Spiritual Views on Violence and Killing

I was speaking with a friend the other day about some of my interests, things I am curious to pursue as careers in my future, namely tactical medicine (SWAT Medic) or the military.
We had, earlier in the same conversation, been speaking about our spiritual beliefs, and the idea of “life vs. death” (Life, in this context, being walking a road in harmony with the infinite, and Death being willingly walking a road out of harmony), and she asked me a rather poignant question, I didn’t really have an answer for – “Is a dedication to violence, conducive to ‘life’”?
(Not that I wish to pursue either of those things simply to be violent, and I know there is more to it than that – but I would be a fool, a damned fool, to pretend that the things I want to pursue don’t involve force.)

Personally, I believe violence can be necessary and in harmony – But I had no really good way to explain, even to myself, why I feel that some violence, some killing, doesn’t take someone out of harmony.
So, I’ve been thinking about it – a lot – in recent days.

I believe in the necessity of violence and killing. I believe that someone who violates the social contract (a sort of harmony) by deciding to pursue gains through unprovoked violence has forfeited their physical life should it be necessary to take it in order to stop their violence. I also believe that this is not so much a judgment, merely a part of survival and that survival can be in harmony. Violence happens every day in the natural world, and it is arrogant to believe that man is that much above any other animal.
Also, the death of someone who uses violence for criminal pursuits is a release of energy from the physical shell, a separating of the negative and temporal with the pure, to have another chance at life (whether you believe in reincarnation or not, physical death is not the end of life. No energy every truly ceases to exist, it just changes form).

But what about making a career out of being one of the people who stands on the line between everyday life, people and society, and the forces of violence for pleasure or gain?
It is hard to articulate, but I believe that is also necessary. Everyone has a calling in life, everyone has a role to play in the natural order. I think it is necessary that there be some people, who possess strong dualistic characteristics (what psychologists the Survivor Personality) and an emotional and moral constitution for witnessing and delivering violence and death – to stand the line between those who don’t, and those who would deliver cruelty, and seek to bring chaos to everything.
For those people I don’t think a dedication to that is counter-productive to a dedication to “life”. They are, simply, different – Their role in the order of all things is different and they were built different, to operate on a level of chaos and destruction when necessary and to return again, un-tainted, when their work is no longer needed.
I actually wrote a prayer awhile back, a battle prayer, that says this fairly succinctly I think:
Bless me,
That I may have Fluidity in Violence,
and Ferocity of Strength
That I may become as Death
and Return Again.

(Note – This is not to say I am one of those people. I don’t know. Being certain I am, or am not, and the subsequent decisions from those certainties, is part of my journey, as yet un-made. I simply wanted to use this blog to at least begin codifying my thoughts on this particular issue, and to share them with others.)