Reply #9: "Stand-off" weaponry started with the bow-and-arrow. [View All]

[TahitiNut]

Humanity (or an approximation thereof) has always sought ways to kill that permitted the killer to avoid a confrontation with what might offend his/her "sensibilities."

It is far easier to indoctrinate the average human in the ways of killing when the indoctrinated could avoid both confronting the results and exposing his/her own butt. The Air Farce has always attracted the "I'm a mini-god" types ... launching his god-like wrath on the ground-crawlers while being physically and mentally "above it all." It's no accident that it's the service that attracts the (Old Testament) 'Evangelicals' and putrid types like Duhbya.

It takes far more effort to excise all the vestiges of empathy and compassion from a normal human being in order to convert them into a ground-pounder (infantry). In a (self-selecting) "professional" military, those relatively few without such attributes find a 'home.'

Viet Nam veteran ... been there, seen it.