the answer keys)

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