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> ...essentially you will be conditioned to follow orders and you then need to hope that those orders will result in a net positive where you will end up holdin
by UncleEntity 8y ago
> ...essentially you will be conditioned to follow orders and you then need to hope that those orders will result in a net positive where you will end up holding the bag if they don't.
You are required to follow legal orders. Illegal orders, not so much because "you will end up holding the bag" as "I was just following orders" isn't a valid defense.
As for net positive/negative that really up to the politicians since (in the US at least) the military is commanded by the civilian government. One hopes one is engaging in a net positive but, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.
- jacquesm 8y agoThat's the theory. In practice, people really do just follow orders, the handful that stands up gets mowed down quite easily. Look at the large number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Vietnam and a dozen other places) and what came of the numerous war crimes committed. You don't need 20/20 to know that when you enlist the chances that you are going to be part of something bad are pretty high. Have a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes