It’s one thing to say, “I understand and sympathize with those men who, under torture, finally broke and allowed themselves to aid the enemy in some way.” It’s not conduct that speaks of high honors, but neither is it reprehensible. Every man has a breaking point.
But the OP goes considerably farther; he actually castigates men who did not reach their breaking point for not breaking sooner.
What meaning does the OP give to words like discipline, duty, and honor? Are they meaningless? Do they have intensely personal meaning? Or are they idiotic concepts, the “relic of a bygone era?”
I understand values, like not cheating on your wife. But wouldn’t you cheat on your wife if someone was beating the hell out of you for years, and the way to get them to stop was cheat on your wife? Surely she would understand. You’re not disloyal to your country for succumbing to torture, no matter what some military code writer thinks. There are exceptions- you have the code to a bomb that would blow up the US, telling it under torture would be unforgivable. But these guys knew their own flight details and what not, stuff that was probably changed and rendered irrelevant the moment they were captured.
Aside from its goofyness, this analogy doesn’t apply. In that case, the cheating somehow stops the other person from beating your wife. In the real-life cases of McCain and Stockdale, being paraded around - which is a war crime, by the way, unless I’m way off - would not have saved lives or done anyone on their side any good. And arguably it would have helped their enemies. I presume McCain and Stockdale didn’t know anything of value, but they didn’t know what the Viet Cong might have been able to do with their information. So rather than give in and potentially risk the lives of others, they refused.
No, you’re not disloyal to your country for finally succumbing. But what’s the point at which you should succumb? For example, if I have captured you and tell you, “Unless you reveal your mission details to me, I’m going to lock you in a room and force you to watch The 700 Club 10 hours each day!” I think you’ll agree that while the prospect is not appetizing, neither should it “break” you. Right?
So at what point are you “broken?” Surely you’ll agree it varies for each man, yes?
You’ve gone beyond complaining at the perception of disloyalty if someone does break. You’re castigating the men who DIDN’T break for failing to break. Don’t get me wrong – I would most likely have spilled everything I knew before I decided to slice my head open. But if someone else makes a different - and stronger - choice, I am filled with admiration, and not a small amount of jealousy.
You see the same bravery and want to call them idiots.
How is allowing yourself to be paraded through town showing a lack of duty, discipline or honor? You’d rather smash your face in that be paraded down the street? We aren’t talking siding with the enemy, not killing other Americans, not become a Viet Cong citizen. There is no dishonor in giving false info but they apparently did not even attempt that. Any military that would say that their actions were the correct ones is not one I’d like to be a part of, for sure.
Some folks measure their personal value by how truly they cleave to their ideals, regardless of the cost. The OP may not be among them, but surely the concept is not incomprehensible to him. Is it?
Not only that but Stockdale was the highest ranking officer in the prison. It was his duty to set the example for those under him. And McCain was the CINCPAC’s son. Captivity of that sort is a mind game as well as a test of physical endurance. Not only were they trying not to be used by the enemy, they were trying to be examples for those around them. The military learned a lot from the captivity of soldiers in Korea. The code of conduct came from those lessons.
I believe that honor is very important in the military. In fact, I think a lot of people outside of the military would also consider it important. Weather you call it honor, or morals, or pride, everyone has things that they consider to be wrong. I don’t think that is is at all odd that military personnel would uphold the CoC. I actually think it is admirable.
You don’t know what piece of info might be the one thing the enemy was missing to be able to pull off an attack, or predict an attack on them. Better not to give them anything to work with. Also, from a psychological standpoint (even tho I am not a psychologist), it seems that once you have started talking, even if it is something small, it is easy to keep talking. I am sure the enemy, whoever they be, would know this.
He brought charges on two officers whom he felt “had given aid and comfort to the enemy.”
It’s one thing to reach the breaking point. It’s another thing entirely to actively cooperate with the enemy. Stockdale was in a position to determine which was the case in that situation.
Maybe the fact that this was in the Viet Nam war (and McCain is a Republican) is making it difficult for you to be objective about this.
Suppose someone suggested that you join a civil rights march in Alabama in 1965 over, say, desegregating the bus system. There is a significant chance that you might be injured if you participate, so you decline, noting that your participation or lack of it wouldn’t make all that much difference in the grand scheme.
Would you agree that those who chose to march anyway are fools?
I would personally sing like Pavoratti. No torture would be necessary for me. I’d be grovelling, sobbing and offering them anything they wanted before they ever laid a finger on me. I don’t understand the mentality of those guys either. It’s not like their country or their families wre really in any danger. It just seems like a pathological kind of self-righteous egoism to me. If that’s what they get off on, though, more power to them. I would just want them to know they could not count on me.
I’m no fan of American pride in general, but that’s not what I’m getting at here- my opinion is that their particular pride here was foolish pride if you will, in that it caused them harm unnecessarily. Them thinking that spilling their guts would cause any dent in the US attack is to me, kind of pompous.
I’m curious about why you think that this had anything to do with why they did what they did, why you think that they had an inflated idea of the harm that their specific knowledge could cause. I have not gotten that impression from anything I’ve read about them.
I don’t know the details. I mean, if he was trying to bring charges against an ordinary soldier who went in front of the cameras to avoid torture, that would be bullshit. But **robby ** talks like there was a lot more to it than that, so I can’t really say, in the absence of further information about what the two people did.
Those that marched were similar to those who enlisted. Now, if a Klansman kidnapped you mid-march and tortured you until you agreed to stop, then yes, you’d be similarly foolish in my book if you refused, as the movement was pretty big, and you being tortured for it when it would have happened anyway would be foolish and pompous.
And not to get political, but this was not a war with America being invaded.