What do you think of soldiers?

[Ushiromiya Battler]

But it is kind of messed up when I go through my thoughts and I realize that my mind finds the Japanese bombings (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki) more justifiable than 9/11.

Not messed up at all... The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings saved countless of lives, 9/11(or 11/9 where I live ) just lead to more people being killed. So the bombings were justified to an extent, the plane crashes were not.

Random fact: The purple hearts given out were all made for the possible invasion of Japan. They haven't made new purple hearts in over 60 years!

Sadly, if I remember correctly Nagasaki happened because they couldn't bomb their original target and just picked another city.
Please correct me if I remember wrong.

 

[Subbies]

Complete and utter indifference, since in Switzerland service is mandatory, you'll find anyone and every one in the army. However the professional military personnel... I despise them, always speaking in swiss-german, and bossing me around with nonsensical orders (though once you get to know them, they are ok folk).

 

[RoonMian]

First a little information: I had my stay with my country's army when there was still conscription here. I could have gotten around that and do civil service instead by claiming that I could not combine serving in the army with my conscience. A lot of people do that because seriously, why would you want to be conscripted when you have an alternative. My problem though was that I generally don't like to lie. My conscience didn't have any problems with the army and "I don't wanna" wasn't reason enough not to go... So I ended up in the army with all those people who were either too stupid to fake conscience reasons or who actually thought "yay, shooting stuff and being rushed around all day."

That's really all I need to say about the soldiers I have met there... The army was called "social catch basin" back then for a reason...

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Did you miss the part where I said "they should be held accountable for their actions" ? If you judge that their non-evil actions contributed to what you perceive as evil, then judge them for it. You are holding them accountable, and that's fine.

You can respect their intent, but that doesn't mean you tolerate what they did.

You seemed to want to only hold them accountable for their overt actions like the My Lai massacre. I was merely pointing out the much larger range of damage that 'normal'(which is to say incidents that aren't massacres) war has on civilian populations.

Also I would consider "holding them accountable" to be judging them for their actions to a legal degree, with all the potential for punishment that entails, which will simply never happen. Not only are there legions of people who would be appalled at the idea of indicting soldiers, but I have no desire to do so either. Two wrong doings do not make a right, and there is a system behind them that is pushing these soldiers to do what they do. And those are the people if anyone that should be held accountable.

 

[nexus]

I do not like them.

Soldiers are revered for their "courage", but in all honesty they are mostly spineless like everyone else. They don't stand up to their superiors as much as they should, they don't question enough even when something needs to be challenged. Etc.

I was a soldier in the US Army for 8 years, I don't really care for soldiers that much.

 

[FancyNick]

I like them. If for nothing else other than the fact they do a dangerous job for seemingly little. No telling on each individual but in general I am fond of them.

 

[kingpocky]

Criticizing soldiers for a war you disagree with is about as reasonable as criticizing a butcher for murdering the cow that went in to the burger you just ate. Soldiers are responsible for their individual actions and for following the laws of war, but they are no more or less responsible for there being a war than all the civilians who live in their country.

 

[rob_simple]

They're just people doing the job they applied for, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not crazy about some of the 'wars' they're fighting but that's hardly their fault.

What I do get extremely pissed off about, though, is the level of hero worship that goes around when a soldier is killed in the middle east or other war-torn area and the news makes a big deal out of it for the purposes of propaganda to try and justify our being there in the first place.

 

[Autotelic]

I don't know, I don't think I've ever met one. I'm not going to generalise them as a group. Some are good people, some are bad people. The only thing they all have in common is a job, and sadly, I think it's not a job that will be going away any time soon.

I don't like to glorify their job. There are some soldiers who I'd call heroes - soldiers who risked or sacrificed their lives to save the lives of others. Not all soldiers are heroes.

 

[Bluestorm83]

The question is too general. Asking what I think of "Soldiers" is exactly the same as asking what I think of "Life Forms." There's too big a sample size.

But I'll tell you what I DO think. I think that anyone who views all soldiers as bad, or as "just people doing just a job" are shitheads who wouldn't last a day in a world where they had to protect their own lives every single day. You know, the exact kind of world that we've moved past in this country... thanks to the soldiers who fought and died to give us this life.

P.S., from the grandson of a Navy Man, you don't have to be thankful, assholes, because you're welcome anyway.

 

[Charli]

The same way I respect a janitor who does a very distasteful and soul crushing job, the soldier risks life and mental wellness potentially also.

On the flip, both these people might take unfathomable joy in their lot in life or doing the distasteful things that they do, but I acknowledge that I could not do either. So a healthy level of respect and gratefulness permeates my expectations before I find out if they are a nice person or a dick head.

I don't revere them the same way some people revere the idea of Superman. Like some strange people I've met.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

The way I see it, life is about service and self-sacrifice. A man should be primarily concerned with how he can serve the people around him, rather than personal gratification. So, doctors should be doctors because they want to help other people, not because they want a lot of money. Soldiers have chosen to serve by putting themselves into harms way, and being resolved to die so that other people don't have to. As far as I see it, that's a pretty big sacrifice, and it deserves a certain degree of respect for those who make that choice.

That doesn't meant that they're infallible, or that they shouldn't be held accountable for what they do, but I still feel as though you should show courtesy and respect for those that serve.

 

[fenrizz]

They do a job, nothing more, nothing less. I won't automatically hero worship them, but I won't automatically think of them as less than "normal people" either.

So yeah, just a job.

Indeed.

Veterans day?
I'm glad my country don't do that.

 

[hooblabla6262]

I've met many soldiers and have had many friends join the army.
In my experience, something about this institution transforms them in to D-Bags with a 99% success rate.

I have little respect for the man who is well-trained in obedience.

(We should dismiss the military.)

 

[Diddy_Mao]

As a matter of principle I don't trust authority figures. The more control someone has over my day to day life the less I trust their ability to do so with my best interest at heart. (clarification: I don't mean I don't trust them to always make choices I agree with. I mean I don't trust them to always make choices that aren't actively oppressive.)

That being said, I come from a Military family, I'm the first son in generations that didn't earn their daily bread in some way through the armed forces. I recognize and appreciate the need for a well trained and equipped military, I recognize and appreciate the sacrifices made by the men and women who join.

However I also know for fact that there are no small number of professional soldiers who join because it allows them a perceived authority and prestige that they would otherwise be unable to obtain. Professional soldiers who want the respect that the position offers without having the respect for the position itself and worse those who feel that it gives them license to work outside of the peace and order they are charged with protecting.

I view soldiers the same way I view police officers. The overwhelming majority of them are good, honest and hard working people who, at the end of the day, have decided to put on a uniform and serve their communities. However the existence and prevalence of the previously mentioned minority means that I, as a civilian do not have the luxury of assuming that any one of them is worthy of trust.

 

[ecoho]

snip

While I agree with the content, I disagree with the sentiment. It's a case of who's the more guilty: the man who pulls the trigger; or the man who orders the pulling of the trigger. Irrespective of what the guy with the gun does, he loses, damned by his superiors, or damned by moralists. Your ire, I believe, is better directed at governing bodies and their morally fucked (from the above reasoning) foreign policy.

Anyway, I view soldiers (well, military servicemen, shall we say) with a strange combination of bewilderment, admiration and respect, though of course, I cherry pick examples. However, the 'honourable man of war' is perhaps the most hypocritical specimen of human nature in existence:

Exhibit A: Battle of Camperdown - Adm. Duncan, after kicking the Dutch fleets asses and making casualties of roughly a sixth of the Dutch fleet (at about a tenth of his own), he sits down to a game of cards with Adm. de Winter, his opposite number.

Exhibit B: Werner Molders - typical German WWII fighter ace, first man to reach 100 aerial victories, but often dined with captured pilots and insisted they be treated civilly and respectfully. Put him in an armed aircraft, won't hesitate to shoot him down. In fact, the relationships among the RAF/Luftwaffe/VVS personnel was nothing short of cordial.

Exhibit C: The Peninsular War - Britain vs. France, the epitome of a gentleman's duel, everything to make it fair.

Exhibit D: a little tangential, but the Laconia Incident, the Laconia Order & Hans Langsdorff/Graf Spee as a surface raider.

Uh... yeah, sense much?!

it makes perfect sense, in one your doing your job, in the other your respecting an honorable adversary. Its actually a lot like sportsmenship while playing a game you try as hard as possible to win resorting to every trick you know, but after the game is over you shake hands with the other guy and go have lunch.

as for gameguys post; any solder I ever worked with who just blindly followed orders would have gotten his ass kicked by our sergeants for not thinking for himself. While a good solder follows orders he is also required to use his best moral judgment in carrying out those orders. Hell ask any recruiter that and hell tell you the same thing.

OT: same as anyone else some are great guys and fun to run around with others you just hope step on a mine.

 

[Gorrath]

I do not like them.

Soldiers are revered for their "courage", but in all honesty they are mostly spineless like everyone else. They don't stand up to their superiors as much as they should, they don't question enough even when something needs to be challenged. Etc.

I was a soldier in the US Army for 8 years, I don't really care for soldiers that much.

I don't find most people inside or outside of the military to be spineless. I'm not sure what you mean by not standing up to their superiors as much as they should, as the only time you should really be arguing with your superior is if they are violating regulations or giving you an illegal order, and under both of those circumstances you should be going over their head anyway. I've certainly seen instances where soldiers didn't do what they should have when encountering bad orders, but the whole idea of a serviceman and courage is what he or she does in the face of rediculously dangerous conditions. I was in the Army for a good long while myself. YOu and I must have had some pretty different perceptions of our tours of duty.

OT: As far what I think of soldiers in general, they tend to be exactly like everyone else most of the time. You have a mix of nice people, d-bags, intellectuals and good old boys, democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals ect. Being in the military isn't just another job though, and this is one of the reasons people who join thinking that it is end up being very disgruntled. In pretty much every other occupation, if you get sick of it, you can quit. You can't just quit the military, which is why it is one of the few government jobs that actually put the person in a position of real sacrifice. I don't mean sacrifice in terms of life or limb either, as you have that with police, politics and firefighters. It is the sacrifice of your personal liberty. The loss of that liberty is, for many, the most difficult part of military life and what keeps it from being "just another job".

 

[tangoprime]

I Can not stand them I just Despise them. Hang on I will explain.

Soldiers are the very definition of lawful neutral Trained to kill on command by the government and never have a say in it.

In addition to that some of them are easily the most arrogant most disgusting excuses for Human beings I have ever met they murder countless people and for what? Nothing, To many people consider "Soldier" to mean the people on our side and the opposing side to be monsters nothing could be further from the truth.

Every person on either side who dies is someones Child or parent or lover and they all die for pointless reasons and people try to justify it and that fucking disgusts me.

I always say that All soldiers should get another job because the one they have is just a pointless waste of human life.

I understand how that can be seen as offensive and I'm sorry if you were but they are just one type of people I wil never have any respect for.

In my eyes there are only 2 types of Soldier

1) the trigger happy ones who think war is great and always look down on people with other jobs (the ones I hate)

2) the poor sods who are ripped from their Family's knowing that they will more than likely die and will never see them again (who I have only sympathy and pity for)

Yup, the soldiers pictured here helping find survivors after yesterday's Tornado destroyed Moore, Oklahoma is definitely worthy of your scorn and is likely a trigger happy killer, or was ripped from his family to go be killed right? Those are the only two choices apparently.

 

[5ilver]

I have a lot of respect and envy for them... mostly because I'm not allowed to be one :/
Why do we always long for the things we can't have?