Hey y'all, been a while. Been busy with classes and the like. Been getting a lot of grief from professors and faculty about wanting to go to grad school, which is making me dig my heels in deeper. Blah. And I need to pay lacrosse peoples. Grr. Been rather depressed and frustrated lately, with different people and things going on in my life. Some of you know what I'm talking about (well, probably just Mike), others of you really... don't. Maybe cuz Mike's the only one who's taken time to talk with me lately. Thank the stars for our Tues/Thurs lunches. They're keeping me sane.
Below, if anyone's interested, is a rant I just had on my message board for ethics class. Feel free to respond with your own opionions or discussions - just no attacks please. Either on my views or on others. Play nice peoples.
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So I believe the question for this forum is about whether or not we feel there is or is not a higher moral standard for military personnel, and perhaps whether or not there should be. If I'm completely mistaken and heard that wrong... oh well, it's an interesting topic anyways.
I believe that whether for good or for bad, the American population has the belief that their soldiers should have a higher moral standard than the rest of the Americans. It has come from diplomacy issues and international affairs, and how we are portrayed abroad and with our neighboring nations. The public has come to believe that the people overseas in, for example, Iraq, are the face of Americans nationwide and therefore must put their best foot forward and look and act better than 'typical' Americans. We have come to see soldiers as 'bad' people for making human mistakes. Yes, there are several instances lately where the 'bad' people were most definitely bad people. But other times, there have been simply human mistakes which have been made and the media made a big deal over it due to the fact that soldiers are such visible players in this huge chess game. There the ones that are the most visible and most directly in the media spotlight. From there, the media makes a big fuss if someone is simply human and isn't immortally perfect. No one's perfect. (Sorry guys. I hate to dash some of your hopes.)
Personally I believe that although military personnel have more rules and regulations to follow, and I think for good reason, to demand that they have a higher 'moral' standard is nonsense. You can follow rules without being moral, you can be moral and not follow rules. The good people will be good people with or without the military telling them to be perfect. The unmoral people can follow orders while still not being moral people. As hard as the military can sometimes try, it can't change everything a person learned for the first 18-20 years of their life from friends and family. True people can change, but the majority of people won't change that much, overall.
I think that the course of time has made it difficult for us to understand the foundations our military was based off of: a militia. Simple, every day people. Farmers, carpenters, coopers, lawyers, rebels. Common folk. People could just pick up arms, work together, and fight. There was none of this huge 'higher moral for the military people' because the 'military people' were your next door neighbors who had jobs other than fighting, unless you count the drunks at the pubs.... But our military was based off of common people fighting for a common ideal. Our military now, is just American citizens volunteering their lives to fight for a common ideal. Has it really changed so much? Sure, the military personnel are the people in uniform overseas (and at home, too) that people can pick out of a crowd immediately. Yeah, they need good morals, but not necessarily 'better' or 'higher' morals. Perhaps they have simply kept the same standards from ages past, and the American people have simply degraded in their morals? Could that be the rift between civilian and military? That maybe the 'common' person has lower morals than we used to?
This separation of morals, as it gets ingrained into society, just pushes the military and American populous farther apart. No one side has better or higher moral standards than the other, when it comes down to it. It's just stressed more in the military environment. It's just one more thing to push the military and populous farther apart. I walked into one of my first naval science classes last year and got this look and muted whispers of "Geez, look, it's a civilian". Two years and seven navy classes later (and three AF classes), you know what I've found? There's really no difference. Even when visiting officers drop by, or the officers teaching the classes, or the Midshipmen or Cadets, there's really no huge difference except a greater grasp of government knowledge. I'm no more or less moral than any of the other people here. I've really not seen any Midshipmen or Cadets or officers that seem to have a 'higher moral standard' than every other person I know. They drink underage just as much as other college students. They probably cheat just as much as other college students too - remember that statistic for doctors? Officers like to play pranks just as much as other adults. They have the same trouble and worries as well. They can make bad decisions. So where's the higher moral standard? Heck, where's the different moral standard?
I don't think there is a higher moral standard for military personnel, nor should there be. I believe that if someone does something wrong, they should be punished. Abu Ghraib and the rape cases - yeah, you know, that was stupid and they need to be punished. But on the same note, I don't care if they're military or not. I'd say that prison guards and rapists that aren't in the military need just as harsh a punishment. If the military is the face of the government, they need to stick to good morals, I agree. But if people in other countries are really that interested in seeing what Americans are like, they just need to go online. There are murders and rapes every day. People are letting immigrants, although illegal, to die in the back of an unheated truck and die of overheating and dehydration. Vice President Cheney shoots campaign contributors on quail hunts...
Military people are just normal people with a different profession than other people. When they're home they're just as much a citizen as I am. When they retire, they're citizens again. I think that the 'higher moral standard' has been emphasized by the media, and nothing more.
