Hello everyone,

I was just watching this video where veterans discuss their first kill. It was really profound, but by the end it struck me that this idea that a warrior should be reluctant to do the thing they were trained to do has to be a modern or at least recent concept. Obviously there are plenty of legends about martial prowess (eg the Iliad) , but modern war myths are typically about surviving against the odds (eg Black Hawk Down) or the psychological horrors of war (eg Full Metal Jacket).

So my question is two fold: 1) Is this exclusively an American or "Western" phenomenon 2) When did this transition come about?