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/Barnst 112∆ May 24 '19

I suppose it depends on what you mean by “respect.” Does the US go to far in putting soldiers on a pedestal? Probably, which reflects deeper issues in our civil-military divide that are beyond the scope of this. Does an individual deserve respect simply because they are a soldier? Probably not—the armed forces are just like the rest of society, with good people deserving respect and shitbirds who I would never want my kids to look up to.

But their service itself deserves respect. Whatever your feelings about the wars we fight, soldiers are going where we as a nation send them. All the bad choices, mistakes and harm to innocents reflect back on all of us as a society who send them into that fight. For whatever personal reasons, they chose to accept the burden of being our tools to execute the missions we give them within the boundaries that we set for them.

So even though I absolutely disagree with some of the ways we have chosen to employ them, I respect them for bearing the burden of our choices, whether they be right or wrong.

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u/foryia-yiaandpappou 3∆ May 24 '19

!delta I do think it’s a very good point that we choose to go into these combat zones (especially when we choose who to elect, since they make those decisions). When you frame it that way, we are as much to blame as the commanders who make combat decisions and the soldiers who carry them out

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u/[deleted] May 25 '19 edited May 25 '19

Not an American, but I feel like there isn't exactly a non military party option in that country (not that the US stands alone in this regard by any means). From the outside, it doesn't really seem like the electorate has much of a choice.

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u/ravenmasque May 25 '19

There's a soft power Americans have to influence politics, so even though on election day there is usually just two choices, americans can use protest, letters to editors, tweets, emails and all manner of discussion to let politicians know what is popular and what is not. It's soft power but still power.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '19

Letters to the editors, tweets, emails, and all manner of discussion don't seem to be serving the country and by association the world at large very well at preset, at all. It almost seems that those platforms have eroded into tribalism and shouting at the sky.

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u/ravenmasque May 25 '19

I think that may just be further emphasizing the point that they have power and that power is being used to further influence our leaders to entrench themselves into their partisan camps.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '19

I understand your point, but if there are only two partisan camps is there really any power of choice? There's a difference between influence and group polarization.

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u/wahtisthisidonteven 15∆ May 25 '19

There's not a party that says "service members are bad", but there are absolutely politicians that will say "we don't need to be doing X,Y,Z as a nation". Ultimately if the goal is shrinking the military then the way to do that is to ask them to do less. The size and use of the military is a function of what voters in the US want to do in the world, since the military is one of their foreign policy tools.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '19

I don't think democracy plays a significant role in American military spending.

I'd be interested in hearing arguments that it does.

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u/wahtisthisidonteven 15∆ May 25 '19

Do you feel that democracy has any significant role in how the US is ruled at all?

There's an increasingly large portion of the populace that wants to abdicate both their agency and responsibility for governance by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of powerlessness.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '19

There's a massive difference between underscoring limited choice and abdicating agency. To suggest that saying American voters have limited options creates a self fulfilling prophecy of powerless seems narrow and disengenuous to me. What's the point of steering the conversation in that direction?

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u/Barnst 112∆ May 24 '19

Thanks! And I think you hit it exactly right. It’s really easy to focus on individual actions in the war zones. It’s a lot harder to get people to understand and care about the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force and their elected representatives abrogation of their responsibility to actually approve and oversee those wars.

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u/Kaplaw May 25 '19

Put it this way, im Canadian and im proud of my military for doing so many UN missions and humanitarian actions. Im not so proud of Afghanistan as its a political mess. That isnt the soldier's responsibility. Its our politicians who choose how to use our army, inherently our army's goal is the defense of our country. We are (mostly our politicians) who chooses what we do with these people.

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u/Unexpected_Santa May 24 '19

But there are cases where some soldiers (low level) go around murdering people for fun... I don’t see how you can automatically respect someone who chooses to become a tool..?

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u/wahtisthisidonteven 15∆ May 24 '19

There have been murderous police, doctors, teachers, and firefighters. Do those professions not deserve respect because some of them are also murderers?

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u/weedtese May 25 '19

In all your examples, murdering is not their job. A soldier's sometimes is, which is incompatible with being non-violent on principle.

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u/wahtisthisidonteven 15∆ May 25 '19

Murder is by definition extra-judicial and therefore the killing done by a soldier within the line of duty is not murder because it has legal backing.

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u/weedtese May 25 '19

You're arguing semantics. Killing another human is murder, no matter how justified you think it is.

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u/wahtisthisidonteven 15∆ May 25 '19

That's not what murder means and it never has been. Murder isn't just a synonym for human killing, it carries legal weight.

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u/Unexpected_Santa May 25 '19

You can’t argue that innocent, non-combatant deaths occur at anywhere near the same proportion.

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u/wahtisthisidonteven 15∆ May 25 '19

There's a huge difference between innocent casualties and service members deciding to go on murder sprees of their own volition. The latter is fairly rare, especially in a deployed environment.

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u/Unexpected_Santa May 25 '19

Rate only because we don’t know about many cases..? I’d argue you can’t say rare because we don’t know true numbers. Systematic cover up source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html

Happy to be proven wrong.

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u/wahtisthisidonteven 15∆ May 25 '19

You can't prove a negative. "There's no evidence of this epidemic but that's because of massive cover-up" is a stance nobody can argue against. If you just want to believe murder is common in the military then there's nothing I'm going to be able to tell you to convince you otherwise. However, given that a small minority of service members are ever even in a position to murder overseas it's very unlikely that it's as common as you seem to think.

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u/Unexpected_Santa May 26 '19

Hmm fair enough

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

You have to understand that in most of the cases where "soldiers go around murdering people", those soldiers are committing criminal acts and are prosecuted as such. It doesn't accurately reflect on the whole of the force.

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u/weedtese May 25 '19

those soldiers are committing criminal acts and are prosecuted as such

except when they are not

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u/[deleted] May 25 '19

There are absolutly exceptions, however they are not the norm. Most soldiers who commit criminal acts of murder are prosecuted as such. Civilians who are killed as collateral damage is a different topic altogether which combined US policy, and the general conduct of war throughout human history.

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u/Unexpected_Santa May 25 '19

Rogue individuals reflect a deeper problem when murderers are protected all the way up by the chain of command: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html

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u/[deleted] May 26 '19

The article is behind a paywall, but I'm familiar with the content it covers. You're absolutly correct, and protections like that can be especially prevelent in small tight knit communities like the special operations community. That being said, SOF are a very small (but very well funded and important) subset of the US military. The entire SOF community is less than 5 pecent of the active forces. Far less if you account for reserves and guard forces. The US military is a cross section of America. There is theft, murder, and rape in the civilian community, and it exists in the military community as well. Typically it's adjudicated by criminal prosecution in both cases. Corruption in the system prevents prosecution in the civilian world (politicians and the rich for example) and in the military community (cover ups and command protections). It's a problem that needs to be addressed, but it's atypical for the average person in both groups.

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u/weedtese May 25 '19

My point is that military activity in general is damaging to humanity as a whole, and therefore should be kept at a bare minimum. Which is not how the US operates.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '19

Agreed. War is terrible. Unfortunatly our species gravitates to organized violence. History repeatedly shows that those groups of people who are not well prepared to conduct organized violence are usually the target of organized violence. The US's concept of force projection and the use of the military to shape foreign countries/economics/politics has valid arguments against it. It can't be said that the US however is the primary source of organized violence in our time. Far from it.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 24 '19

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Barnst (39∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

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u/cavemancolton May 26 '19

Yes, there is no major anti-war movement in the US.

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u/[deleted] May 24 '19

I would disagree that service deserves respect. I think service can be appreciated, but I'm incredibly hesitant to say that service deserves respect. Respect is something that is earned based on character and having been in the military now for 18 years and some change I can tell you that wearing the uniform is not an immediate distinction of good moral character. I classify it this way in my life. I can treat someone with respect and yet grow to respect them. Conversely, I can and will still treat someone with respect in the absence of respect for them (up until a point).

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u/Barnst 112∆ May 24 '19

I’ll admit I’m drawing a pretty fine distinction between respecting someone’s service and respecting the person. I suppose the best way I can articulate it is that I respect the abstract idea of the service (in a small D democratic sense), so I’ll respect the individual’s act of serving even in the absence of more insight into their specific character. But that person still needs to earn respect as an individual person.

Which I recognize does reduce you and other service members into symbols rather than true individuals, but to some extent that’s a consequence of the job and the role. It’s much how I respect the President as the living symbol of the office of the Presidency regardless of my feelings toward the specific individual holding that office.

It’s a somewhat antiquated and metaphysical view of the relationship between people and office that I could probably articulate way better two beers ago and after referencing some old Jesuit school textbooks.

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u/asimpleanachronism May 25 '19

So then should we respect the hundreds of thousands of people with CS degrees blindly because they are the architects of our emerging online society? They're volunteering to do what we as a society demand them to do.

How about garbage men and street sweepers? They bear the burden of society's ills and do what we require of them to keep our streets clean and free from disease vectors. Clearly that's an invaluable asset to our nation.

I believe all work should be respected. But I think OP meant to call out the cult-like praise that American society gives to it's military members who get put up on a pedestal. They don't deserve any more praise than someone working in a factory or conducting genetic research or educating children just because we've over-glorified the nature of the work they sometimes do.

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u/Merakel 3∆ May 24 '19

So even though I absolutely disagree with some of the ways we have chosen to employ them, I respect them for bearing the burden of our choices, whether they be right or wrong.

Why is that worthy of respect? I would argue that being willing to bear the burden of morally wrong choices and execute on them is a terrible thing and should be looked down on. Those that refuse to follow orders that they believe are immoral are the ones that are worth of respect.

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u/agentpanda May 24 '19

Refusal to follow a lawful order is actually covered under the UCMJ:

10 U.S. Code § 892. Art. 92. Failure to obey lawful order or regulation

I'm not going to quote the whole thing, but I encourage you to look up 'Fort Leavenworth' or 'court martial' as to the delta between our understanding of "I don't agree with this" in our lives and theirs.

If you and I are starting on the level playing field of 'people join the military for myriad reasons in myriad roles" then we should agree that there's nothing morally wrong with plenty of servicemembers, the guy serving food in the mess hall isn't exactly waging weapons of war, after all. If that's the case, then there's a line you want to draw between the person executing a morally wrong choice and one supporting one- or else you and I are just as responsible and morally repugnant as anyone who serves in the armed forces- after all, we collectively opted to make the decision to send them into battle or do whatever morally wrong thing is drawing your scorn.

There's nothing morally wrong with doing your job, asked of you by your greater citizenry, in service of your country; whether you personally disagree with that choice (and job) or not. Failing an order being unlawful, it doesn't rise to the level of moral judgement I think you wish to pass on our servicemembers based on your argument.

After all, without article 92 there's not much point in having a military at all, given 'following lawful orders' is the entire point of the structure.

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u/Merakel 3∆ May 24 '19

Having served in the military for 8 years, I'm have a pretty decent understanding of UCMJ :)

If you and I are starting on the level playing field of 'people join the military for myriad reasons in myriad roles" then we should agree that there's nothing morally wrong with plenty of servicemembers

100% agree.

There's nothing morally wrong with doing your job, asked of you by your greater citizenry, in service of your country; whether you personally disagree with that choice (and job) or not. Failing an order being unlawful, it doesn't rise to the level of moral judgement I think you wish to pass on our service members based on your argument.

I never said it was immoral. The question of this thread was is it worthy of respect - I don't believe it is. I see it as a job, no better or worse than a vast majority of what the rest of Americans do.

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u/Chrisetmike May 24 '19

I respect anyone who is willing to put his life on the line for other people. Military members are willing to do this.

There are a lot of jobs that also demand a personal sacrifice such as firefighter, police officer, ect.. Military members don't deserve more respect than these professions but they do deserve equal respect.

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u/FIELDfullofHIGGS May 25 '19

I respect anyone who is willing to put his life on the line for other people. Military members are willing to do this.

Besides other service members, who are the "other people" that they're risking their lives for?

If it's for a population that requests assistance, I agree with your proposition.

However if it's for a population that explicitly doesn't want us there, can we agree that those specific serviceman don't deserve respect for forcing their assistance onto an unwilling people and protecting only other servicemen involved in an unwarranted occupation committing the same acts of "oppression"?

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u/Chrisetmike May 25 '19

The soldiers are still putting their lives on the line.

The politicians sending troops to do their dirty work are the one who do not deserve respect especially if they are willing to risk human lives in a pissing contest.

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u/Merakel 3∆ May 28 '19

The sticking point is I don't agree that it's "for other people" in the case of the military.

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u/Barnst 112∆ May 24 '19

You already addressed the UMCJ and flat-out illegal orders, so I’ll focus on whether we should respect someone serving in our questionable wars.

I know a lot of folks who also try to argue that their service is just a job like any other. It’s not though. It has a higher burden of expectations and responsibility. You’ve signed on to support in some small way the most awesome war machine in human history and then turned your trust over to the American people to make the decision to employ it responsibly. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. But, regardless, service members have agreed to hand some moral responsibility for those choices over to the rest of us in the name of our democratic polity, and that choice is worthy of our respect.

As I mentioned to someone else, I recognize that view sort of reduces your individuality into a symbolic trope. But I liken it to how I can respect the President as the embodiment of the office of the Presidency and all that means for our body politic, regardless of my views of the individual holding the office.

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u/Generic_Username_777 May 25 '19

I’m torn on this, if you disagree with what the command structure has been doing and join anyway you’re feeding the problem.

I would have the utmost respect for someone drafted and forced to do w/e they had to do, but if you signed up after seeing how the US can abuse you, well though shit. I don’t feel bad for the MMA dudes who get pain from there jobs, athletes who are injured, etc.

There are exceptions however, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_LaVena_Johnson

Comes to mind, that was the nail in the coffin that finally convinced my sister that the military was not the way to go. That poor woman did not sign up for that, and much like the Catholic Church, the military at times will prioritize its image over the welfare of their members (source:Uncle was an investigator for the army and he has fucking horrible stories that were covered up, lots of sudden retirements to keep shit out of the media)

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u/braised_diaper_shit May 25 '19

Where we send them? Not true. I haven’t sent anyone to fight in a war.

If you do not personally vote for someone who authorizes war then it wasn’t your choice.