My initial reaction is to say "the war" but I now know that does not work either.
Its amazing what our minds do to "protect" us. In my case, I clearly remembered all the hard targets(vehicles) I personally took out.
I remembered all the times when the vastness of the desert would be broken up by a solitary corpse here or there.
I still remember the truly indescribable carnage of "The Highway of Death".
Pictures alone do not do it justice. I do not flash on it when I see images of it. No, once you have been(at least for me) to a place where many died and the dead still lay, well, I just know now when I go to a place (without the bodies being there) if such has happened there.
Also, very tellingly, I remember, the sadness mixed with fear when we rode by the 2 mechs from my regiment that had been destroyed with all their crews aboard by our own Apache gunships*. I had trained with some of those men and others on my side had killed them. That was the only time I cried during the war, and I am sure I was not alone in this.
However, sometime in late 91, I "forgot" actions of my own. That is until I was watching footage from the then "new war" in Iraq. It showed a gunner (like I had been) shooting Iraqi soldiers as his mech attacked their position at night and the Iraqis either died before they could leave their trench or were mowed down as they ran for their lives. In one of the attacks we see the gunner is so proud he gets every single one. I remember thinking to myself that I did something like that too. That was the first time I could remember ever thinking that.
Then as I watched more, the recognition really hit me and not just in a thinking way, BUT IN A FEELING WAY it was like a bolt of lightning!
I too had done that to other people!
After that my migraines were just terrible for the longest time and I am certain that repressing memories is what lead to much of the mental strain I and others suffer through.
And for the record, I am not talking about just soldiers, but everybody, whether it be a rape, a car accident, or anything else.
But for me it was those images of men lit up by thermal sights then suddenly dropping as they were hit by either cannon fire or machine gun fire. Those images had left my mind for 12 years. Christ, for 12 years I had even forgotten firing our coaxial machine gun at all!
I know now that not remembering actually shooting people was the way my mind dealt with the unacceptable reality of killing people.
The fact is on the deepest of levels, I feel, think, whatever you want to call it. I know that inside me is a rejection of violence.
I choose to see it as undeniable truth for me now.
That simply, killing is wrong. And as long as I remember that, I will not do it again!
But as for the images of people being killed.
I am of two minds on that, almost each equally.
I think that early exposure to images of violence makes certain people(such as myself) more likely to commit these acts, in one form another, when we are older.
But that there are also a lot of people that want to ignore such "realities" without actually addressing any of the root causes of the violence they depict.
*=for years this act of "fraticide" from the Gulf War was kept quiet. Until, of course, much worse incidents happened in Iraq2 & Afghanistan.
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there?
) but saw MUCH MORE than I had bargained for. 
