Fear and Pride Among Fighter Pilots: Combat Emotions During a Bombing Campaign

• Author: Larry D. Browning,Paal Kristian Fredriksen,Christian Moldjord
• Published date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20986925
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X20986925

Armed Forces & Society

2022, Vol. 48(3) 522 –541

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X20986925

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Article

Original Manuscript

Fear and Pride Among

Fighter Pilots: Combat

Emotions During a

Bombing Campaign

Christian Moldjord

1

, Paal Kristian Fredriksen

1

,

and Larry D. Browning

2,3

Abstract

This article analyzes the combat emotions of Royal Norwegian Air Force Fighter

pilots (hereafter RNoAF) during their bombing campaign over Libya in 2011. Using

grounded theory in our interviews with them, we identified 12 categories of their

emotions and behaviors, with variations in pride and fear emerging as the two key

themes. We show how those two emotions thread through the literature of

emotions in combat, and show further how our data, and the resulting matrix from

an analysis of it, both apply to and extend that literature. We also show how the high

and low variations of pride and fear interact to both support and counter each other.

Our findings thus make an important contribution to the combat emotions literature

on the action and behavior of fighter pilots.

Keywords

military fighter pilots, fear, pride, self-esteem, Libyan war, grounded theory, combat

emotions

1

Norwegian Defense University College/Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy, Trondheim, Norway

2

Department of Communication Studies, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas

at Austin, TX, USA

3

Nord University Business School, Nord University, Bodo, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Christian Moldjord, Norwegian Defense University College/Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy,

Luftkrigsskolen, Persauneveien 61, 7045 Trondheim, Norway.

Email: cmoldjord@fhs.mil.no

Moldjord et al. 523

Original Manuscript

Fear and Pride Among

Fighter Pilots: Combat

Emotions During a

Bombing Campaign

Christian Moldjord

1

, Paal Kristian Fredriksen

1

,

and Larry D. Browning

2,3

Abstract

This article analyzes the combat emotions of Royal Norwegian Air Force Fighter

pilots (hereafter RNoAF) during their bombing campaign over Libya in 2011. Using

grounded theory in our interviews with them, we identified 12 categories of their

emotions and behaviors, with variations in pride and fear emerging as the two key

themes. We show how those two emotions thread through the literature of

emotions in combat, and show further how our data, and the resulting matrix from

an analysis of it, both apply to and extend that literature. We also show how the high

and low variations of pride and fear interact to both support and counter each other.

Our findings thus make an important contribution to the combat emotions literature

on the action and behavior of fighter pilots.

Keywords

military fighter pilots, fear, pride, self-esteem, Libyan war, grounded theory, combat

emotions

1

Norwegian Defense University College/Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy, Trondheim, Norway

2

Department of Communication Studies, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas

at Austin, TX, USA

3

Nord University Business School, Nord University, Bodo, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Christian Moldjord, Norwegian Defense University College/Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy,

Luftkrigsskolen, Persauneveien 61, 7045 Trondheim, Norway.

Email: cmoldjord@fhs.mil.no

The purpose of this article is to identify and distinguish the complex emotions of

combat fighter pilots. We employ the emotions in combat literature to frame our data

analysis and interpretation. Fighter pilots are commonly thought to be less

emotional, less introspective, and less guilt-ridden about their actions postcombat

than ground soldiers (Bourke, 2000; Grossman, 1995; McManners, 1993).

A primary reason for this stereotype is the lack of empirical studies of them. With

few exceptions (Spang, 1971), the fighter pilots literature lacks self-reports that offer

a candid picture of their emotions both during and after combat. This article

redresses that lack.

Over several weeks, we interviewed two dozen Norwegian fighter pilots who had

participated in the United Nations–authorized bombing campaign in Libya in 2011.

Our goal was to capture and understand their response to combat stress and events.

We believe the current portrait of fighter pilots in the combat literature is over-

simple, fostering a skewed picture of their actual working conditions, especially the

stress and moral challenges they face before, during, and after war. Presumably,

better insight into the combat mind of pilots will facilitate better military leadership

in future wars.

Introduction

The emotions in combat literature t hat prefaces this research inclu de the major

themes of fright, defined as “confronting an immediate, concrete, and threatening

physical danger,” and pride, defined as enhancing “one’s ego-identity by taking

credit for a valued achievement, one’s own or that of a person or group with which

one identifies” (Lazarus, 2001). The themes of fear and pride account for the

analysis and applications produced in this article.

Combatants’ emotions are key because those who have gone to war share a

unique out-group identity. Unlike most of us, they have faced the very real possi-

bility of killing or being killed. Killing is an irrevocable act that “can result in

significant psychological changes” (Castro et al., 2015). The moral emotions liter-

ature that addresses the experiences and regrets of killing applies to our data

because our interviews reveal as prominent themes both doubt and pangs of con-

science. Additionally, the moral emotions literature lets us distinguish between our

own findings on emotions and the research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Moral emotions are categorically distinct from PTSD; PTSD carries symptoms of

trauma such as “depression, anxiety, and substance abuse” (Erbes et al., 2 008),

whereas moral emotions do not. The res earch on moral emotions addresses the

assessments that people made, toward both themselves and others, regarding their

regret or contentment for what they encountered in combat. We found no evidence

of PTSD trauma in our pilot interviews, but we did hear plenty of judgments about

right and wrong in their war experiences. The emotions of combat literature accords

with our own fear-and-pride model—namely, moral emotions can be positive or

negative. Besides guilt and shame, they can also include “compassion, elevation,

2Armed Forces & Society XX(X)