>I hope we are not sliding back into the Vietnam era stupidity of
>blaming soldiers. Once you are a soldier you lose your political
>independence, you serve the government and you have to do hard, shitty
>things that most people are unwilling to do - and do them at
>significant personal risk. You better believe I never miss an
>opportunity to thank people in uniform and I would suggest that,
>particularly as a leftist, you start doing the same.
No. They're trained killers who follow orders without question. Yeah, I know all about the pressures that make people join, but they are, in the final analysis, volunteers. And yeah, it's nasty risky work, but they signed on the dotted line. I don't owe them any gratitude.
And, as we learned at Nuremburg, following orders is no excuse.
Doug