Sorry that I’m so late!
I know a guy who was in the Army, and he strongly encourages you to do a lot of research, which you seem to already be doing (I wish you the best of luck!)
From my own experience with this guy, on your question about language and cold-blooded killers:
- You can avoid cursing, but soldiers will insult and roast each other often, as well as have a sense of dark humor and get up to a bunch of ridiculous pranks. Soldiers do curse, but i think that you can, if unavoidable, do something i see in Charles Dickens’s books, where a character will sometimes say something along the lines of “By G–” over actually saying the Lord’s name in vain and that kind of thing. It’s discreet enough that younger readers don’t know and older readers understand but will not be disturbed. (but I’d recommend use this rarely)
- I don’t know what themes you are trying to express in your story, but i would say that in regards to cold-blooded killers, soldiers can be:
- All about the violence, happy to kill the enemy
- Feel nothing either way because they’re desensitized
- Saddened they have to take lives, but it’s not going to mess them up, and they understand they have no choice
- Soldiers won’t be too upset or disturbed by killing, as their training revolves around a lot of desensitizing and reenacting the scenarios they may end up in, as well as seeing photos and watching videos of real-life injuries and deaths sustained in war. Before they even are deployed, they have to be prepared to:
- see their best freinds die in front of them in greusome ways and still keep going without panicking
- willingly let a freind die if it’ll cost the lives of everyone else to try and save them. (great example of this in the movie Master and Commander)
- be quick and decisive, as well as brutal, for their survival and for their freind’s survival.
- Kill at a moment’s notice.
- This dosen’t mean a soldier can still care and have a conscience about those that die, but it means he will be VERY familiar with death before he’s even done with training, so it will not bother him in the same way it might a civilian.
- A group of soldiers will share a really close bond with each other, they form a tight-knit community and work as one. if you aren’t working with your friends (sleeping on the job purposely) you may end up getting chased by a guy in a gasmask wielding a shovel after waking up with pinecones on you in a pattern. but they take care of each other, and help support each other like a large gaggle of brothers, regardless of their different walks of life. I’m certain you know this, but soldiers mess with each other so much it’s hilarious.
- Further on Dark humor: Soldiers use sarcastic/dark humor, a lot. It’s partly a coping mechanism because of the horrors they go through. You don’t have to include it a lot, but it does happen.
I really hope this help you!
We crazy people are the normal ones.
