General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I do not worship the ground our military walks on [View all]Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)by convincing or bribing Congress and presidents to act against "enemies."
I'm NOT BLAMING the individual soldiers. I just think that there's no heroism in fighting for unjust causes, no matter what the recruiters, the trainers, or the soldiers themselves say.
That being said, the soldiers who just follow orders are just following orders.
The real heroes are the ones who refuse to obey immoral orders. One of the great heroes of the Vietnam War was a man who shot himself in the foot so that he would be incapable of carrying out the order to massacre the village of My Lai.
Do you remember what a big fan club Lt. Calley had when he was on trial? How many people said that he should be decorated instead of court-martialed? How many people said that killing the children of My Lai was the right thing to do because "they would only have grown up to be Communists anyway"?