The IHT has a rather gruesome report on how some soldiers were prepared for managing risks in Iraq:

At one military course, an advanced trauma treatment program he had taken before deploying, he said the instructors gave each corpsman a live pig.

“The idea is to work with live tissue,” he said. “You get a pig and you keep it alive. And every time I did something to help him, they would wound him again. So you see what shock does, and what happens when more wounds are received by a wounded creature.”

“My pig?” he said. “They shot him twice in the face with a 9 millimeter pistol, and then six times with an AK-47 and then twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. And then he was set on fire.”

“I kept him alive for 15 hours,” Kirby said. “That was my pig.”

“That was my pig,” he said.

Over the years, people in information security have always debated whether it is better to hire someone who has cracked systems or someone who could, but never would. Some say it is the same as deciding whether to hire policemen who have prior criminal records, or hiring surgeons who have intentionally harmed their patients. This story, by way of harsh example, certainly touches a nerve in that debate.