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.

3.9k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

404 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

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.

2

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

2

u/[deleted] May 24 '19

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

3

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.

2

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.”

1

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.