A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful Orders

John Thornton jthorn65 at mchsi.com
Tue Mar 18 12:58:20 PST 2003



>Point of order:
>
>Those "not warrior types" receive the exact same training as the
>active duty types, with one weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer
>for refresher - so if the reservists are not qualified, the active
>duty troops are not qualified much better.
>
I can't speak for all branches of the military but in the Navy training is hardly uniform. I did basic at Great Lakes and then my "A" school there as well. Hospital Corpsman. Nobody learned anything about killing. I knew firefighters, radiomen, engineers, etc. and most of them had never even held a firearm let alone trained to kill anyone. Many chose the rating they did so that they would not have to kill. They were getting job training for the civilian world and just happened to be getting it from Uncle Sam. Many wanted to do the patriotic thing, help their country, community, whatever without harming others. You can agree or disagree with their reasoning but they are not trained killers. After "A" school about 25% (at the time I was there) of Hospital Corpsmen get sent to basic training with the Marine Corps (Camp Lejeune sucks). You go through a completely different type of training than you received initially. Here you will learn to kill even though you are technically considered non-combatants.


>Similarly, if the "GIs" you speak of made the decisions, eventually
>there would be no military uniforms, no grooming standards, no discipline
>of any sort to distinguish military from any other group of civilians,
>and then where would we be?
>
>Reese

Not that this seems terribly relevant but most officers and many enlistees like their uniforms. They feel it is important for their identity. They generally seek the discipline that the military provides so they would not likely discard that either. I don't know why you would think other

John Thornton



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