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A Royal Navy medic refused to undergo rifle training on "moral and ethical grounds" ahead of deployment to Afghanistan, a court martial has heard.
Leading Medical Assistant Michael Lyons, 24, of Plymouth, Devon, is accused of wilful disobedience over the incident in Portsmouth last year.
Full Story here
Would you court martial this man? Would you allow conscientious objection within the armed forces?
My position is that the medic should be court martialled, in essence as a volunteer (we don't conscript or draft recruits) he signed, swore an oath and then refused a specific part of his military training. If he had been sent off to a war zone he would have become a liability.
You cannot pick and choose military assignment either!
Would you court martial this man?
Would you allow conscientious objection within the armed forces?
My position is that the medic should be court martialled, in essence as a volunteer (we don't conscript or draft recruits) he signed, swore an oath and then refused a specific part of his military training. If he had been sent off to a war zone he would have become a liability.
I do not know why some people act like you can. I have heard of cash sign on bonus, military schools sign on bonuses and duty station sign on bonuses but I have never heard of a fight only in the wars you want to sign on bonuses.You cannot pick and choose military assignment either!
No. If you want to be a ***** then do not join a occupation that involves the strong likelihood of you putting a bullet in someone..
The medic is the guy who saves my ass on the battlefield, armed or not.
I'm not sure what to think about this, but calling him a "*****" is pretty low brow.
Would you court martial this man? Would you allow conscientious objection within the armed forces?
My position is that the medic should be court martialled, in essence as a volunteer (we don't conscript or draft recruits) he signed, swore an oath and then refused a specific part of his military training. If he had been sent off to a war zone he would have become a liability.
You cannot pick and choose military assignment either!
if you are going to volunteer, it's pretty silly to be a conscientious objector.
Further, he is not being asked to shoot any one, he is being trained to use a rifle.
Would you court martial this man? Would you allow conscientious objection within the armed forces?
My position is that the medic should be court martialled, in essence as a volunteer (we don't conscript or draft recruits) he signed, swore an oath and then refused a specific part of his military training. If he had been sent off to a war zone he would have become a liability.
You cannot pick and choose military assignment either!
-- many people who objected to the Viet Nam police action volunteered and served in VN --
-- All the medics I ever ran across were armed, and many used their arms in combat; that's why they're part of units, and not just randomly wandering around saving everybody ... it's just another MOS.
The medic is the guy who saves my ass on the battlefield, armed or not.
I'm not sure what to think about this, but calling him a "*****" is pretty low brow.
If you conscientiously object, then get out of the service first.
This medic wanted to pick and choose which zones he was deployed in. Nearly every other person in the services simply goes where posted. Your sentence shows the discrepancy - the Vietnam objectors still went and served there.
The point Redress was making concerned the training beforehand. He refused the weapons training that was part of his general training. A man unwilling and unable to defend himself while in uniform could be a hindrance to others on the same side.
Unless the combat medics I met when I was a infantry soldier were lying they told me that according to Geneva convention rules they get special protections and are not allowed to fire at the enemy. So a combat medic would not be doing any killing.
Since a medic may well be doing field triage, he'll need to know how to defend himself. Unless he's a complete pacifist, he's going to want to protect his own life, and to do that, he needs the weapons and the knowledge to operate them.
Yes, well ... please name the conflicts we've been in since WW II where the enemies we were fighting gave two ****s about complying with the Geneva Convention.
I remember some guys in our boot camp (Marines) that raised there hands when asked if anybody was a conscientious objector to going to war. They were removed from my platoon and I have no idea what happened to them, if they got sent home or sent back in training.
Going by historical precedent, they more than likely became hard core Republican Hawks in Congress and the Senate, or became staffers and flacks for the Republican Party think tanks..
Would you court martial this man? Would you allow conscientious objection within the armed forces?
My position is that the medic should be court martialled, in essence as a volunteer (we don't conscript or draft recruits) he signed, swore an oath and then refused a specific part of his military training. If he had been sent off to a war zone he would have become a liability.
You cannot pick and choose military assignment either!
Yes, well ... please name the conflicts we've been in since WW II where the enemies we were fighting gave two ****s about complying with the Geneva Convention.
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