It's a throw away comment, but - you teach young men to kill, give them the tools and the motivation, psyche them up, like a tightly wound spring, then put them in a place where you need confirmation of the enemy before you can shoot him... sorry and all that, but what do you expect from young men trained to kill?
I know there's orders and discipline and all of that good stuff (it's ok to kill when you have 'orders'), but seriously, did anyone expect at least a small percentage of servicemen to only be all like 'milk and cookies, ma' and not the killers they've been indoctrinated to be?
As I said, it's a throw away comment, and is not representative of many military personnel, but this should come as no surprise, and when you consider some of the video footage floating about and commentary by former servicemen, it's seems easy to understand why iraqi or afghan lives are sometimes regarded as cheap.
I don't care what you say, for most people, killing another human being is not something they are prepared or willing to do, except perhaps under the most extreme personal circumstances. That's why you have to instil discipline in to your troops, so they'll obey orders and kill when told to - small wonder that kind of re-education creates more than it bargained for in some individuals.
No mistake about it, though the army does many other things besides, the front line infantryman is a tool to kill other human beings, just like the weapon he carries, morality aside, that's his job when ordered, end of story.
Not digging at any of you squaddie folks, it's just how I see it; perhaps my 'orly' sentiment is more directed at the false sense of shock in the media in cases like these - shock from a pack of hyenas in the press salivating over a story, be it about something like this, or the grandstanding of 'invasion iraq'. The only difference is the spin and what it means to us/them at the time.
