Tell me why my son should not join the Marines

[GWVet]

@Peter Morris

Erm, I was offering Samclem some ideas on what he might say to his son to dissuade him from joining. I didn’t say it to you.

That makes it no less offensive since it was posted publicly and, according to your words, as a counterpoint to all the responses from veterans.

@Peter Morris

So, out of a sense of duty he put aside his own personal sense of morality, and participated in a war that he felt was wrong.
Are you saying that makes him a whore? I certainly am not. A hypocrite, perhaps.

Sounds a lot to me like a politician who’s trying to play both sides, opposing the war to attract the anti-OIF crowd and playing up his service to attract OIF supporters. I don’t know what a Civil Affairs Officer does, but it doesn’t sound to me like he was leading raids against insurgents. I won’t call him a hypocrite, but he is a politician so I distrust him inherently.

Imagine what would happen if an officer in an infantry regiment refused to lead his troops into battle because he was opposed to the war. They would surely go into battle anyway, and probably with no effective leadership. Doesn’t that officer have a higher moral obligation to lead his troops effectively and keep them safe? Isn’t abandoning that responsibility for one’s political beliefs a more morally dishonest thing to do?

@Peter Morris

And if a soldier refuses to fight for a cause he doesn’t agree with, then there are certain consequences… criminal charges and military justice.
http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2004/s1216480.htm

This guy’s crime was not objecting, but being absent without leave. He wasn’t punished for objecting, and would have been excused had he claimed objector status without being absent

The High Court upheld the prosecution, but noted he could have been excused from duty if he had applied for conscientious objector status earlier.

@Peter Morris

http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,1602595,00.html

This one is not claiming conscientious objector status, he is purposely forcing a court to determine whether the war is legal or not. I suspect he will lose. Proving that a war is “manifestly illegal” will be a pretty tough nut to crack. It seems to me that he is not so concerned about his military career (he’s a reserve doctor, why should he be), and since he’s a doctor I don’t think he really believes that he will have to commit a morally repugnant act in battle - he’s a doctor, his job is to save lives. That fact makes his case all the more repugnant to me. He’s obviously making a case of this for publicity and not because he is morally opposed to anything he might be ordered to do in the course of his duties…unless of course he feels morally obligated NOT to treat wounded soldiers in a war he’s opposed to. If that is the case he should be stripped of his medical license at the least, and possibly charged with aiding the enemy.

@Peter Morris

Just a question for you. Suppose Bush starts a new war that happens to be deeply offensive to your own personal sense of morality. I mean, it really goes trotally against everything you believe to be right. Do you :

1. Ignore your own principles, and fight the war anyway, out of duty.
2. Refuse to fight, resign and take the consequences.
3. something else.

Well, to start with, I am no longer in the service, and I find it rather unlikely that I would be called back to active duty. But since this is a hypothetical, let’s say that this has happened. What you haven’t quite understood yet is that a sense of duty is a big part of a person’s moral convictions. I personally think that my duty to serve my nation and my responsibility to my fellow service members is of much higher moral importance than my political beliefs. I would obey every lawful order issued to me. Since the POTUS has the legal authority to recall me to duty as well as the legal authority to deploy troops in combat, I would follow those orders despite my political reservations. For me to refuse to follow an order it would have to be “manifestly illegal”. Since the POTUS has the authority to engage troops in combat, I don’t see how a war can be manifestly illegal, and I am not going to get into a debate about whether OIF is legal or not in this thread.

If I’m ordered to serve in combat, I serve; if I’m ordered to commit a war crime, I refuse and use my chain of command to report the person who gave me the unlawful order.

[Peter_Morris]

Well, to start with, I am no longer in the service, and I find it rather unlikely that I would be called back to active duty. But since this is a hypothetical, let’s say that this has happened. What you haven’t quite understood yet is that a sense of duty is a big part of a person’s moral convictions. I personally think that my duty to serve my nation and my responsibility to my fellow service members is of much higher moral importance than my political beliefs. I would obey every lawful order issued to me. Since the POTUS has the legal authority to recall me to duty as well as the legal authority to deploy troops in combat, I would follow those orders despite my political reservations.

So, you have put aside your own personal convictions and let other people tell you what to fight for. And you are willing to serve a cause that you believe to be wrong.

Nuff said.

[samclem]

An update.

My son probably already had his mind made up when I first posted this, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

He’s on his way to Paris Island next week. :eek:

Again, his mother and I thank all those who posted. We’re more confortable with his decision, although I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself.

[GWVet]

@Peter Morris

So, you have put aside your own personal convictions and let other people tell you what to fight for. And you are willing to serve a cause that you believe to be wrong.

Nuff said.

Oh yes, you did a splendid job of knocking down your little straw man. You still don’t quite get that to some people, duty is a higher moral responsibility than politics. I have not set aside my personal convictions because those ARE my personal convictions. Disagree with me if you must, but do not put words in my mouth or assign motives that don’t exist. I can’t make it any clearer than that so I shall cease to try.

[GWVet]

@samclem

An update.

My son probably already had his mind made up when I first posted this, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

He’s on his way to Paris Island next week. :eek:

Again, his mother and I thank all those who posted. We’re more confortable with his decision, although I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself.

I wish him the best of luck and I wish you comfort and success in your new role as a military parent. While he is away (especially while he is at Parris Island) write him as often as you can. A letter from home in boot camp is probably the most effective stress relief there is.

[Peter_Morris]

@GWVet

Oh yes, you did a splendid job of knocking down your little straw man. You still don’t quite get that to some people, duty is a higher moral responsibility than politics. I have not set aside my personal convictions because those ARE my personal convictions. Disagree with me if you must, but do not put words in my mouth or assign motives that don’t exist. I can’t make it any clearer than that so I shall cease to try.

“Each man’s duty is the King’s but each man’s soul’s his own.”

You are using duty as a way of evading personal responsibility for your actions. It doesn’t work like that.

You’re the universal soldier and you really are to blame.

[BMalion]

@samclem

An update.

My son probably already had his mind made up when I first posted this, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

He’s on his way to Paris Island next week. :eek:

Again, his mother and I thank all those who posted. We’re more confortable with his decision, although I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself.

God bless him and keep you all safe and secure.

[EEMan]

@GWVet

I wish him the best of luck and I wish you comfort and success in your new role as a military parent. While he is away (especially while he is at Parris Island) write him as often as you can. A letter from home in boot camp is probably the most effective stress relief there is.

Letters are the most important thing you can do during his Boot Camp expirence. You should be proud that you raised a man who can make his own decisions (esp when they don’t always gel with yours), and tell him Semper Fi for me.

[SSG_Schwartz]

@samclem

An update.

My son probably already had his mind made up when I first posted this, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

He’s on his way to Paris Island next week. :eek:

Again, his mother and I thank all those who posted. We’re more confortable with his decision, although I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself.

I hope he is successful in whatever he does. I think him for his service. The Marines will make him grow in ways he never thought possoble. The war may be right or wrong, but our ocuntry still needs men and women to protoct our freedom. Show him support for his decision. He will need it.

[murphy54]

the answer is simple and clear…he should not have joined the marines.Because when he decided that he decided that he agrees to kill for money.Have you ever seen fahrenheit 9-11?Who is ben laden(an ex very good friend of bush),and so on(check it out)…by the way …it is banned in the US.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

@murphy54

the answer is simple and clear…he should not have joined the marines.Because when he decided that he decided that he agrees to kill for money.Have you ever seen fahrenheit 9-11?Who is ben laden(an ex very good friend of bush),and so on(check it out)…by the way …it is banned in the US.

HEY! murphy54! Don’t let your yappper run away with your @$$!

HERE is your so-called “banned film”. (CLICK LINK)

Next time, check your facts, before you open your pie-hole, please! :mad:

[BMalion]

No! murphy54 is right! You march right down to that boot camp and tell your son to “get home this minute or so help me you’ll be grounded for a month little mister!”

[tomndebb]

Bosda, this is GD, not the Pit. Restrain yourself.

murphy54, you should also consider that this is Great Debates where we hope for a little more considered opinion (and a lot less misstatement of facts). Your contribution, such as it was, was both hyperbolic, erroneous, and nearly incoherent. Please put a bit more effort into any future posts, here.

[ /Moderating ]

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Samclem, thanks for the update. May he learn much, grow stronger and in time return safely home to you, having served his country with honor and courage. Semper Fi.

[Mr.Moto]

Best wishes here as well.

[Skywatcher]

@samclem

Thanks for the responses so far. I do NOT think he’s only joining because of his friend. I think that’s why he’s doing it at this time.

No, he’s not talked ot any branch other than the Army/Marines. I’m looking for a number for an old friend of mine who is still, probably, a Navy recruiter and will give him the straight dope.

Hey, sam, I have a cousin who was (and still is AFAIK) a Marine recruiter in Cinci. Want me to dig him up?

[Skywatcher]

Ah, I see I’m too late.

[samclem]

If there’s an upside to this, my wallet shrank a little slower this week. Thank you, Uncle Sam.

[SkeptiJess]

Samclem, I missed this thread earlier, but I don’t think it’s too late to stick my head in and (hopefully) make you and your wife feel a bit better.

My (almost 20 year old) son joined the Navy 18 months ago. He skipped his senior year (went to summer school and graduated early) to do it. Although my husband and I are both veterans (my husband spent 26 years in the Navy and I spent 6 years in) this was definately not our first choice for Nick. We would both have preferred him to do his 4th year of high school more conventionally and move on to college. But what can you do? He wasn’t yet 18 when he made this decision, so we could have tried to force him to stay in school (the summer school program he went to cost around $1000, which we could have refused to pay for) – at least in the beginning. But we decided to support him instead. Joining the military is not, after all, a dishonorable choice – not in our opinions anyway.

So, 18 months down the road are we sorry we supported him in this? No. He has found it to be a valuable experience and, while he admits to being sorry now he didn’t try harder in school, he isn’t sorry he joined. It’s been a maturing experience (what isn’t a maturing experience when you are 18?), but, most importantly, it’s been an experience he chose. He chose to do this, and he researched it, and he did what was needed (summer school) to make it happen. Now he’s sticking with it, and working to be the best sailor he can be. We’re proud of him and forging a great adult-to-adult relationship with him – the payoff, we’re finding, for raising him. It’s been a good thing.

Nick is a Hospital Corpsman, BTW, and he is stationed at Camp LeJeune with the Marines. He will be deploying in 6 months or so – possibly to Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe our guys will meet up somewhere down the road.

Give your wife a hug for me and tell her she did a good job raising a good man – from one military mom to another.

Ditto on the wallet-not-shrinking thing, BTW – I swear our food and laundry bills shrank by half when Nick left!

[Cartooniverse]

@GWVet

Oh yes, you did a splendid job of knocking down your little straw man. You still don’t quite get that to some people, duty is a higher moral responsibility than politics. I have not set aside my personal convictions because those ARE my personal convictions. Disagree with me if you must, but do not put words in my mouth or assign motives that don’t exist. I can’t make it any clearer than that so I shall cease to try.

Having carefully read the to and fro between you two, it is not very debatable that you, sir, believe absolutely that duty is a higher moral responsibility than politics. It also appears that you are very comfortable with the concept that duty and the moral blinders it provides sits well with you. Not so for some Dopers reading this.

When your commanding officer tells you to blow the head off of someone in Iraq, you do one of two things. A) Stand there debating why it may be morally repugnant to blow the head off of a total stranger just because you were told to, or B) Blow his head off.

There is no middle ground here. I personally find it repugnant that a pereson would use the word “morals” to describe a mindset that permits one to follow orders to commit murder- but hey, this is G.D. and you get your say. Just as we get ours.

It appears, and I beg you to correct this impression if it is erroneous, that you place duty in the column marked “moral responsibility” wayyyyy up there above “sense of self”, " humanity", " preservation of one’s fellow human being" and other various … moral responsibilities.

If told to murder, you murder and sleep well at night? It appears from all of your posts that you do. Is this the case?

For, if it is not the case, then how can you say that duty is the higher moral responsibility in your own life?

While it is true that I am taking you and your words to task here by asking hard questions, I do not mean to disrespect you- I’m asking you to clarify in very plain language just exactly what you mean. This isn’t The Pit, and I am not attacking you for your moral stance- just asking for very transparent clarification of it. No straw man here.

samclem, I hope that your son’s choice brings him a level of maturity and a series of life experiences that are healthy and positive, and that he remains safe during his time of service.
Cartooniverse