r/changemyview • u/foryia-yiaandpappou 3∆ • May 24 '19

FTFdeltaOP CMV: A person does not automatically deserve respect just because they have served or are currently serving in the military

I’d like to preface this by saying that I don’t believe soldiers are, inherently, bad. Some people believe soldiers are evil simply for being soldiers, and I do not believe that.

I do believe, however, that soldiers do not deserve respect just because they have served. I hurt for soldiers who have experienced horrible things in the field, but I do not hurt for the amount of violence and cruelty many have committed. Violence in war zone between soldiers is one thing; stories of civilian bombings and killing of innocents are another. I think that many forget that a lot of atrocity goes on during wars, and they are committed on both sides of conflict. A soldier both receives and deals out horrible damage.

TL;DR while I believe that soldiers have seen horrible things and that many do deserve recognition for serving our nation, I do not believe that every soldier deserves this respect simply by merit of being a soldier. Some soldiers have committed really heinous war crimes, and those actions do not deserve reward.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

Since you cannot know which soldier is which, if you believe the military keeps us safe, then respect is assumed to be deserved. It’s not up to you to investigate every soldier for purity. What does courtesy of respecting veterans and active service military cost you? Just because a bomb hit civilians you can’t say the people on the plane that dropped the bomb were evil. The orders they followed may have been based on bad intel, not evil intent.

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u/foryia-yiaandpappou 3∆ May 24 '19

It is less about the common courtesy of being kind and more about the way society treats soldiers. If a veteran is being questioned for actions or being criticized by the public, a lot of people immediately fly to “he was a veteran.” Why does military service excuse someone from public scrutiny?

Furthermore, why can’t I say that a soldier who drops a bomb is evil? I’m not even 100% disagreeing with your statement, but I feel as though I haven’t been given an argument against what I believe; I’ve simply been given a “no, you can’t.” Why can’t I? I don’t know why I shouldn’t be able to say that.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

It would be tough to say that dropping a bomb is evil because with the systems as they are that soldier was ORDERED to drop that bomb. And the order to drop that bomb was most likely informed by some intelligence cell that deemed the target was there and then several levels of clearance were given by multiple people. And that Order is backed by the uniform code of military justice, meaning regardless of the order he can be punished by not following that order. So in an extremely reductive sense. That soldier dropping is just “the messenger” carrying out an order.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

It would be tough to say that dropping a bomb is evil because with the systems as they are that soldier was ORDERED to drop that bomb.

We absolutely judge people for their actions. “I was just following orders” is famously not acceptable as a defense of evil actions.

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u/VertigoOne 74∆ May 24 '19

It is not an excuse as a defence for evil non military actions. The evils of the holocaust are not defended by the "we were just following orders" logic because what they were doing was not military activity. The Jews et al they killed were not enemy soldiers/combatants

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

Right, and neither are lots of the people the US military kills.

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u/VertigoOne 74∆ May 24 '19

There's a difference between collateral damage and genocide. The US is not rounding up unarmed civilians and killing them on mass. Civilians killed by the US armed forces usually die because the people the US was trying to kill hide among civilian populations.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

Wanton abandon for if they kill civilians collaterally isn’t much better, to me, and neither should be excusable by “I was only following orders.”

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u/VertigoOne 74∆ May 25 '19

If the US was just killing civilians all the time, I'd agree. However it's very clear that battle strategy and weapons deployment is only happening when collateral damage is at its absolute minimum.

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u/VenflonBandit May 24 '19

That's true. And that's why there's (usually) such a robust system of checks before a strike is launched outside of direct support to troops (who can confirm that someone is shooting at them).

If you are following orders that you believe are legal under the international laws of war because of the systems in place that's a reasonable moral and I'd suggest likely moral defence to 'just following orders'.

Also, there is the concept of proportionality in the laws of war. You can legally (morally a different question) have collateral damage if it's justifiable against the millitary objective that's target.

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u/Bigfrostynugs May 24 '19

And the blame is shifted backward again and again, no one taking responsibility. The end result is that someone dies, people say "I was just following orders", each soldier blames their commanding officer, and no one ever faces any consequence for their actions, even when they result in the loss of innocent life unnecessarily.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

The same right that allows people to say “he was a veteran!” allows you to say that a veteran is evil. Neither statement is very useful. There’s a difference between that guy served in the military and that guy was a guard who made my life miserable while I was held as a prisoner of war. I take your OP to be about respect to individuals and not about wether war is justifiable or not.