Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
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.
You're dealing in extremes here. (Besides, every soldier who can fight 'the enemy' also has the capacity to fight against who truly takes his freedom instead of doing as ordered).

You're mistaken if you think I couldn't find similar in the realm of civilian work.

Military Mi-8s were used to lower supplies to ground workers. Later, fitted with external spray systems, they helped drop a bonding mixture over the (Chernobyl) reactor area to prevent contaminated dirt from spreading. Aeroflot-supplied versions executed precise drops of the chemical in bulk form, using their own pilots who were trained for Arctic oil-pipe laying and fire-fighting control in the former Soviet Union.

The Mi-8's four-axis autopilot gives it added yaw, pitch and roll stabilisation under any flight conditions. This made it ideal for precision flying close to the exploded reactor.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...ernobyl-12245/

Ever read about who fought the fires in German cities 1944/45? Hint: not only soldiers. In fact, few if any soldiers. Do you have an idea about what it's like fighting a firestorm? Or what it's like staying in the control centre bunker of a coal powerplant during an air raid? Again, civilians. And yes, they would not have improved their odds of survival if they had said "####, I'm outta here".


What's next? A claim that these civilians were exceptions?
Well, let me count the Banzai charges of the U.S.Air Force during the Iraq occupation then so I can establish the ratio of "Banzai!" to airmen...
Oh, wait. "Civilians" were the only ones who blew themselves up in that conflict. Many airmen were enjoying air conditioning meanwhile.


You argue for special status of military personnel based on extremes which rarely ever affect them, but which affect a few civilians as well.
Your case is incoherent because military personnel isn't that special. Some soldiers developed a certain class conceit about their trade, though.


Besides, most incidences of such class conceit are not about soldiers supposedly accepting greater risks. Most of what examples I saw were snobbier than that: They were pretending a superior morality.
There was usually a huge influence by right wing attitudes sniffable - particularly conceit about "moochers", "liberals", and the like.

The idea of military personnel being special or superior to the general population is more an authoritarian-leaning political attitude almost always found in military forces staging a coup d'tat than it is a justifiable assertion.