William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[wm]

Looking deeper into all this I believe soldiers are indeed a breed apart from the average citizen which is why both careful and stringent selection processes are vital. This would be for a standing army as opposed to during a general mobilisation when just about anyione gets accepted into the military.

Again here there are those who will maintain you can make a soldier out of anyone... I would ask then what is the definition of a soldier?

A soldier is one who defends non-soldiers from the attacks of others. Soldiers are a breed apart because society has authorized them to violate the prohibition against killing other humans. However, that authorization comes at a price. Soldiers may also be killed. The right to kill is limited to other combatants, however, and we must still respect the human being that is wearing the uniform. The right to kill is granted to soldiers because they serve as defenders by proxy for all those others in the soldiers' countries who are not soldiers. This includes the civilians in your opponents' country as well. This last constraint requires that soldiers must expose themsves to additional risks to protect any and all non-combatants. Otherwise soldiers are not performing their primary duty of protecting non-combatants. Too often the focus shifts, wrongly, from protection to winning. The aim, then, of any military is to defend civilians. This is codified in the Preamble to the US Constitution with the phrase, "provide for the common defense."
I refer folks to Jaspers' The Question of German Guilt for a reasoned position on why a country's non-combatants are innocents.

[Fuchs]

A soldier is one who defends non-soldiers from the attacks of others.

Much of the time, they themselves are the ones attacking. Your description fits better to policemen, bodyguards and bouncers than soldiers.

Soldiers are a breed apart because society has authorized them to violate the prohibition against killing other humans.

No, this only applies to warfare - and many non-military combatants are then authorised to do the same.
A normal soldier is not authorised to kill anyone during almost his entire career.


You guys keep mistaking "war" for "military".


Challenge:

You guys claim soldiers are substantially different (or superior) to civilians in general. I write "in general" because you keep writing "soldiers" without much qualifiers (at war, in combat arms etc.) attached.

Show how this soldier is special:

An airman works in an air force depot, doing inventory and equipment checks on spare parts. The inventory starts again once it's done, week after week. He's working with a civilian there who does the exact same thing.

What's so substantially different about this soldier to justify any special attitude or expectations for rewards?

[carl]

An airman works in an air force depot, doing inventory and equipment checks on spare parts. The inventory starts again once it's done, week after week. He's working with a civilian there who does the exact same thing.

What's so substantially different about this soldier to justify any special attitude or expectations for rewards?

I don't know about any justifications or expectations but what is different is the airman can be ordered to leave the depot and go to the front and fight as an infantryman and he has to go or face penalty. The civilian doesn't.

[carl]

Wm:

Most all good words in your two posts above.

There is one small thing I would sort of disagree with and it is about "sense of the eternal continuity of a great cause." A great cause is not confined only to big politics and big ideology I think. I think a great cause could also be that soldiers and soldiering be what you enunciated in post #190. That is a great cause worth pursuing for as long as there are men.

[Fuchs]

I don't know about any justifications or expectations but what is different is the airman can be ordered to leave the depot and go to the front and fight as an infantryman and he has to go or face penalty. The civilian doesn't.

Not if there's peace. Besides, airman? A civilian can be drafted and be ordered to go fight at the front as well, and that's in many countries much more likely to happen than this happening to an airman.

Again, the difference is not mil/civ, but 'mil at war'/'civ away from war'


Why is it so hard to think logically about this, instead of blurring lines all the time and then drawing an allegedly unblurred conclusion?

[carl]

Not if there's peace. Besides, airman? A civilian can be drafted and be ordered to go fight at the front as well, and that's in many countries much more likely to happen than this happening to an airman.

Again, the difference is not mil/civ, but 'mil at war'/'civ away from war'

Why is it so hard to think logically about this, instead of blurring lines all the time and then drawing an allegedly unblurred conclusion?

Soldiers are soldiers because they are to fight and they don't have the option to refuse sans penalty when ordered. Civilians do.

If a civilian is ordered to the front he in effect just got drafted.

Lots of German airman got sent to the front as well as many American Army Air Corps guys at Bataan.

[Steve Blair]

Challenge:

You guys claim soldiers are substantially different (or superior) to civilians in general. I write "in general" because you keep writing "soldiers" without much qualifiers (at war, in combat arms etc.) attached.

Show how this soldier is special:

An airman works in an air force depot, doing inventory and equipment checks on spare parts. The inventory starts again once it's done, week after week. He's working with a civilian there who does the exact same thing.

What's so substantially different about this soldier to justify any special attitude or expectations for rewards?

This is actually a very good challenge/question. I've worked with military folks for a great percentage of my life, and this fairly recent attitude of exceptionalism is disturbing. I do think it's worth looking at and discussing without references to exceptional situations like Bataan and the like.

Folks seem to forget that for a great many years the Army in the United States was seen as alternately unnecessary, a mercenary force composed mainly of foreigners, or an instrument of Government oppression. Most popular acclaim was saved for state-based Volunteer units. Much of the glorification of the military gained momentum after the First Gulf War (for a variety of reasons, including some delayed guilt on the part of elites when it came to memories of their denouncement of the troops during Vietnam), and it's only gained steam ever since.

The military is in many ways an institution like any other large organization. You're going to have good folks, bad folks, and those who just do their job and go home. But the system's also set up to reward those who can "work the system" and doesn't reward or advance the sort of people they like to laud in hindsight (a Patton or an Olds wouldn't make it very far these days). And certain segments of the culture are seriously broken. To give one example, anyone who was surprised by the recent problems the Air Force's ICBM force is experiencing simply hasn't been paying attention to the culture.

I'll dismount the soapbox now, but I still think the original challenge/question is a good one. Having worked on a post during the late '90s, I saw a fair number of soldiers find ways to avoid deployments or other unfavorable assignments. They may not have a "check the box" option, but there are certainly ways to do it without significant penalty.

[wm]

Fuchs,
US military members are authorized to use deadly force outside the battlefield as well. The restrictions are very explicit, but that, as well as being subject to a special penal code, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in the US anyway, make military members a separate group from most folks in the country.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs,
US military members are authorized to use deadly force outside the battlefield as well. The restrictions are very explicit, but that, as well as being subject to a special penal code, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in the US anyway, make military members a separate group from most folks in the country.

I noted how Floridian civilians "are authorized to use deadly force outside the battlefield" in general and in ways soldiers in New York State aren't. The restrictions in Florida infamously are not very explicit. I also heard about how bodyguards, guards, policemen, executioners and in many countries also hunters/park rangers are authorized to use deadly force outside the battlefield", and in often ways soldiers aren't.

Killing is no military monopoly - and certainly not so in peacetime. In fact, intentional kills by soldiers are in peacetime again extremely uncommon and rather the extreme exception compared to the many legal kills by civilians.
So no, the big difference regarding "killing" is also about war/no-war, not mil/civ.

Besides; even in wartime civilians are hardly going to be prosecuted by their own country for killing a hostile soldier.

-----

Did you know tenured civil administrations, policemen, seamen and plenty other civilian job groups are under a special penal code in many countries all over the world? In fact, the penal code of German policemen is by its nature a twin of the Bundeswehr's. As is in fact the penal code for all German tenured public servants. Teachers, for example. Yes - a first grade teacher who teaches children the alphabet is under a special penal code in some countries!

I made a quick google search, and it confirmed that in the United States there's a huge legal difference between a public servant in a utilities institution and a normal employee in the same job.
Did you ever hear about a conviction for "abuse of office" by a non-government employee?
Me neither.
Non-governmental jerks can be fired, but never charged with "abuse of office".

-----

Besides, even IF soldiers were different/special because of special penal code or killing authorization:
That would still not support all the attitude stuff about it. No support for higher morality, hardly support for requirement of higher morality such as no cheating on spouses, no 'deserving' much respect et cetera.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Since you all have lost any connection with the original intent of the thread, I will throw this out:

Let women fight on the front line: Defence Secretary tells Army to end macho image

Tory Cabinet Minister reveals plan for women to be given combat roles
Review was due in 2018 but will be brought forward to this year
Chief of the General Staff will report to Hammond by end of year
Hammond says current ban sends bad signal Army not 'open to women'
Says 'macho image' of the Army is wrong. Claims reality 'very different'

By Daniel Martin and Ian Drury

Published: 09:56 EST, 8 May 2014 | Updated: 19:01 EST, 8 May 2014

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comments

Women soldiers could be allowed into frontline combat roles, it was announced yesterday.

Signalling the historic change, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said it was time for the Armed Forces to abandon the ‘macho’ image and show they were open to everyone who was fit enough.

He said the US, Canadian and Australian armies allowed women to serve in combat roles – and so should Britain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz31GHLvQXF
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[wm]

I noted how Floridian civilians "are authorized to use deadly force outside the battlefield" in general and in ways soldiers in New York State aren't. The restrictions in Florida infamously are not very explicit. I also heard about how bodyguards, guards, policemen, executioners and in many countries also hunters/park rangers are authorized to use deadly force outside the battlefield", and in often ways soldiers aren't.

Killing is no military monopoly - and certainly not so in peacetime. In fact, intentional kills by soldiers are in peacetime again extremely uncommon and rather the extreme exception compared to the many legal kills by civilians.
So no, the big difference regarding "killing" is also about war/no-war, not mil/civ.

Besides; even in wartime civilians are hardly going to be prosecuted by their own country for killing a hostile soldier.

Too bad you have chosen to use mockery and equivocation to try to make points.

On a serious note, the US has a history of fear of standing armies, choosing instead to rely on the call up of militia forces in time of need. I submit that European nations have a fear of militias (but I cannot substantiate this other than by appeal to the rest of Europe's reaction to Napoleon's armies of the people and the results of the Congress of Vienna). Does Germany having anything like the US National Guard, which is a military force in each state under the control of the governor of that state? In some states, a state militia also exists alongside the National Guard. The National Guard primarily provides support to local (state) law enforcement and disaster relief agencies when it has not been called into Federal service.

I also suspect that most European nations are federal unions with little to no states rights (although I seem to remember that the Bavarian Free State is or was somewhat unique in its relationship to the rest of Germany and Switzerland is a confederation.) The US started as a confederation, not a federal union, which may explain some of the differences between the US military and that of European nations or the former colonies of European nations.

Did you know tenured civil administrations, policemen, seamen and plenty other civilian job groups are under a special penal code in many countries all over the world? In fact, the penal code of German policemen is by its nature a twin of the Bundeswehr's. As is in fact the penal code for all German tenured public servants. Teachers, for example. Yes - a first grade teacher who teaches children the alphabet is under a special penal code in some countries!

I made a quick google search, and it confirmed that in the United States there's a huge legal difference between a public servant in a utilities institution and a normal employee in the same job.
Did you ever hear about a conviction for "abuse of office" by a non-government employee?
Me neither.
Non-governmental jerks can be fired, but never charged with "abuse of office."

Besides, even IF soldiers were different/special because of special penal code or killing authorization:
That would still not support all the attitude stuff about it. No support for higher morality, hardly support for requirement of higher morality such as no cheating on spouses, no 'deserving' much respect et cetera.

American business executives can be tried for abuse of office, although it is not called that. Still things like insider trading are exactly such abuses of office in the private sector.. (Check out Bernie Madoff or Jeff Skilling for examples.)

In American English at least, "special" can just mean different, it does not always have a connotation of "better." The attitude you are describing is, I think, an outgrowth of the attitude about the great cause described in the JMA quotation from Buchan to which I expressed concern in a later post in response to Carl

(Aside to The Curmudgeon--I'm trying to get back to the critique by Lind.) The last few lines above may be of use as an explanation for some of the officer failings Lind asserts. I believe that much of the US military does not have this overinflated sense of self-worth. Rather, my experience with them is that they are a humble and self-effacing group of folks. In fact, I think that were the US to follow the proposals made by JMA for selection and training, the expression by military members of their superiority and entitlement to special privilege would be even worse, in the American military at least.

[JMA]

And all that from a quick Google search... I wonder if you are able to substantiate your indictment of the man?

wm... I am waiting for a response to this.

Your cheap shot should not go unchallenged as you are not setting the example of the 'morality' of officers which you espouse.

[JMA]

I agree that the words read well. I am not so sure of the need for patience, but then I am one of those impatient Americans. I also am not of a mind to support the "sense of the eternal continuity of a great cause.". That sort of attachment can lead us to excessive "missionary zeal" of the kind found in things like Hitler's 1000 year Reich, AQ efforts to restore the Caliphate, or the Spanish Inquisition.

OK... now you need to share your war experience - briefly - so others can understand the context and where you are coming from as this does not make sense.

The US Army used to teach the 4 C's: courage, candor, competence, and commitment, as military virtues (and I hope it still does). However, please remember Aristotle's definition of a virtue: the mean between two extremes of a passion. Courage, for example is not the absence of fear. Rather it is having the appropriate amount of fear. What that amount is will vary from person to person and situation to situation, which, by the way, is why one cannot exhaust the catalogue of moral qualities as Buchan noted in the quotation's opening sentence.

I submit you have missed the essential point.

The characteristics mentioned in my quotes from Buchan and Moran should be used during the selection process prior to officer training starting.

You talk of teaching virtues . Now the bad news is - using your example - is that you can't teach the 4 Cs.

This I suggest is the greatest fallacy and probaby the main reason behind the moral and intellectual collapse Lind speaks of.

My contention is that the selection and training of potential officers is the most critical aspect which in the case of the US seems to attract the least attention. See thread Initial Officer Selection

To cover the fatal flaws in the US officer selection system the fallacy "made, not born" has become the mantra of those unable or unwilling ro make the necessary changes to fix the system ... or worse, those who don't even realise the system is broken.

If you wish to take this discussion further please indicate your exposure with selection and training of officers ... training in the real sense and not teaching officer cadets trivial aspects such as English and Geography (for example).

[JMA]

The convention is to cite the source of what you post. Just so I understand you, is this your personal opinion or where did you get this from?

A soldier is one who defends non-soldiers from the attacks of others. Soldiers are a breed apart because society has authorized them to violate the prohibition against killing other humans. However, that authorization comes at a price. Soldiers may also be killed. The right to kill is limited to other combatants, however, and we must still respect the human being that is wearing the uniform. The right to kill is granted to soldiers because they serve as defenders by proxy for all those others in the soldiers' countries who are not soldiers. This includes the civilians in your opponents' country as well. This last constraint requires that soldiers must expose themsves to additional risks to protect any and all non-combatants. Otherwise soldiers are not performing their primary duty of protecting non-combatants. Too often the focus shifts, wrongly, from protection to winning. The aim, then, of any military is to defend civilians. This is codified in the Preamble to the US Constitution with the phrase, "provide for the common defense."
I refer folks to Jaspers' The Question of German Guilt for a reasoned position on why a country's non-combatants are innocents.

[JMA]

Challenge:

You guys claim soldiers are substantially different (or superior) to civilians in general. I write "in general" because you keep writing "soldiers" without much qualifiers (at war, in combat arms etc.) attached.

Show how this soldier is special:

An airman works in an air force depot, doing inventory and equipment checks on spare parts. The inventory starts again once it's done, week after week. He's working with a civilian there who does the exact same thing.

What's so substantially different about this soldier to justify any special attitude or expectations for rewards?

Badly worded, very badly worded.

First of all a 'soldier' is a fighting man. An army in the field requires logistic supply in the form of both lethal and non-lethal stores and equipment. In the old days the commissariat looked after the non-lethal stuff.

Perhaps the only reason to put the commissariat and other rear elements in uniform is sothat they can be subjected to military discipline. In other words if the troops in the field need stuff urgently you just instruct them to work through the night and over the weekend if necessary to dispatch the goods to the soldiers in need. If they don't comply they you jail them. If they were civilians they would say, "Well I'll have to speak to my union first". Get the point?

Is your example based on your military experience?

Same applies. That storeman would be in uniform only because of the need to subject him to military discipline. There is no comparison between this store man and a fighting man. There is no problem IMHO for fighting men to put these rear eschelon types in the picture - physically if necessary - to remind them of their position in the pecking order when necessary.

[JMA]

Why is it so hard to think logically about this, instead of blurring lines all the time and then drawing an allegedly unblurred conclusion?

Yes indeed, it is difficult to understand why you are so confused about this issue.

[JMA]

Soldiers are soldiers because they are to fight and they don't have the option to refuse sans penalty when ordered. Civilians do.

If a civilian is ordered to the front he in effect just got drafted.

Lots of German airman got sent to the front as well as many American Army Air Corps guys at Bataan.

This is really a non-issue.

[JMA]

This is actually a very good challenge/question. I've worked with military folks for a great percentage of my life, and this fairly recent attitude of exceptionalism is disturbing.

Please help me understand where you are coming from here.

This work you have done with 'military folks' has it always been stateside or also in combat?

There is an essential issue here and that is the 'grunts' or GIs can't be faulted for their efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other hand the performance of the senior officers - home and away - has been questionable and that of the politicians has been disgraceful.

[wm]

wm... I am waiting for a response to this.

Your cheap shot should not go unchallenged as you are not setting the example of the 'morality' of officers which you espouse.

In the original post I noted the quotations were from Wikipedia. Here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bu...ron_Tweedsmuir. Perhaps you would like to refute the claims made therein and thereby prove my post was a "cheap shot.". (BTW, it has quite a bit more content to chew on than what is found at the Wikipedia link you provided for Lord Moran.) I also note that the source indicates Buchan was one of Alfred Milner's proteges in South Africa during Buchan's early career. Wasn't Milner responsible for management of the concentration camps where thousand of women and children died during the 2nd Boer War?

The convention is to cite the source of what you post. Just so I understand you, is this your personal opinion or where did you get this from?

This is my opinion. I "got" it from many years of reading, thinking, and talking with others in a wide variety of venues about the morality of war. I was going to start listing the sources, but came to the conclusion that compiling such a list covering about 50 years of such activity would be subject to error by exclusion and well outside the scope of this thread.

I submit you have missed the essential point.

The characteristics mentioned in my quotes from Buchan and Moran should be used during the selection process prior to officer training starting.

You talk of teaching virtues . Now the bad news is - using your example - is that you can't teach the 4 Cs.

I do not believe I missed the point. When I mentioned the 4C's, I tried to express (apparently not well) that the US Army taught that the 4C's were virtues, not that the Army taught others to be virtuous. (I hope I know my Aristotle well enough not to make that mistake.) Back in the day, the US Army's Leadership Field Manual FM22-100 portrayed examples of leaders demonstrating the 4Cs as part of its "Be, Know, Do" process, which, by the way, focuses on training not teaching, two very different things.

Please explain exactly how you would assess candidates for officer training prior to starting it. In the US Army, candidates are assessed during their training as officer candidates and cadets for such qualities. They may be terminated from commissioning programs for lack of aptitude--mental, physical, and/or leadership. They may also leave the programs voluntarily. A USMA graduate has been assessed for 4 years prior to receiving a commission, a ROTC candidate is assessed for at least a year, more usually 2-4 years. The shortest assessment time frame is for Officer Candidate School (OCS) graduates at 12 weeks, but they have also had prior active service time as an enlisted member, which was used as part of the assessment for selection into OCS in the first place. Candidates for ROTC and USMA are also subject to assessment prior to being accepted into those programs.

A more important concern is who assesses the assessors? What qualities should they display?
USMA cadets are required to learn what they know as Worth's Battalion Orders:

But an officer on duty knows no one -- to be partial is to dishonor both himself and the object of his ill-advised favor. What will be thought of him who exacts of his friends that which disgraces him? Look at him who winks at and overlooks offenses in one, which he causes to be punished in another, and contrast him with the inflexible soldier who does his duty faithfully, notwithstanding it occasionally wars with his private feelings. The conduct of one will be venerated and emulated, the other detested as a satire upon soldiership and honor.

Brevet Major William Jenkins Worth

One trusts that the cadets "internalize" the sentiments expressed by Major Worth. But as President Reagan said, "Trust but verify." In the course of their education and training, cadets are also evaluated by the tactical and academic faculty on their character development and expression. A significant portion of their academic instructors and all their tactical instructors are military members for just this reason.

[carl]

...(a Patton or an Olds wouldn't make it very far these days).

That is our very great problem and one of the things Lind was driving at.

Perhaps another thing he was driving at is exemplified by the punishment given Adm Giardina. He is still in uniform. He will still get the big pension. It may never happen but I wonder what the effect on things would be if Adm Giardina got a general discharge and no pension.