Letters to the Editor
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bucky1
you wrote: "However, how does one not become guilty of the war crimes we commit if one joins? I mean this both legally and morally.I have no problem with a man who joins in to fight off an invader to his homeland, but how does one justify serving in the army of the invader?"
Military for me is always for defensive purposes, or to stop things like the Holocaust, I suppose. I was young when I initially joined and did not see us as an invader (I was lucky in being in after vietnam and before iraq). I was almost caught up in desert storm--if I had not gone inactive reserve to pursue a ph.d. i think I would have commanded a unit that would have been deployed. At that time I thought seriously about what I would do, because it became clear to me that it was all about the oil, and I thought if ordered to go I might just have to go to jail.
So my position evolved. I was young and had not thought it through when I joined. And you grow to value the people you are with in your units, who I still think of as some of the best people I have ever known. Its all mixed up and complicated in that way. I would probably have ended up in jail if I had stayed in, I suppose: but I will defend the folks I served with as some of the best I have ever known.
Hope that answers your question a little bit. It was an honest question, and I was not offended at all.