[Vision2020] Support for veterans

[Paul Rumelhart]

Chasuk wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 8:16 PM, J Ford <privatejf32 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> We should be supporting them, not putting them down because they chose to serve their country
>>     
>
> Dave wasn't putting anyone down.  He was merely observing that the
> feeling of guilt generated by following unlawful orders may contribute
> to PTSD.  There is nothing accusatory in that observation, nor
> especially remarkable.  No psychology degree required.  If you kill
> somebody, even lawfully, the feeling of guilt can drive you crazy.
> Cops get PTSD all of the time, for lawfully killing people in the line
> of duty, even when it saved lives.
>   

I' agree fully here.  People have an instinctual reluctance to kill 
other people.  Half of military training is designed to get past this 
one basic fact.  Drill discipline into others until they will react 
without thinking of the consequences, at the subconscious level.  
Dehumanize the enemy.  It's harder to kill someone you can empathize 
with.   Obscure the acts with euphemisms.  You don't kill individuals, 
you "waste" targets.  The whole hierarchical system is meant to defuse 
blame.  You're not killing an individual personally, the whole military 
system is as a unit.  Esprit de corps and other team-oriented ideas are 
meant to assuage an individual's guilt.  You wear a uniform more as a 
psychological aid than as a marker of who is on what side.

It has to be done this way, or it would be ineffective.  That's why war 
should be  a *last* resort.  Not a power grab.  However, when you need 
to go to war you had better be prepared to do it right.

> "I was just following orders" does not justify committing a crime.
> The My Lai Massacre and, earlier, the Nuremberg Trials proved that.
> It is embedded in the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions.  Every soldier,
> sailor, airman, or marine has a moral duty to disobey an unlawful
> order.  Further, it happens every day.  Sometimes, it takes the form
> of desertion.    Sometimes, it involves saying "no" and facing the
> consequences.  Sometimes,  it takes the form of fragging.  There were
> 230 documented cases of fragging during the Vietnam war, and 1,400
> others probable, but unproven.
>
> Counterpunch provides an informative overview of the duty to disobey
> all unlawful orders question:
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/mosqueda02272003.html
>
> I spent 10 years in the USAF, and my annual training included this
> information.    Would I say "no" to a Commanding Officer?  Of course,
> if he had ordered me to commit a heinous crime.  If that "no" required
> a more forceful expression, then I would exercise that option, too.
> Becoming a fugitive and running for the rest of my life would be
> automatic, let's say, if I had been order to execute prisoners.  I
> have far more respect for a soldier who obeys the Law of Armed
> Conflict (where the distinction between lawful and unlawful orders are
> delineated, and which comprised my annual training) then I do for a
> soldier who bloodies his hands using the excuse "I was just following
> orders."
>   

When I was at the Naval Academy, we had a one-week course one summer on 
that exact topic, which sounds similar to your annual training course.  
We viewed some of the tapes of the Nuremberg trials, we discussed My Lai 
and what led up to it.  We went over the Geneva Convention in 
particular.  It was explained to us in excruciating detail that unlawful 
orders were to be ignored.

Paul