Blame soldiers for war?

[apdst]

Yet not a valid defense at Nuremberg Trials.

The Nuremburg trials would be ruled unconstitutional, if United States citizens were subjected to the same legal standard, because of the use of ex post facto law.

 

[Cordelier]

I agree, but #2 isn't always going to happen. It is what it is.

Depends on the outfit. When it happens, I've seen it have a magical effect on the men. They can live with getting out-worked by an NCO - that's expected. But nobody ever wants to get out-worked by a Lieutenant. I've seen Lieutenants give a guy 50 push-ups and then get right down there and do them as well. Then challenge them to do 50 more. Every time.

You want to boost morale and esprit de corps? Try giving that a shot.

 

[apdst]

Depends on the outfit. When it happens, I've seen it have a magical effect on the men. They can live with getting out-worked by an NCO - that's expected. But nobody ever wants to get out-worked by a Lieutenant. I've seen Lieutenants give a guy 50 push-ups and then get right down there and do them as well. Then challenge them to do 50 more. Every time.

You want to boost morale and esprit de corps? Try giving that a shot.

I agree, but sometimes that won't be the case. I get your point, though and you're right.

 

[Cordelier]

I agree, but sometimes that won't be the case. I get your point, though and you're right.

Don't tell a guy to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

 

[apdst]

Don't tell a guy to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

Well, sometimes that guy is going to have clean toilets and his platoon leader isn't going to clean toilets.

I know when I pinned stripes on my collar, I didn't clean toilets anymore...lol

But when it comes to training? Yeah, "with your men, like your men", is the only acceptable standard.

 

[Fledermaus]

OK, now let's go into something that most people seem to know little to nothing about.

There were a great many "War Crime Trials" after WWII. But most only seem to know of the Nuremberg Trials.

Those trials were for the highest levels of Nazi leadership. And those were not "War Crime Trials", they were trials for "Crimes Against Humanity" for starting the war, then conducting the "Final Solution". You did not see "Corporals and Sergeants" there, because they were not responsible for starting the war.

The "Trials for Corporals and Sergeants", along with all other members of the military were the Dachau Trials. They went on between November 1945 and August 1948, and tried 1,672 German war criminals in 489 separate proceedings. During these trials, 1,416 former German soldiers and other security officials were convicted of war crimes. 297 were sentenced to death, 279 were given life sentences.

For example, of the 40 officials tried at Dachau for war crimes at the Dachau Concentration Camp, 36 were sentenced to death, and 23 were hanged over a 2 day period 5 months later. Ultimately 116 members of the Dachau Camp were convicted and sentenced.

Another of the high profile Dachau Trials were those responsible for the Malmedy Massacre during the battle of the Bulge. This is where over 80 American POWs were rounded up and summarily executed between December 1944 and January 1945. Of the 73 tried at Dachau, 43 were sentenced to death, 22 to life in prison, and 8 others to between 10 and 20 years in prison.

And there were many more trials for war criminals after WWII. The Auschwitz Trials, the Frankfurt Trials, and even the Majdanek Trials among many others. Ultimately tens of thousands (of the over 14 million) who served in the Wehrmacht were tried and convicted in the years after the war of War Crimes.

And I only listed those War Crime Trials against Germany. There were also the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the Japanese version of Nuremberg), then the trials against lower leaders and soldiers. Like the Nanjing War Crimes Trial, the Manila Tribunal, the Yokohama War Crimes Trials, and the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials.

Thank you both for the clarification of my point and an education...

 

[Fledermaus]

I wasn't at the hearings. You were?

They have this thing called paper. People make marks on the paper to record things....

 

[Oozlefinch]

Everyone, or most of them, were SS, Gestapo, or NDSP leaders. Few, if any, were members of the Heer, Luftwaffe, or Kreigsmarine. Piper would be one of the exceptions if someone wanted split hairs.

The majority were, because they were more likely to commit such crimes.

But common soldiers who did such actions were also tried and convicted.

Thankfully, the Wehrmacht was nowhere near as prone to commit such atrocities as other groups like the SS were. This can be shown in 1942 when the mass graves at Katyn were discovered. When Colonel Rudolf von Gersdorff was informed of this discovery he immediately started an investigation to determine what had happened, and who was responsible. The rank and file of German soldiers were horrified at what was discovered, as were the members of the European Red Cross brought in to investigate the site.

But the fact was, there were war crime trials for those of lower ranks, not just the upper echelon.

And yes, even US and other allied soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes. Sergeant Horace West was Court Martialed for a massacre of 37 POWs in Sicily, where he was found guilty (but the sentence was remitted). And yes, other massacres of POWs were done by US forces during the war. For example, orders were given for no SS troops to be taken alive after the Malmedy Massacre. A war crime, but nobody was interested in pursuing and such violations after that.

And there was also the Dachau Massacre, by US forces after the concentration camp at Dachau was liberated. Once again, after seeing the death and atrocities done there by the guards nobody was interested in trying to prosecute any of the POWs killed.

 

[PleasantValley]

Are soldiers personally responsible for war? That was the message of Universal Soldier, a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie that became popular when covered by Donovan in 1965.

Lyrics include:

And he's fighting for democracy he's fighting for the reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall

But without him how would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body as the weapon of the war
And without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he really is to blame

Do these lyrics make a valid point?

I have that song on a CD, and NO, they can't be blamed.
They usually have no control over who orders them where.
..and few people with a right mind actively seek out war.

 

[RF667799]

Well, sometimes that guy is going to have clean toilets and his platoon leader isn't going to clean toilets.

I know when I pinned stripes on my collar, I didn't clean toilets anymore...lol

But when it comes to training? Yeah, "with your men, like your men", is the only acceptable standard.

That was true as a general rule when I was in also. So long as there were lower ranking EMs around, NCO's didn't do menial tasks in common areas like cleaning toilets. Of course, if you had billets like I did in Germany where NCO's had a private room with its own bathroom, then you of course kept your own room clean.

Also, I attended the Primary Leadership Development Course in about '84. Part of the standard there was that the barracks be kept in a high state of readiness- and by that they meant a ridiculously high state of readiness. Not only were the brass grates in the shower floors polished, they were removed and the pipes were polished inside as far as one could reach. The exposed plumbing was polished. There were a couple washing machines and dryers in the latrine, and they were waxed with automotive wax on a daily basis. That's just the tip of the iceberg and I suppose instilling a sense of what attention to detail can involve was the main purpose of the requirement to maintain those standards. That, and it aided the cadre in depriving us students of sleep.

Afterwards though, if you ever had Privates balking about keeping their own barracks clean enough, you never felt any sympathy if they complained it was too hard.

 

[RF667799]

I have that song on a CD, and NO, they can't be blamed.
They usually have no control over who orders them where.
..and few people with a right mind actively seek out war.

I would have to take some small disagreement with the bold. I've known enough people that volunteered for combat zones that I don't think they are exceptionally rare.

 

[Thoreau72]

Depends on the order. In the US military you are only obligated to follow lawful orders and could be criminally liable for following unlawful orders.

As long as the thread starts with a song, I would like to offer Tennyson's take on it in The Charge of the Light Brigade: Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do, and die. True then, true now.

1Lt Ehren Watada was court-martialed by the Army when he refused orders to Iraq under Bush. He went to trial with civilian lawyers, the military prosecutor screwed up big time, the case ended up in federal court, and he prevailed. A long shot for sure.

https://www.thenation.com/article/ehren-watada-free-last/

 

[Peter King]

Are soldiers personally responsible for war? That was the message of Universal Soldier, a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie that became popular when covered by Donovan in 1965.

Lyrics include:

And he's fighting for democracy he's fighting for the reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall

But without him how would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body as the weapon of the war
And without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he really is to blame

Do these lyrics make a valid point?

No, in the past it was kings and queens who started wars and were responsible for them, now it is presidents/fuhrers/etc. etc. who start wars and they are responsible for it. No soldier is personally responsible. Unless your leader is a general or something like that.

 

[Napoleon]

Are soldiers personally responsible for war? That was the message of Universal Soldier, a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie that became popular when covered by Donovan in 1965.

Lyrics include:

And he's fighting for democracy he's fighting for the reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall

But without him how would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body as the weapon of the war
And without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he really is to blame

Do these lyrics make a valid point?

Perhaps in the era of corporatized warfare, i.e. militias for hire.

 

[Jredbaron96]

Thankfully, the Wehrmacht was nowhere near as prone to commit such atrocities as other groups like the SS were. This can be shown in 1942 when the mass graves at Katyn were discovered. When Colonel Rudolf von Gersdorff was informed of this discovery he immediately started an investigation to determine what had happened, and who was responsible. The rank and file of German soldiers were horrified at what was discovered, as were the members of the European Red Cross brought in to investigate the site.

Yes, they were. The Wehrmacht's war crimes constitute a list a mile long.

 

[RobertU]

No, in the past it was kings and queens who started wars and were responsible for them, now it is presidents/fuhrers/etc. etc. who start wars and they are responsible for it. No soldier is personally responsible. Unless your leader is a general or something like that.

But if the people elect a president who starts a war, are not those people responsible for the decisions they made as voters?

 

[RobertU]

Uh.....no.

The idea that "oh, if everybody would just refuse to shoot each other there'd be no war" is naive at best, downright idiotic at worst.

Nothing more than another desperate handwave by a political movement whic very much was the result of "self preservation" to avoid having to give themselves an honest look in the mirror.

There was a time in the late 1960s when a collective consciousness seemed to grip young people around the world, with the potential for millions to turn against authority and war. Alas, the moment passed.

If there is a “spirit of the times” today, it is in the opposite direction: a rising tide of anger and resentment.

 

[Peter King]

But if the people elect a president who starts a war, are not those people responsible for the decisions they made as voters?

Nope, and also, we were talking about soldiers being to blame for a war.

 

[PleasantValley]

I would have to take some small disagreement with the bold. I've known enough people that volunteered for combat zones that I don't think they are exceptionally rare.

You are right. I debated with myself about posting that last part but decided to go ahead.
Now that I have had time to reflect, I have known the same type people.
They are good people, but some are drawn to the sound of the guns.
We need them.

 

[RF667799]

You are right. I debated with myself about posting that last part but decided to go ahead.
Now that I have had time to reflect, I have known the same type people.
They are good people, but some are drawn to the sound of the guns.
We need them.

Who I take issue with are the ones who are never near the guns, never INTEND to be near the guns- but send others to the guns for their own purposes. Dylan's Masters of War.

 

[davidhume]

Who I take issue with are the ones who are never near the guns, never INTEND to be near the guns- but send others to the guns for their own purposes. Dylan's Masters of War.

My favorite: War Pigs, by Black Sabbath.

 

[RF667799]

My favorite: War Pigs, by Black Sabbath.

I actually considered that one at the same time. I don't know if I ever forgave them for rhyming "masses" with "masses" though.

 

[Oozlefinch]

Yes, they were. The Wehrmacht's war crimes constitute a list a mile long.

I never said they were not. But by and large most of those tried were from SS or Waffen SS units.

 

[Tigerace117]

There was a time in the late 1960s when a collective consciousness seemed to grip young people around the world, with the potential for millions to turn against authority and war. Alas, the moment passed.

If there is a “spirit of the times” today, it is in the opposite direction: a rising tide of anger and resentment.

The only problem with that is that the "anti war" movement was very much based in "self preservation". It wasn't so much "anti war" as it was "anti me risking my own ass going to war" in a lot of quarters.

Which is why the whole movement disintegrated pretty much the second Vietnam ended.

 

[Oozlefinch]

The only problem with that is that the "anti war" movement was very much based in "self preservation". It wasn't so much "anti war" as it was "anti me risking my own ass going to war" in a lot of quarters.

Which is why the whole movement disintegrated pretty much the second Vietnam ended.

Those in the US today are very different from those that made up the "Greatest Generation". Today, the numbers of those who would join the military is smaller than ever. And the pool of veterans is shrinking even faster.

In 1950, the percentage of US citizens who had served in the military was at just over 10%. Today, it is less than 2%. And when the last of the WWII and Korean War era vets dye off, I bet it will be around 1%. Probably near .75% when those from Vietnam are largely gone.

More and more, the attitude among most people is that the military is either for losers, criminals, or those with nothing better to do. And few are willing to serve because they either do not like being told what to do, or think that it should be somebody else that makes the sacrifice and not themselves.

And this is even worse, because as many of 75% in this country between 17 and 24 are unable to serve in the military anyways. Health problems, poor fitness, drug use, criminal records, and lack of education would keep out 3 out of 4 who wanted to join if needed.

Since Vietnam, the "Anti-War movement" has largely been a political one that actually has nothing to do with any war. One simply has to watch how it comes and goes to see that. During Bush 41 it grew in popularity, and pretty much vanished when President Clinton took over. It then vanished again, only to rise with a vengeance in 2001.

Then in 2008, it pretty much vanished once again. When a "movement" rises and falls not in relation to conflicts but who is in office, I pretty much dismiss it as a political weapon and not a real movement "of the people". And I am sure the first moment the current President decides to commit more troops somewhere, it will return once again.