[CaptainCrunch]

I'll admit, I don't really know what the difference is. They seem like basically the same thing to me. They are all trained to be soldiers and they all witness similar events.

It might seem like its unimportant, but there are a lot of differences between the Army and the Marines, from training to attitude. The Marines are front line assault troops, first to go in, last to leave, thier attitude reflects this.

The reports say that the wounded had already surrendered to another group of Americans. You would think that they would have made sure they were disarmed.

There were also reports that they hadn't clearly surrendered, there are also reports of fake surrenders followed by ambushes. There are also reports of the use of wounded insurgents to draw troops into sniper zones

And even if he was booby trapped, what good would shooting him at a relatively close range do? At best, he would be dead and booby trapped, and at worst, he could have detonated the booby trap and killed everybody. It is for that reason the "booby trap" excuse doesn't work for me.

Because if he's dead you don't need to bother approaching him, he can't arm and fire his explosives or pull the pin from a grenade when you get close enough, because a dead man can't pull a concealed weapon and pop you when you get close enough when your trying to render aid. A dead insurgent can't get another shot at you down the road.



Like I said in another thread about this, I honestly can't say that I wouldn't have done the same thing if I was there. But knowing this about myself, I would never join the armed forces. I just don't like the excuses being made to try and justify it. Most of them are hypocritical. Why can't we just admit that some of these soldiers make bad decisions and break the rules from time to time?

Sure some soldiers make bad decisions, nobody hasen't admitted that, I'm still not happy about the prisoner treatments. And its great that you didn't join the armed forces because you didn't think you could do it. Thats why this is hard to argue unless you've been in a situation like that. But I know that when I was out on deployment I came to the decision with some help from a experienced officer that I wasn't to take undue risk that would put myself or other soldiers in a precarious situation.