World, Writing, Wealth discussion

Some military service is no different from regular job with people leaving in the morning and returning home in the evening.
However combat units predispose towards the possibility to participate in fighting. Most wars and military operations have pretexts and real or false justifications, but not all of them are defensive. They are often 'preemptive', when military are given orders to attack/invade, act against some country, individuals or organization.
Not always the reasons are clear. And fighting can't be peaceful.
So, should a soldier, voluntarily or involuntarily joining armed forces, be prepared to pull the trigger?

My first time ever on a military firing range the instructor was very clear. When you pull the trigger it is your decision. We were taught when and why but it is your personal responsibility. Following orders or the Nuremberg defence is no defence.

You pull the trigger with one thing in mind the instructor said. You are trying to kill the person you are firing at. If you are not prepared to take that responsibility put the weapon down and leave.

You cannot be a soldier if you do not understand that which is why I am against conscription because you do not get the choice

Well said Philip.

You nailed it.

I have nothing to add.

Philip wrote: "My first time ever on a military firing range the instructor was very clear. When you pull the trigger it is your decision. We were taught when and why but it is your personal responsibility. Follo..."

Sound deliberations!

Even if you are a rear area technician or specialist, if you enrolled voluntarily in a military force, then you should be ready and willing to kill as a soldier. In these days of international terrorism, one can be attacked about any time, anywhere. To say that 'I did not enroll in a combat trade' in order to justify your refusal to kill does not hold water. I served for 32 years and, while I never killed or even shot at someone else and saved lives instead, I was ready to kill if the orders and context were legal. You can't be a sheep when a wolf is roaming around. Since some people understand only force (Kim Jong Un, Bashar al Assad, to name only two), preemptive strikes can be valid reasons to attack in some cases.

In a word; yes!
You don't join the forces to cuddle kittens.

Anyone in the forces may end up in the situation where they have to pull the trigger. It's why they all undergo basic training.

Is it nice? No.
Would I do it? Hell no.

Soldiers are deconstructed through their training. They are then shaped and molded into lean, mean, killing machines.
And then the government wonder why these men and women struggle to cope when they go back to being a civilian!? :-/

What about conscripts then? Should they be exempted from service on the grounds of conscience rejection?

Nik wrote: "What about conscripts then? Should they be exempted from service on the grounds of conscience rejection?"

I'm not in favour of conscripted military service - volunteering for other social purposes is fine but not teaching people to kill or forcing to do the same. That said, many ex-conscripts valued the discipline and camaraderie as lessons for life. The shared purpose of service gives that as evidenced in fire fighters, police and other services.

Taking even obliquely another human's life does require a skill set. An aircraft mechanic may not pull the trigger but they may load the bomb or fix the fighter plane or even the transport plane that took the troops into combat. Then again if we pay taxes we are also allowing that to happen.

To push a possible moral dilemma yet further, not that long ago soldiers in some armies were required to participate in firing squads. Of course, there were instances when some didn't shoot.
Is this type of duty for a soldier?

The short answer is yes, assuming they are in the front line. One assumes the cooks are not supposed to kill. (Although I recall a long time ago, one army cook looked as if "edible" was not part of his instructions.)

Welcome back, Ian. Hope the recovery goes well!

Thanks, Nik. So far, so good. I am a bit sore and I am moving slowly and carefully, but in general, I feel quite happy with how things are going.

What's happened, Ian? Are you not well?

I had a hernia - must have ruptured while trying to do heavy lifting back when my hip was crap. So it was not so much "unwell" as needing a repair.

Old age is a bitch! I know: I got there! Get well, Ian.

Thanks Michel. As they say, there is only one thing worse than getting old, and that is not getting old.

Ian wrote: "I had a hernia - must have ruptured while trying to do heavy lifting back when my hip was crap. So it was not so much "unwell" as needing a repair."

Oh! So sorry to hear that. Hope you get better soon.

Can't really add anything on the original topic as I largely agree with the idea that you sign up for service, you should be prepared to kill. However in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement in this country in the last couple years, I do find it amazing the level of trigger discipline we instill in our soldiers, that we train them to make a responsible, split-second decision when it comes to determining a threat level, but we can't do the same with law enforcement, that because their lives are constantly in danger too, that they should not be held to that same standard, taking a half-second to determine if a suspect really does have a gun or if they're just retrieving their ID (as the officer requested!).

And the flip side - should soldiers be prepared to get killed?

I think anyone in a war zone knows they have a chance to be killed. Naturally they will try to minimize the odds on being killed, but if they do not recognize the possibility, they are deluded.

In a modern battlefield a soldier may be someone belonging to a cyber unit, for example, pushing the buttons thousands miles away from the place of operation, imaging s/he's perfectly safe from retaliation

In principle (at least I have said so in a couple of my novels) the defence to this guy is to hack the drone, take control of it, and use it on the guys who sent it. Of course this could lead to counter-hacking, and a highly confused drone.

I'm just waiting for the day you guys realize that drones are something we in the Western world should be concerned about. So far, I'm alone in this opinion. One day, though . . .

Far from it, Scout. In two of my novels, drones, or AI, were a horrible problem, although, I suppose, the guys using them were the real problem.

Drones scare me big time. And the guys.

One day all those marines and other well built and uniformed heroes of romantic/erotic sagas may give way to computer geeks substituting them under the notion of 'soldiers'

I don't think the idea of someone placing explosives on a commercially-available drone and flying it into something is undersold. However, I think until it happens, we're going to be a little complacent about it actually happening.