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Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
Azure, the point is that in the eyes of the soldier the contract was violated, so the deal is off. That is how a contract is supposed to work.
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Groan . . . . I really don't want to leap into this but . . . . .
You know . . . . . you might think about the other side of what might happen if individual soldiers and their commanders developed a tradition, and a sense of empowerment as a result of weighing the "morality" or "political validity" of the orders placed in front of them by an elected civilian government.
The inevitable consequence of that, as we can see in many examples around the world, is the military is empowered and the authority of the elected, and therefore accountable, civilian branch diminished.
Its not a difficult leap from there to a legacy of military coups.
While no form of democracy is perfect, the version where the military is an unquestioning instrument of civilian authority and where the latter in turn is itself a slave to the electorate, accountable for its decisions within a reasonable time frame, remains the version we should favour.
That doesn't diminish the right of a soldier to refuse an order which international convention has declared is morally wrong . . . . . but on the whole he/she should be a an unquestioning and non-moralizing slave of elected civilian oversight . . . . . in fact, precisely what he/she agree to when he/she signed up.
Specific to Vietnam, you may not like the draft, and neither do I frankly, but it was the law of the land at the time of Vietnam, instituted and endorsed by several elected administrations of both the left and the right, just as its still the law of the land in some European countries.
You also may not like the decisions made by a civilian government surrounding Vietnam or the military decisions for which the civilian government is inevitably responsible . . . . but those decisions were ultimately subject to review by the elected representatives of the civilian electorate both at the time and in succeeding, hindsight, years.
You may have an opinion about the morality of the decisions surrounding Vietnam but those did occur under three Presidents and numerous versions of an elected Congress and House of Representatives AND have been subject to 30 years of subsequent debate and further elections, the results influencing future policy decisions and elections.
Although an individual soldier has the right to expression his/her opinion at a ballot box, ultimately, as per the law of the land and by democratic tradition, its not the business of the individual soldier to question where he/she is sent and/or how he/she is employed when they get there (acknowledging the moral right of a soldier to refuse an order such as lining someone up against a wall and shooting them without due process).
Comically, ironically, and I suppose tragically, one of the singular lessons coming out of Vietnam is that the duly elected civilian government shouldn't be running the minute, daily, details of a war being fought thousands of miles away.
A debate like this reminds us there is no perfect version of democracy since, in the end, it's still subject to the peccadillo's of human nature, the good and the bad.
By the way, 38% of those drafted by the American armed forces served in Vietnam. . . . . 62% did not. Two-thirds of those who served for America in Vietnam were volunteers while two-thirds of those serving in WWII were drafted. Seventy percent of servicemen killed in Vietnam were volunteers.
And, for balance, there exists a body of opinion that Vietnam was worth the effort. I won't defend it . . . . I'm just saying its there.
http://www.vietnam-war.info/facts/
Cowperson