Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Nonsense.
The quote was clearly in a context implying that such extreme punishments without due trial were commonplace. Now you're moving goalposts and talk about what some of the most extreme armies did at their worst times.
My statement was simple, plain and true. Armies, every one that I've read of, kill their deserters if they feel the need. With due process or without, commonplace or not, they do it. That is a simple fact.

Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
See? "military". Not 'extreme dictatorship's military that's desperate because it's losing badly', no "ultimate step" stuff or anything like that. You contrasted civilian jobs with military jobs in general.
No, that is the difference between military and civilian. You can be ordered to go out and die in a military organization and you can't quit if you feel like it. A banzai charge was effectively an order to die, gloriously maybe in the eyes of Imperial Japanese militarists, but it was an order to go out and die. When the Union soldiers got the warning order for the attack at Cold Harbor they knew that for many of them it was an order to die. They didn't write their names on pieces of paper and pin them to their uniforms for nothing. At Waterloo a unit was ordered by some peer to attack in line when a cavalry unit was plainly in sight on the flank of their route. That was an order to die. They did as they were ordered and most of them did.

So yea, soldiers can be ordered to die. And soldiers can't leave when they feel like it. There may be some exceptions to the leave when they feel like it part but in general it's a no go, especially in war.