Who joins the US Military?

[Makalakumu]

Personal opinion here: and I admit that it reduces my pressure to quote sources. The advantage and the folly of historical study is that it allows one to assess all the relevant data and accounts at leisure. There are no constraints of time, inadequate discovery, the blinders of the historical figure's presuppositions, or the uncertainty of the outcome. It may allow us to see the potential unfolding of events in ways that were unlikely to be seen by those in the middle of the events. It also puts us at risk of making judgments about historical figures and events based upon our own unrealized blinders and "more perfect" knowledge. Clearly, history shows the need for a citizenry to be vigilant and to question it's leadership. And inquiry into events such as you have described are worthy of such questioning. However; when I decided to join the navy, I did not use Watergate, or the riots in Chicago at the democratic national convention as a lens to evaluate whether my choice was morally sound. If we fail to serve because poor leaders have made bad decisions, we will never have a working republic. Just as these events see the light of day because the first amendment is a sound principle, active involvement by honest and well meaning people is our best defense against those who would act in ways that are not moral or just or legal. There must always be someone on the inside who can expose corruption or incompetence. It will never be perfect and in 100yrs they will probably argue about different events. Our country will still be successful if they are still able to argue in 100 years.

If you don't mind me asking a personal question, how did you evaluate your choice?

 

[DennisBreene]

Fair question. As a younger man, I looked at my options for paying for my medical education, my role as a military physician (both as a non-combatant and as to the risks of combat), my perceptions of the military (I was a child of the Vietnam war era and I also had many people in my life who had been in the military with varying perspectives) and fairly silly minor concerns such as which uniform looked better. My world view was not naïve, but it was not informed by events of the subsequent 37 years either. I am still not naïve and I am still happy I made the choice I made. I feel I understand the military much more than I would if I had not entered. I strongly favor an all volunteer force. I strongly favor an educated and professional military that can counterbalance errant civilian oversight. I recognize the inevitable conflicts that arise over how and when to use force. And I am probably more optimistic than you that our system puts more value and trust in open debate and disclosure to mitigate tendencies to act in ways that are not supported by our public than most give it credit for. I only have one dog in this fight, and that is to remind others that the soldier on the ground is not the enemy or the bad guy. And to be candid, I do not wish to imply that you are in any way espousing that view. I do believe that the military is necessary and that discussions serve us better when they expose issues that need attention rather than appearing to be a blanket condemnation.

 

[Makalakumu]

I only have one dog in this fight, and that is to remind others that the soldier on the ground is not the enemy or the bad guy. And to be candid, I do not wish to imply that you are in any way espousing that view.

I think words like "enemy" and "bad guy" are going to cloud the point I want to make in this thread, but that is not the case. Clearly, I think there are good people who serve. There are people I care about. There are people who I respect in the armed forces. The only point I want to make, and this point is not popular, is that people who join are responsible for the results of their actions and share some moral responsibility for the results of the system as a whole. This reminder makes a lot of people uncomfortable, because it means that now all of the orders people are given within the hierarchy are somewhat reflective on the character of the individual who follows them. When people volunteer to serve, they are volunteering to follow the people at the top of the hierarchy who are making the decisions, moral or immoral. As uncomfortable as this point is now, I believe that we will have a better, more just, and more restrained military in the future if we have this discussion with our young men now.

In essence, I would like to see more of this.

 

[Tgace]

And as an American citizen you are responsible for electing the politicians that decide to send guys (and girls) like us to meet our enemies....where's your moral obligation? Service people are at least willing to do more than lip service in regards to serving their countrymen.

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[Makalakumu]

And as an American citizen you are responsible for electing the politicians that decide to send guys (and girls) like us to meet our enemies....where's your moral obligation? Service people are at least willing to do more than lip service in regards to serving their countrymen.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk 2

Good point. However, there is a difference because a citizen is made such when they are born. They are not given the choice, unlike people who join the military, they are claimed. This, IMO, reduces the moral culpability for bad decisions made by the leadership in a representative republic, but doesn't erase it. The citizens of the US have, to a large extent, ignored what is happening overseas. You can google images of who is actually being killed, how they are being killed, and read the reactions of those on the other end of the foreign policy if you want. That is all available in seconds, but Americans aren't interested in that. Most people are emotionally and ideologically driven and those pieces of data would create quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. Yet, ideally, all Americans share the blame for the various actions committed abroad to some degree.

That said, I don't think soldiers are victims of this system as is so often portrayed by people who would claim that the military is civilian led and that they have no choice whether to follow orders. In an all volunteer force, if a person chooses to join an organization that has bad civilian leadership, who is chosen by an unresponsive and uninformed electorate, that person gets a greater share of the moral responsibility.

So, how do you reduce your share of responsibility?

If you want to remain consistent to some basic moral principles, reducing your share might means that you don't participate. For example, perhaps you might forgo military service until such a time that the foreign policy changes. Reducing your share might also mean that you might have to organize and work against the foreign policy politically. Ultimately, reducing your share of the responsibility might mean that you must completely withdraw from the political system and leave the geographic confines of the tax farm upon which you were born. That choice still remains open, although it is difficult.

 

[billc]

that they have no choice whether to follow orders.

As long as the order is lawful they are required to follow it...if it is an unlawful order they are obligated to not follow it and report it up their chain of command. Too many people who haven't served don't get that point about the military, or at least the United States military. What I want to know is how an individual, such as yourself, knows exactly what the facts are on the ground where you can make the moral judgments about the military that you do with such certainty?

The U.S. military and it's allies in Britain...do not willfully murder civillians. They go out of their way to not kill civilians, often times making it more dangerous for themselves as they fight the enemy. Civilians in a war are going to get killed no matter how careful our military is...they are after all in the middle of a fight between two armed parties...one party, the radical islamists do not care about the casualties they create...so yes...civilians will suffer. It is better that our guys are doing the fighting because our military actually has a tradition and history of not killing civilians as a matter of policy...while other nations have no such concern...

Ask guys who actually have been fighting in Iraq, and Afghanistan...see what the guys on the ground, pulling the triggers have to say about your views of what they are doing over there and how they are doing it...

 

[Tgace]

 

[Tgace]

Who joins the US Military?

ROCK STARS!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/magazine/evermans-war.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

He had three drill sergeants, two of whom were sadists. Thank God it was the easygoing one who saw it. He was reading a magazine, when he slowly looked up and stared at Everman. Then the sergeant walked over, pointing to a page in the magazine. “Is this you?” It was a photo of the biggest band in the world, Nirvana. Kurt Cobain had just killed himself, and this was a story about his suicide. Next to Cobain was the band’s onetime second guitarist. A guy with long, strawberry blond curls. “Is this you?”
Everman exhaled. “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”