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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: Sympathy for troubled soldiers? Don't think so.
Lyda*Rose

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In this broken world people get...broken. Most of us one way or another, by choices we make and those others make. I pray and sympathize with the lot. Even with a soldier. Even with someone expressing judgemental beliefs like no prophet's.

[ 15. November 2013, 14:30: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]

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iamchristianhearmeroar
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
One does not have to reach far in a Western Country to put one's hand on a product of injustice. Sure, some people are more culpable than others, but there is really no escape from participating in injustice.

So we have no ground to judge most soldiers—we're as invested as they are in the injustices carried out by military intervention. Which is why, in the spirit of communal repentance and healing, they do deserve support and sympathy.

I guess to my mind there are several things going on here, which are not necessarily related.

I totally agree that in the civilised world almost without exception we own products of injustice and benefit from injustice generally. But I don't see how the issue of, say, DRC coltan in our smartphones or clothes produced in Bangladeshi sweatshops relates specifically to our own armed forces. The two seem separate to me.

Perhaps if you view the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan as somehow for our own gain in the West - and that is certainly one view - then such military intervention might be a subset of this benefiting from global injustice. But then I wonder why our armed forces are singled out for support and sympathy, and those poor sods who just happen to live in countries with oil are not, even though they may be killed, maimed, widowed, orphaned etc.

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Zach82
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quote:
In this broken world people get...broken. Most of us one way or another, by choices we make and those others make. I pray and sympathize with the lot. Even with a soldier. Even with someone expressing judgemental beliefs like no prophet's.
My first response is to repent. If I didn't eat lettuce during the winter, I would have used less oil, which means there would have been that much less reason for the US to support Saudi Arabia's (and Nigeria's, and Russia's...) atrocities against its people.

Edit: crossposted

[ 15. November 2013, 14:34: Message edited by: Zach82 ]

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Zach82
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quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
One does not have to reach far in a Western Country to put one's hand on a product of injustice. Sure, some people are more culpable than others, but there is really no escape from participating in injustice.

So we have no ground to judge most soldiers—we're as invested as they are in the injustices carried out by military intervention. Which is why, in the spirit of communal repentance and healing, they do deserve support and sympathy.

I guess to my mind there are several things going on here, which are not necessarily related.

I totally agree that in the civilised world almost without exception we own products of injustice and benefit from injustice generally. But I don't see how the issue of, say, DRC coltan in our smartphones or clothes produced in Bangladeshi sweatshops relates specifically to our own armed forces. The two seem separate to me.

Perhaps if you view the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan as somehow for our own gain in the West - and that is certainly one view - then such military intervention might be a subset of this benefiting from global injustice. But then I wonder why our armed forces are singled out for support and sympathy, and those poor sods who just happen to live in countries with oil are not, even though they may be killed, maimed, widowed, orphaned etc.

I'm not saying they deserve more support or sympathy that those killed or maimed.

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iamchristianhearmeroar
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OK, I guess the question that also arises is why focus on our own armed forces rather than armed forces generally. I don't think you've made that distinction explicitly, but almost all of the foregoing discussion by others has been about how we treat our own military who are/aren't suffering from PTSD.

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Zach82
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quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
OK, I guess the question that also arises is why focus on our own armed forces rather than armed forces generally. I don't think you've made that distinction explicitly, but almost all of the foregoing discussion by others has been about how we treat our own military who are/aren't suffering from PTSD.

I haven't said we need to focus on our own armed forces either. I don't think national boundaries have any meaning in the light of charity, though it might also be the case the charity is an imposition on other nations. The destruction of African textiles production by dumping tons and tons of cast off western clothing on the market springs to mind.

On the other hand, I don't rule out that one side in a war might be morally justified. Like any other issue, there are plenty of complicating circumstances.

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Ricardus
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Of course it's possible we're all misunderstanding no_prophet. Maybe he means that as PTSD is part of the job, proper after-care should be provided by the army. There should be no need for the British Legion or Help for Heroes because everything veterans need in consequence of their experiences should already have been provided by the Ministry of Defence.

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Zach82
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It does make me wonder if the same argument applies in all cases. If an industrial worker is injured by the machinery in his factory, does he get sympathy even through "he knew what he was getting in to?"
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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It does make me wonder if the same argument applies in all cases. If an industrial worker is injured by the machinery in his factory, does he get sympathy even through "he knew what he was getting in to?"

False equivalence. If a factory worker is injured by the machinery then it's because either the machine or the worker did something they weren't supposed to do. The evils of war are a normal and expected part of the job of being a soldier.

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Zach82
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It does make me wonder if the same argument applies in all cases. If an industrial worker is injured by the machinery in his factory, does he get sympathy even through "he knew what he was getting in to?"

False equivalence. If a factory worker is injured by the machinery then it's because either the machine or the worker did something they weren't supposed to do. The evils of war are a normal and expected part of the job of being a soldier.
Good point. But it seems to me that no matter how careful the workers are, and no matter how concerned the factory managers are, people still stand the possibility of getting hurt, and the workers know that, or at least ought to know that. The certainty of a soldier getting hurt in war is certainly much higher, but it seems more a difference of degree than kind.

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Martin60
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None of us knows what we're getting in to. Just like Jesus.

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Love wins

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It does make me wonder if the same argument applies in all cases. If an industrial worker is injured by the machinery in his factory, does he get sympathy even through "he knew what he was getting in to?"

False equivalence. If a factory worker is injured by the machinery then it's because either the machine or the worker did something they weren't supposed to do. The evils of war are a normal and expected part of the job of being a soldier.
Good point. But it seems to me that no matter how careful the workers are, and no matter how concerned the factory managers are, people still stand the possibility of getting hurt, and the workers know that, or at least ought to know that. The certainty of a soldier getting hurt in war is certainly much higher, but it seems more a difference of degree than kind.
I think there are a lot of things that you can't possibly know ahead of time what they'll be like. When people talk about waiting until they're "ready" to have children, I secretly laugh, because no one can be prepared for being a parent, and there's no way to ever tell anyone what to expect. I imagine the same is true of being on the front lines of war-- that no amount of training could prepare you for what you're about to see, and there's no way to predict who will be able to emotionally and psychologically survive that trauma and who won't.

I also think that with a job that entails apprenticeship you have a natural expectation that the employer will provide adequate on the job training for whatever you're likely to encounter. If you take a job in a factory where they promise to train you in how to use unfamiliar equipment, you expect them to train you how to do so safely, and to have taken appropriate precautions to ensure your safety. The military is precisely this sort of apprenticeship, where you of necessity have to come in w/o prior knowledge, and reasonably expect your training to be sufficient to enable you to undertake your job safely. So the fact that this is so often not the case is the fault of the employer (military) rather than the employee.

Finally, it strikes me that many of us find ourselves in careers or life situations that weren't what we expected, but the difference is, for most other careers there's a much easier "out" when that happens. I trained for 3 years as an MFT, only to find myself absolutely miserable when I began my practice, feeling completely unsuited in many ways for the work. That sucked. But at least I was able to rather quickly and easily leave that line of work, and fortunately able to use my education in related work that was much more satisfying. Making that sort of transition if you find yourself unsuited for military life is going to be far more complicated and time-consuming-- time in which great harm can be done.

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Penny S
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Just another pacifist clocking in to say I have every sympathy with the PTSD victims, and the amputees, and the other wounded, and the families of the dead.
Have you noticed that the recruitment ads generally do not echo Spike Milligan by ending - and kill people?
I have a friend who is of the opinion that international issues should be settled in the idealised Bronze Age way - with the leaders in single combat in front of the troops. Since that doesn't happen, we have a duty to the damaged, however damaged, which successive governments since that of Elizabeth I have signally failed to do. (Think Chas II did a bit.)
And that duty also applies to the support of those affected by the presence of a family member who has been damaged.
(I know someone, born after the war, who I believe is still having to deal with the problems his father brought home from Bomber Command. A bit Biblical, that, but no further generations will be involved.)

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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Good point. But it seems to me that no matter how careful the workers are, and no matter how concerned the factory managers are, people still stand the possibility of getting hurt, and the workers know that, or at least ought to know that. The certainty of a soldier getting hurt in war is certainly much higher, but it seems more a difference of degree than kind.

There is certainly a difference in degree, but I maintain that there is also a difference in kind between "something may go wrong resulting in you being injured" and "even if nothing goes wrong you may be injured".

I was thinking a better comparison might be to a coal miner getting the black lung, but even then that's an unintended (albeit virtually inevitable) side effect of the job rather than an integral part of it. Other than the emergency services and some sportsmen (notably boxers) I can't think of too many jobs that have, as a known and integral part of the job requirement, something likely to cause severe physical or mental trauma.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

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Except that your other examples, like firefighter and surgeon, provide something positive. Where the job is to help. The soldier isn't a helper.

quote:
Gwynne Dyer, in "War" (1985), a book worth reading and a television series worth watching these nearly 20 years later....
The U.S. Army concluded during World War II that almost every soldier, if he escaped death or wounds, would break down after two hundred to two hundred and forty “combat days”.... The reason that only about one-sixth of the casualties were psychiatric was that most combat troops did not survive long enough to go to pieces.

The pattern was universal, in all units of every nationality on all fronts. After the first few days of combat, in which the members of a fresh unit would show signs of constant fear and apprehension, they would learn to distinguish the truly dangerous phenomena of combat from the merely frightening, and their confidence and performance steadily improved. After three weeks they were at their peak – and then the long deterioration began.



[ 15. November 2013, 16:19: Message edited by: no prophet ]

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Zach82
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Good point. But it seems to me that no matter how careful the workers are, and no matter how concerned the factory managers are, people still stand the possibility of getting hurt, and the workers know that, or at least ought to know that. The certainty of a soldier getting hurt in war is certainly much higher, but it seems more a difference of degree than kind.

There is certainly a difference in degree, but I maintain that there is also a difference in kind between "something may go wrong resulting in you being injured" and "even if nothing goes wrong you may be injured".

I was thinking a better comparison might be to a coal miner getting the black lung, but even then that's an unintended (albeit virtually inevitable) side effect of the job rather than an integral part of it. Other than the emergency services and some sportsmen (notably boxers) I can't think of too many jobs that have, as a known and integral part of the job requirement, something likely to cause severe physical or mental trauma.

The fact that factory owners move their factories to the third world to avoid the expense of first world safety precautions might indicate how integral the suffering of workers is to the production of mass produced consumer goods. The workers have to be put in danger so that we can enjoy free t-shirts for our charity 5k's.

Which suddenly makes me sound like a communist.

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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Good point. But it seems to me that no matter how careful the workers are, and no matter how concerned the factory managers are, people still stand the possibility of getting hurt, and the workers know that, or at least ought to know that. The certainty of a soldier getting hurt in war is certainly much higher, but it seems more a difference of degree than kind.

There is certainly a difference in degree, but I maintain that there is also a difference in kind between "something may go wrong resulting in you being injured" and "even if nothing goes wrong you may be injured".

I was thinking a better comparison might be to a coal miner getting the black lung, but even then that's an unintended (albeit virtually inevitable) side effect of the job rather than an integral part of it. Other than the emergency services and some sportsmen (notably boxers) I can't think of too many jobs that have, as a known and integral part of the job requirement, something likely to cause severe physical or mental trauma.

The fact that factory owners move their factories to the third world to avoid the expense of first world safety precautions might indicate how integral the suffering of workers is to the production of mass produced consumer goods. The workers have to be put in danger so that we can enjoy free t-shirts for our charity 5k's.

Which suddenly makes me sound like a communist.

Which I think makes the comparison to the military all the more apt. Soldiers have to be put in psychological as well as physical danger so that we can enjoy cheap oil or whatever the latest cause du jour behind any particular war.

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
One does not have to reach far in a Western Country to put one's hand on a product of injustice. ...

Is there some other country, in some other part of the world - apart from the one we've heard of long ago - where this is not equally the case - China? India? Indonesia? Congo formerly Zaire? Equatorial Guinea?

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Doc Tor
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I can't think of too many jobs that have, as a known and integral part of the job requirement, something likely to cause severe physical or mental trauma.

Circus host?

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jbohn
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Except that your other examples, like firefighter and surgeon, provide something positive. Where the job is to help. The soldier isn't a helper.

Bullshit. A friend did multiple tours in Afghanistan as a medic in the 10th Mountain Division. Spent much of his time setting up clinics for the locals. Is that not helping?

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Boogie

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quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Except that your other examples, like firefighter and surgeon, provide something positive. Where the job is to help. The soldier isn't a helper.

Bullshit. A friend did multiple tours in Afghanistan as a medic in the 10th Mountain Division. Spent much of his time setting up clinics for the locals. Is that not helping?
It's the military which has has the most positive input in the Philippines so far.

TBH I think that's what armies should be for - extreme emergencies.

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HCH
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As I look at this thread, I am reminded of a scene in "Henry V" in which the king goes out in disguise to listen to what his soldiers are saying on the eve of battle. He is reminded that when bad things are done in war, it is far more his responsibility than that of the foot soldiers.
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Twilight

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I have great sympathy for all the young men and women who return from war wounded, either physically or mentally. It breaks my heart to see them with their legs missing or shaking from shell shock. I want them to receive all the care we can give them.

At the same time, the whole situation makes me very angry and frustrated. If I didn't know they were already saying it to themselves I would want to shake them and say, "What the hell were you thinking?! Yes, they made the decision to join up while they were very young. Yes they were probably offered free education and all sorts of perks by the recruiters, but they also can't be compared to young people deciding to quit college for a commune or to become prostitutes, because however young and poor they were, they had to know that they would be required to kill people. At some point they must have thought of that and decided it (the travel, the education, the glory) was a fair trade off for killing people.

After the fact, I'll give them all the support I can but before the fact, I'll never understand this decision in today's political climate and will do whatever I can to talk them out of it.

My first husband and I married in 1967 when we were 19. We were as young, dumb and sheltered as kids who grew up middle class in the fifties/sixties could be, but we and our friends still knew that joining the military meant killing other young people we had never met, based on political decisions made by old men we hadn't voted for.

Why are they still going? Why are their parents just as proud as punch over having a boy who is "serving?"

Donovan said it for me in his "Universal Soldier," almost half a century ago.
quote:
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.



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Lamb Chopped
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Can we put it into context?

PTSD has indeed in the criteria for the diagnosis a response to abnormal stress. But what is abnormal stress (horrifying, life threat etc) for the non-soldier is part and parcel of the soldiering trade. I know, for instance the for prison guards that it is considered by Workers' Compensation schemes that being threatened, physically attacked, physically restraining, and using guns is considered an integral part of the job. Thus problems arising from these activities are not considered unusual and compensable. Is it not true that killing, nearly being killed, being beside someone who is killed is integral to the job of soldier?

Life choices, are they not the responsibility of those who make them? I can certainly hear the stories of individuals who have witnessed or being part of causing death and horror. But this does not equate to thinking they did not have the larger part in bringing it upon themselves.

Look, i made the lifr choice to live and serve among inner city immigrants in Nevermind. I did this knowing I was exposing myself to a TB carrying population with psych and behavior issues that almost inevitably lead to PTSD in their long term servants (via violence, stalking, things witnessed, etc.) When i caught the wholly predictable TB, would you have denied me INH on the grounds that I made the choice to expose myself to it? Or deny me PTSD care now on the grounds that it's wholly predictable for missionaries where I am and I knew what would happen going in?

There are some jobs someone's gotta do.

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Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Leaf
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I'm a bit shocked by the OP as well. Who deserves compassion? Everybody, all the time, including people who have done despicable things [which is a potential subset of soldiers]. That doesn't mean despicable things are okay; but it does mean that sympathy is warranted for everybody.

(Just because I may not be capable of it in the moment, when I am hurt or angry, does not make that less true. Sometimes I need to subcontract the ability to have compassion to someone who can do it when I cannot.)

The OP strikes me as immature and black-and-white, as someone noted. "Soldiers are bad people who do bad things" seems to me a very low level of moral reasoning. It isn't childlike clarity but childish blindness about the reality of military service. Soldiers are not bad people who do bad things. They are people WE ASK AND PAY to potentially do bad things FOR US. Can anyone spot the moral culpability here?

Injuries to the psyche happen in a variety of ways. The answer to them is never callous indifference. Callous indifference to human suffering only perpetuates it.

The only thing I wish military people to suffer is total boredom. I hope their combat training is never used, that the equipment is maintained and completely idle, and that the studies of war will eventually fall apart from disuse.

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Jahlove
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quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I think to compare ordinary soldiers to concentration and extermination camp guards is appalling. The 'troubled' soldiers you talk about are ILL. PTSD is a serious mental illness and should be treated appropriately, and istm that these soldiers are not getting the proper treatment. Mental illness is not what soldiers sign up for, no.

I agree with Jade - Apocalypse Now!

nonprophet - people join their national armies for many reasons - conscription, idealism, alternative to no jobs at home etc. Many know the physical risks of combat. I really doubt any are truly prepared for the psychological effects.

Furthermore, once they take the "King's Shilling" (or "President's Dime"), they are bound to obey the orders of their superiors. Right or wrong, no battle, no war was ever won by every soldier sitting round a campfire debating the moral issues of the forthcoming combat and taking a vote on whether they should partake (they may well have done but when the battle horn sounded, they fought). [Roll Eyes]

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LutheranChik
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My partner joined the Air Force out of high school, back during the Vietnam era, because she wanted to get away from her abusive father and gain a university education. She has service-connected PTSD as well as an ileostomy related to the trauma she experienced during her service, and she is 100 percent disabled because of it. You are very, very close to a Hell call from me, No Prophet, for insinuating that my partner somehow deserved any of this. People join the military for all sorts of reasons that may seem like the best option for them at the time. How dare you make judgments about them without knowing their stories. [Mad]

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no prophet's flag is set so...

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Again: people may go into whatever profession. But anyone knows that being in the military means you train to kill and subject yourself to risk of being killed. Is anyone that naive to think it will be something else? Really? Soldiers are victims? Really? Surely people know that during the "war on terror" that they will be going to the middle east to shoot people and get blown up. So don't join up.

I will allow that on an individual level I get the responses. I also get that my take on this causes some or most of you to be offended. I said I blame soldiers for being soldiers and that I lack sympathy for the choice to be one, and that includes the consequences. Are you telling me that they have no responsibility for their choices? Are they merely victims? I have run out of empathy for anyone who does violence. It's misplaced. And I also have had my personal share of violence in my lifetime both to myself and to my own family. Not accepting it. Ever.

If soldiers want or need counselling or medication, they can get it. But am I supposed to feel for them? Support them? Hear about it all the time? No. Not happening. Not interested. Much more interested in people who haven't brought violence on themselves by their life choices. And I give time and money toward that. Not really very interested in warrior-victims.

I remember the Vietnam era, when the things I'm expressing were also expressed. They said "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem". Soldiers are part of the problem. Better would be no-one volunteers and that they know why they should not. That we do not support the troops. I wonder, could we have a repeat of the conscription/draft controversy from 40 some years ago? Like this: Draft card burning

I know I've struck a nerve. But I have seen this situation we're currently in myself before, and re-reference the family history I carry. And the experience of personal violence I also carry. When the stakes are war and killing, all else is fair as long as it doesn't return the violence. Because that's the real Hell. Whether it's an unpopular viewpoint or not.

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Lamb Chopped
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You know, my husband has been a soldier. My nephew wants to be a policeman. Both are dedicated to protecting innocents who would otherwise be harmed or killed by evil people.

I myself have never used extreme force on anyone, but that's more my good luck at having always been in a position where i do my protecting using less physical methods, like the law. I would hurt or kill in a heartbeat to protect an innocent civilian endangered by an evil person.

I regard both professions as honorable when practised as they normally are--honorably, within the laws of decency. More honorable in some ways than my own, as they knowingly take a greater risk, pay a greater personal price, and are exposed to more dangers of body and soul than I am. For the sake of those who need protecting.

I doubt anyone in tlhe liberated death camps would speak dishonorably of the soldiers who freed them. I wish there had been soldiers to free my relatives from the camps of Communist Vietnam.

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orfeo

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I still reject this whole notion that soldiers 'know going in' what they're going to face.

It's simply not true that any amount of preparation for ANY task or situation is the same as actually being in the situation. No-one can predict the future to that precise extent. No-one can tell you that you're going to see some specific incident. No-one can say "now let's see how you'll react if you see a small boy with half his face blown off, screaming".

It's just bullshit. No matter how much we know and they know that there are risks more likely to arise in the military than to arise in the ordinary course of life for many other people, things like PTSD are not caused by the non-specific, slightly abstract information and briefing sessions and training that a soldier might undergo. Things like PTSD are caused by experiencing real-life events first hand. As much as anything, your brain is telling you this is real, this is not a drill.

And unless you want to suggest that we can try killing and maiming kids during training sessions in order to better prepare our soldiers for how they'll feel when kids are killed and maimed in front of them in the field, there is no way around the fact that no-one 'knows' exactly what's going to happen and how it will affect them.

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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

I also get that my take on this causes some or most of you to be offended.

I know I've struck a nerve.

Whether it's an unpopular viewpoint or not.

Ignorance, pathological callousness, historical ignorance and a charlatanical claim to omniscience about every soldier’s motivation are only exacerbated by a self-congratulatory and self-pitying posturing as some sort of unappreciated prophet/martyr.
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Doc Tor
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:

I also get that my take on this causes some or most of you to be offended.

I know I've struck a nerve.

Whether it's an unpopular viewpoint or not.

Ignorance, pathological callousness, historical ignorance and a charlatanical claim to omniscience about every soldier’s motivation are only exacerbated by a self-congratulatory and self-pitying posturing as some sort of unappreciated prophet/martyr.
I can't disagree with this analysis.

When you've offended everybody, left, right, pragmatist and pacifist, it's probably time to stop digging. While I understand what you're attempting to say, it's so unspeakably unnuanced as to be 'not even wrong'. I'm not even sure it's human...

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Leaf
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I also have had my personal share of violence in my lifetime both to myself and to my own family.

quote:
But I have seen this situation we're currently in myself before, and re-reference the family history I carry. And the experience of personal violence I also carry.
I see: Only your family's trauma and your personal suffering count. How cruel of you to keep repeating references to your own psychic injuries in order to discount similar pain in others. To Kaplan Corday's list I would add "hypocritical".

The only cheering thing I notice about this is how little your opinion is shared.

The only charitable thing I can offer you is a version of the other Leaf's proverb: "If three people tell you you're drunk, go lie down." A significantly higher ration of people are telling you you're wrong. That does not make you a righteous remnant or a voice in the wilderness. Think what it probably means.

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Barnabas62
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There is a Hell thread open for those who wish to castigate (or defend) no prophet's character rather than criticise his opinions and views. By all means be as critical as you like about posts, but avoid crossing the Commandment 3 line. You know the dividing line.

There has already been one warning. Next offender gets a reference to Admin for a Commandment 6 violation.

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Gramps49
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Going to police officers.

Again nearly all of them signed up to serve and protect. Sure there are a few who are on a power trip, but most are honest, hard working men and women who become the first line of defense in serving their community.

I have the deepest respect for them. They are doing their job, even if sometimes I disagree with what they have to do.

I found it interesting in some of the Occupy Movement rallies the police actually told city administrators the police would not intervene. Often times they went into the camps to help the protesters who were injured or became ill.

Cops do make mistakes. We all do. But I would rather have them patrolling my town over a bunch of vigilantes or fringe lunatics who want to take the law into their own hands.

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Boogie

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quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:

nonprophet - people join their national armies for many reasons - conscription, idealism, alternative to no jobs at home etc. Many know the physical risks of combat. I really doubt any are truly prepared for the psychological effects.

I think this hits the nail on the head.

The psychological effects of any trauma - whether it occurred in the military or not, are very hard to predict or quantify. Even experts struggle with this. So why young, idealistic men and women would be expected to I'm not sure.

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L'organist
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noprophet

Soldiers are not trained to kill people. Military training teaches people to march in time (drill), to keep kit clean and tidy, to obey orders, to shoot accurately, to operate a variety of weapons. It may also involve learning to operate heavy machinery (tanks, tank transporters, APCs, etc), to pitch tents. Survival skills are also taught, including how to live off the land, which may involve killing a fowl or small mammal for food.

What military training does NOT do is teach someone to fire a weapon with a real, live person in the cross-hairs.

It has long been acknowledged by the military that you can only tell if someone will be able to make it as a soldier in combat by putting that person in a REAL kill-or-be-killed situation: on the whole western armies do not train their soldiers with live targets.

Yes, a recruit to the military should be brought face-to-face with the possibility that during their career they will be faced with the fact of killing an adversary - but it is one thing to go through the theory, quite another to deal with it in real-time in real-life. And NO military in history has ever trained its troops to commit atrocities.

For you to compare returning troops from Afghanistan with people who operated the death camps is monstrous. True, most of the recruits who ran the camps were not trained to do that and they had joined the military but that is where all similarity ends.

Firstly, the German troops who ran the camps were members of the SS which had different training methods from the Wehrmacht: in particular, their training was designed to de-sensitise people from their normal feelings. If you look at the training manual for SS officers in the training camp at Dachau (originally an SS training school, the camp came later) you will see that each recruit was given a puppy which he had to train over a period of 6-9 months: at the end of training, the recruit was required to kill the puppy.

Local recruits involved in running the camps - mainly Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, a few Estonians and Poles - were recruited according to different criteria, among the first of which was not only a willingness to join the forces of the country that had conquered their own but also rabid anti-semitism. Sadly there was no shortage of willing volunteers.

The other people involved in running the camps and who deserve our sympathy were the members of the Sonderkommando (called kapos): these were prisoners who were hauled out of the herd and forced to work policing their fellow inmates, working in the gas chambers and crematoria. These people had one choice only - do as they were told or be killed: how many of us, faced with that appalling decision, would honestly choose death rather than a chance of life.

If you really cannot find it in yourself to feel some sympathy for your country's returning military personnel that is a matter for your conscience, but IMO it shows a lack of charity and judgementalism that is unattractive in anyone purporting to have Christian belief.

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Doc Tor
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quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Soldiers are not trained to kill people.

Which is just bollocks. They are. That's pretty much the whole point of the training - all that marching, and shining of shoes and ironing of uniform, and assault courses, and lectures, and live firing exercises, and living in a barracks with the rest of your squad, and going out and getting drunk with them - is not so we have a fit, well-turned out soldier who knows one end of an SA80 from the other.

It's so that when the time comes, they will put their rifle butt to their shoulder and squeeze off a burst of three without thinking about it.

That's what we train them to do. There is an awful lot less training at the other end to unwind that process.

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Barnabas62
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I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. Particularly these days, with the way the law is, they are trained to follow Rules of Engagement, which may be weapons free or weapons tight. They are trained to discriminate.

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Doc Tor
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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. Particularly these days, with the way the law is, they are trained to follow Rules of Engagement, which may be weapons free or weapons tight. They are trained to discriminate.

There are lectures on that at Sandhurst. Catterick, not so much.

But seriously. The idea is not to lose it when the bullets start hitting the wall you're hiding behind, and be together enough to shoot in the general direction of the contact. If you want to call that nuanced, it's nuanced - but day 1 of weapons training is "this is designed to kill people".

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Barnabas62
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I have a young friend who has done two tours in Afghanistan (working with bomb disposal units). He's an NCO. Basically, my understanding is based on discussions over his training.

He's never shot anyone, but he has picked up the pieces (literally) of colleagues killed or maimed by IEDs. He reckons his two tours involved him trying to render safe close to 100 IEDs. He's coming to terms with the long term impact of his experiences.

My wife and I have known him for close on 20 years now, he's a good guy. Some of the dismissive generalisations of this thread are about as far removed from what he is like as you can get.

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Barnabas62
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Of course you are right that shoot to kill forms a part of the training. But in the modern army, with its mixture of role on the ground, all soldiers need to be aware of the ROE and their implications for what is acceptable. As a recent court case showed, failure to get that will get you in a whole heap of trouble.

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

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Doc Tor
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# 9748

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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Of course you are right that shoot to kill forms a part of the training. But in the modern army, with its mixture of role on the ground, all soldiers need to be aware of the ROE and their implications for what is acceptable. As a recent court case showed, failure to get that will get you in a whole heap of trouble.

If you're referring to this case, I'm reasonably certain that anyone, even without the specialist training on the Geneva Convention and the Army Doctrine, would have realised that shooting an incapacitated enemy fighter in the chest (after deciding not to shoot him in the head because that'd be too obvious) was, in fact, murder.

That he did (and was an NCO like your friend) goes to sadly prove the point I'm making. And that the three soldiers involved managed to film themselves doing it, and not subsequently lose the video camera, also speaks volumes about the prevailing army culture.

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Of course you are right that shoot to kill forms a part of the training. But in the modern army, with its mixture of role on the ground, all soldiers need to be aware of the ROE and their implications for what is acceptable. As a recent court case showed, failure to get that will get you in a whole heap of trouble.

If you're referring to this case, I'm reasonably certain that anyone, even without the specialist training on the Geneva Convention and the Army Doctrine, would have realised that shooting an incapacitated enemy fighter in the chest (after deciding not to shoot him in the head because that'd be too obvious) was, in fact, murder.

That he did (and was an NCO like your friend) goes to sadly prove the point I'm making. And that the three soldiers involved managed to film themselves doing it, and not subsequently lose the video camera, also speaks volumes about the prevailing army culture.

That case went to a military court reported more publicly than most.

My point is that this is an extreme case. If you want to disprove something, use this as an exception, but you are using it to condemn the armed forces as a whole, so you are plainly wrong.

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Doc Tor
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# 9748

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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
That case went to a military court reported more publicly than most.

My point is that this is an extreme case. If you want to disprove something, use this as an exception, but you are using it to condemn the armed forces as a whole, so you are plainly wrong.

I'm sorry. I'm not sure what you think I'm supposed to be doing here. Saying that the armed forces are trained to kill in combat is, to my mind, an entirely uncontroversial thing.

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
That case went to a military court reported more publicly than most.

My point is that this is an extreme case. If you want to disprove something, use this as an exception, but you are using it to condemn the armed forces as a whole, so you are plainly wrong.

I'm sorry. I'm not sure what you think I'm supposed to be doing here. Saying that the armed forces are trained to kill in combat is, to my mind, an entirely uncontroversial thing.
In your earlier post, which I quoted and you omitted, you stated that:

"If you're referring to this case, I'm reasonably certain that anyone, even without the specialist training on the Geneva Convention and the Army Doctrine, would have realised that shooting an incapacitated enemy fighter in the chest (after deciding not to shoot him in the head because that'd be too obvious) was, in fact, murder.

That he did (and was an NCO like your friend) goes to sadly prove the point I'm making. And that the three soldiers involved managed to film themselves doing it, and not subsequently lose the video camera, also speaks volumes about the prevailing army culture. "


Why do you include that incident when discussing the fact that the armed forces are taught to kill people? Their training isn't simply a matter of pointing and shooting. They are also taught who to kill, how to kill and when to kill. Those marines made mistakes on at least the 'who' and the 'when' aspects which took it from killing people as an unpleasant but unavoidable part of soldiering, to murder.

I don't think murder is part of army culture, or even marine culture (which is a bit different), but looking after your mates very definitely is, and in this case there has been a lot of that.

My key point is that you are wrong to use this case as typical.

[ 16. November 2013, 15:06: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
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To suggest that killing is not the job of the military and soldiers is just ridiculous.

quote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13687796
"A central part of what we do with our careers is we kill the enemies of our country," said Lt Col Pete Kilner, a serving officer in the US Army who has done tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"So it's very important that we understand why, and under what conditions it's the morally right thing to do to kill another human being."

The following is about Vietnam and American training. I recall this also discussed by Gwynne Dyer in 1985, whose book "War" I quoted above in this thread.

quote:
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Dan Grossman
There was a major transformation in the percentage of soldiers firing their weapons due to the desensitization and conditioning training methods used by the military. The author defines desensitization activities as such things as whipping one another into a frenzy by shouting "Kill, kill, kill" together from conditioning behaviors such as wielding real weapons or engaging in realistic combat scenarios. Methods have enabled far more people to be able to function as needed and desired in combat circumstances.(Taken from http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-on-killing/chapanal040.html )

Here's Colin Powell, a former USA general about Iraq War #1:

quote:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colin_Powell
Our strategy in going after this army is very simple. First we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.
(Remark made as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announcing the U.S. gulf war plan against Saddam Hussein's army. Pentagon press briefing (23 January 1991)

Of course, we do glorify it, with movies being referenced above, but a major additional way we fool young people is get them playing war, via video games.

quote:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/11/killing-innocents-a-soldiers-take-on-modern-warfare-2-leak/
Last week, some footage leaked from the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Though it has since been taken down—with Activision claiming "copyright infringement"—the short video left a lasting impression. It depicted Russian terrorists gunning down what appeared to be innocent civilians in an airport. What made this scenario so shocking was that it wasn't a cut-scene, instead the player was actually controlling the carnage, forced to shoot civilians to proceed. You, as the player, will be given the opportunity to put noncombatants in the crosshairs and pull the trigger.

I think the understanding has gone beyond what we were told 20 years ago about war: that young people could be convinced they'd enjoy being in the field of battle, and that they are invincible. Instead, we give them the right to ressurection within a video game, have them enjoy the adrenalin highs of gameplay, and then use that desensitization to get them killing in real life.

And the American military, and probably many others, even produce their own war games for training purposes. http://m.livescience.com/10022-military-video-games.html

Of course, you don't generally get PTSD from video games. so there's a lack of 'truth in advertising' that needs to be corrected.

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Doc Tor
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# 9748

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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Why do you include that incident when discussing the fact that the armed forces are taught to kill people? Their training isn't simply a matter of pointing and shooting. They are also taught who to kill, how to kill and when to kill. Those marines made mistakes on at least the 'who' and the 'when' aspects which took it from killing people as an unpleasant but unavoidable part of soldiering, to murder.

I don't think murder is part of army culture, or even marine culture (which is a bit different), but looking after your mates very definitely is, and in this case there has been a lot of that.

My key point is that you are wrong to use this case as typical.

Firstly, I didn't bring it up. Barnabus did. I was responding.

Secondly, nowhere did I say that murder is part of army culture.

(eta) Thirdly, nowhere did I say this case was typical.

Killing people is part of army culture, because we can talk about engineers and bomb disposal technicians and medics all we like, but what the army does, what it's trained to do, is go in, kill the enemy, and hold the ground. Again, I fail to see that as a controversial point.

[ 16. November 2013, 16:52: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]

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Gee D
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No Prophet, what would you say about the soldiers who liberated Dachau and the other concentration camps, or who discovered Pol Pot's horror gaols? The emotional impact would be hard to shake off. Should they be given assistance?

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Og: Thread Killer
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Again: people may go into whatever profession. But anyone knows that being in the military means you train to kill and subject yourself to risk of being killed. Is anyone that naive to think it will be something else? Really? Soldiers are victims? Really?

As not everybody gets PTSD, no it is not naive to think that PTSD is not going to happen to them.

And, for some of the soldiers, yes, really, they are victims. Note, not the victims. Just victims.

That this victimhood does not fit into your square peg may have more to do with your inability to see the complexity of the issue.

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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."

Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged



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