Immigrants and military service - could one be forced to fight former countrymen?

[Mr.Moto]

The legal status of these soldiers would be the same as any other uniformed soldier. They would be entitled to humane treatment under the Geneva Convention.

Mind, this is a guarantee of nothing. But is is how their status would be handled legally.

[ElectricZ]

@UncleBill

He was a Muslim (converted) who did not want to have to be put into a position to kill other Muslims, and he was applying for C.O. status. He wanted to fulfill his obligations as a Marine, though.

Thanks, Bill, this is actually the kind of situation I was wondering about. You have a soldier who wants to do his duty, but because of bad luck happens to be sent to fight where there’s something very personal at stake which could affect his actions and he knows it. He’s not trying to dodge duty or get out of fighting, he just doesn’t want to fight under specific conditions. It sounds like his superior officers were sympathetic or just didn’t want to risk it, so they put him in a non-combat position. Maybe rare situations like this are just handled in-house on a case-by-case basis. But now I wonder how this might be reflected on a soldier’s record?

EZ

[Shalmanese]

Which raises another point. John Lindh and David Hicks are, IIRC, formally being charged for treason. If the Taliban was a formally recognised standing army acting as part of a soverign state, would the charge of treason still apply?

[TitoBenito]

@Spectre of Pithecanthropus

My brother’s FIL, who was Jewish, escaped from Austria in 1938, on the last boat. A few years later he was in the American Army Ski Patrol, fighting the Germans back on his home turf. I’m sure he had no moral objections to fighting the Nazis, but I was surprised to learn that Jewish refugees were sent back over to fight in the countries they had fled. I would have thought the risk of atrocities in case of capture would be too great, and that those soldiers would have been sent to the Pacific Theater.

I’ve never heard that Germans seperated Jewish American and British Troops from their non-Jewish comrades. They probably received the same near geneva convention treatment the other allied POW received, exept if they were a Russian, in which case they were screwed anyways.

[UncleBill]

@ElectricZ

Maybe rare situations like this are just handled in-house on a case-by-case basis. But now I wonder how this might be reflected on a soldier’s record?

This case was a Marine, but as far as I know there was no black mark on his record, he was not stigmatized by others in the unit, and he did a fine job where he was assigned. Interestingly, there was ANOTHER young Marine in the same unit who also tried to claim C.O. status, but the folks who decide such things decided he was not eligible, and he still refused to go, to the point of being arrested at the base of the steps of the plane taking us over there. He was still in the Brig when I got back from the war.