Quote:
Originally Posted by blueash
What saddens me is the presumptiveness of a person who was taught to kill as a profession claiming any special wisdom about morality. We need the military. We need people who are malleable to be trained into being killing machines with no doubts about seeing the "enemy" as subhuman and slaughtering them. But those are not a morality. I think the God you seem to think I should fear said something about thou shall not kill and love your neighbor. I don't recall the apostles being armed and locked and loaded.
|
When my son joined the U.S. Marines, I was frightened, aprehensive, and PROUD. A friend made the comment that he had been "trained to kill" as this poster suggests. Blueash infers that equals a lack of morality, and further describes our military as "people who are malleable to be trained into being killing machines with no doubts about seeing the "enemy" as subhuman and slaughtering them." Seriously? Malleable? I was a high school teacher, and the students who chose to go to the military, including my son, were proud Americans who desired to serve their country, understanding that to do so meant they were willing to lose their life. Many came from families with a strong history in the military, some not. They came from all economic & social backgrounds. Some were our highest honor students, some were from hard working families who just made ends meet and applied that same hard work to their school work. Painting our military heroes as "malleable" and suggesting they are killing machines without morality tells me that YOU sadly misunderstand our heroes.
I read a book published by an Army Chapeline on this matter, and he had spent a lot of his career counseling soldiers about the difference in being trained to DEFEND and trained to KILL. Our military is trained to defend. We call upon them to go into the worst situations imaginable and be ready and able to take another life when it is necessary to DEFEND their own and that of their fellow soldiers, ultimately providing security to and defending our country &/or helping other countries. I have interviewed many, many veterans from every conflict in our history as part of a documentary and book, and I can tell you that those actions were taken at a cost. But the most significant emotional toll for them was from those who they could not save.
That same God you quote to defame our military heroes also stated "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13, NIV)
I admire, respect, and thank our military heroes, and think that 38 years in the Air Force certainly does not disqualify tmbozoki from commenting on morality. The points made in his/her post were insightful and spot on, IMHO.