Word: combat
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...possible answers have been suggested. One is that males are necessary to combat disease: without sexual reproduction, a clonal species is vulnerable to increasing parasitic attack. The other theory holds that sex helps purge the species of genetic mutations by shuffling the genes in each generation...
...Intimate History of Killing, Joanna Bourke asserts that when ordinary men and women are freed from conventional social constraints, they find intense pleasure in the act of killing and that the structure of war allows for primal joy and even erotic satisfaction in intimate combat. Although Bourke writes lucidly and engagingly and argues with evident conviction, she comes up short on the evidence that would be necessary to support her daring claims...
Many of Bourke's statements are extreme: "For men, combat was the male equivalent of childbirth ...the experience seemed to resemble spiritual enlightenment or sexual eroticism: indeed, slaughter could be likened to an orgasmic, charismatic experience." She supports her position with letters, memoirs, reports and diaries from Australian, American and British soldiers documenting their experiences in both World Wars and Vietnam...
...Killing itself could be seen as an act of carnival: combat gear, painted faces, and the endless refrain that men had turned into 'animals' were the martial equivalent of the carnival mask." Such radical interpretations might fit certain situations and the experiences of individual soldiers, but when Bourke tries to generalize, her argument collapses. The quotations she cites often seem to be taken out of context and deformed by her interpretations...
Kozol received a Purple Heart after being injured, and was awarded a Silver Star for his bravery in combat...