Firing Squads

[enigma51]

I know what you saying I even understand why you are disgusted! But lets not forget something you are talking about war these people are being trained to hate the enemy with a hate so great they are willing to kill each other. Now the first time you are in combat in somebody shooting at you guess what you shoot back they shoot back and they kill your mates and you theres Do you know what happens then; you get fucked off with them and you kill them and it snow balls until you have absolutely no feelings other than hate towards the “enemy”.

From your comments I take it you neither you old man nor you have seen combat or been in that situation and I am realy happy for you cause its something you don’t want to experience!

That’s why there is a saying that goes in war there are no winners!

[The Stranger:Me]

As we may or may not have observed, Japanese are a strange people. Rigid culture etc, In stark contrast to the Americans, loose, easy going, rude and brash?
1 percieved slight, when in the early to mid1800s, Japan had been a self sustaining society for many years, USA trade ambassador came over, and wouldn't take "no, we want to remain closed to external trade" for an answer.
Said,or did something rash.

I was always taught it was oil.

I was told that the US was blocking Japan's access to oil to try and put pressure on the Japs to get out of China.

What do you mean "a self sustaining society" please?

[u4ea]

Divine Wind - yes.....anyone know why they wore helmets??

maybe so no one would recognise them.................................duhno

[Macktheknife]

Im sorry to any who may be offended by this BUT...
having been in a few tight spots myself (not war I grant you) I can say from 1st hand experience, if someone is shooting at me and my mates then that person is going to die and I dont care how that happens. No amount of logic after the fact will explain or help anyone to understand who hasnt been in a similar situation, exactly what it feels like to have someone shooting at you. You get scared and you get MAD, then if you're lucky you get a chance to get even!
At that point you dont give a rats ass about rules or any other thing except getting a chance to give some back.
There is no value in my opinion in trying to re-evaluate the actions of men in 'war response mode' without knowing all the facts, which we do not. However, please consider the effect of being shot at for weeks and months on end, seeing your mates die and be maimed all around you for what feels like an eternity and knowing that the people who did this are just over there.... then you get hold of them, could you really expect anything else?
Frankly Im surprised they didnt do more of it!
Dehumanising the enemy is only a preparation for battle, after someone starts shooting at you it becomes personal really fast, ask anyone who has been there.
rant over 2c done.

[MSTRS:Me]

Well said Mac.....no such thing as Queensbury Rules in war.

[The Stranger:Me]

So then, to the roads, you, being an adult, accidentally cut someone off. Should they then cut you off to even the score, remembering, pulling in from lane splitting, or tight passing, most cagers would consider being cut off.
.

Um there is no comparison.

We are talking death here.
Think your mates, your wife, your kids.
Yes many a woman and child died too.

And one is an accident, a mistake if you like, we are all humans, we all make them.
The other was often cold blooded murder.

Under such circumstances I have no problem with a life for a life.

[Ixion]

'Twas not actually the ambassador (Japn refused to accept one). 'Twas a US naval officer , Commodore Perry. Turned up with a flotilla of ships with big bang-bangs, demanded that Japan sign a trade treaty or "bang bang go all your cities". Japan had no choice but to submit. The insult and loss of face rankled, and Japan embarked on a massive industrialisation campaign (accompanied by much internal revolution).

By the 1930's Japan was engaged in a major war in China, primarily to secure natural resources . Japan has very little in the way of natural resources, no ccoal oil iron copper etc worth speaking of.

The USA very much disapproved of the Sino-Japanese war (or, rather, of Japan), and there was much angst about atrocities, but did not more than complain, and allow US citizens to fight on an individual basis (The Flying tigers).

Then the US moved to stop exports of scrap steel to Japan (new steel had already been stopped). And threatened to embargo oil imports,.

Japan desparately needed oil . If oil imports were embargoed the Empire *had* to obtain it near to home - the only place was the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia , nowadays).

But Japanese attmepts to buy the islands from the Netherlands were unsuccessful.

That meant , to Japanese minds, an inevitable war (probably was inevitable - Japna had few other choices). And if it meant humbling the hated Yanks, well, so much the better.

They hoped to score a decisive blow to the US navy, grab the DEI before the US could respond (it's a long way for a fleet from the US to DEI), and then negotiate to beat all hell - agree to anything but we keep the DEI.

Went wrong when they missed the carrier fleet (sheer bad luck that) , and misread US response - they'd been relying on a continuation of the isolationist attitude that so far had kept the US out of the war with Germany. And got bogged down in a land war with the Brits in Burma, instead of rolling on into India as originally predicted.

[Lias]

Japan waits... Oil may well have been fat on the fire, because the anti american sentiment was very strong, and had been for more than 100 years.

Anti-American sentiment was very strong in Japan, and with good cause. Prior to the start of WW2, the Americans had bullying Japan for nearly 100 years. The first Americans military vessels arrived in Japan in 1853 and forced Japanese to begin trade with American merchants with threat of military action. I mean thats got to taint the relationship right from the start. The western powers also forced japan to force some fairly unfair treaties as well (1858 Unequal Treaties, 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, 1930 London Naval Tready) which generated untold amounts of anti-american and anti-western sentiment in Japan. Japan's PM was assasinated by some young officers for his support of the LNT for gods sake. The Americans kept up diplomatic and economic pressure during he 1930's over Japans Imperial ambitions and its ongoing clashes with the chinese and soviets. This was in large part fueled by American racism towards the japanese, and a refusal to trust asians. Japan lost the war, and as we all know the victor rewrites history, and even then with the US spin its still generally accepted that the main cause of Japan's attack onPearl harbour was American economic pressure, the Japanese leadership felt (rightly) that they really had no other option but to go to war or face ruin.

[kickingzebra]

Thanks guys for writing that history up...
Enigma, and Mac, that is a slightly different perspective, which I must appreciate, I'm no stranger to shooting things, but people, not really something I can honestly put in my CV, niether can my father, but grandparents and uncles yes. I suppose the difference is they didn't talk much about their time at war, and if anything were either shamed, or still traumatised by it. So maybe that is the reaction I have come to expect.

What are the armed forces taught?? I remember the huha, and internet videos of the marine who shot guys who were down in Iraq... So obviously they are taught to not shoot them when they are nuetralised... But how, what are the Rules?

Ideology has to come into it, where is the higher value, Human Life, or gaining the objective of victory. Remember the film of Lawrence of Arabia,
When he popped his head up, holding the blood stained knife after killing the German prisoners...

To take personal revenge for general crimes... would surely feed a bloodlust, not unlike a sheepdog, you may feed it on lamb for years (probably won't, but just for arguments sake) but as soon as it tries to get a piece of that for itself, no second thoughts, that dog is dead. isn't there a danger of this happening with soldiers who would do those things?

How does one go from being a merciless killer in a warzone, to being a good parent, and loving husband at home?

[Winston001]

I remember meeting a retired American in Mexico years ago. He'd been a soldier in France. At first he said they treated the Germans with sympathy and gave them a chance to surrender. Then one day his unit came across the body of an American soldier who'd been cruicified with barbed wire.

They didn't bother with prisoners after that.

[kickingzebra]

Not to be patronising, but the image of someone crucified with barbed wire, how would that work?? Crucifixion normally requiring a frame for a person to be nailed to? Unless the tied him onto said frame/cross/tree/whatever with barbed wire?!?

[Timber020]

I talked to an old lady whose husband during the depression was paid to cut up old ships for the scrap to be sent to Japan. He was paid by the pound he cut. Later he fought in the pasific where "They gave that steel back to him, every single pound."

Sometimes you cant keep prisoners. They cost you supplies, mobility, man power, security and generally can be a great threat to what you doing. Killing prisoners isnt unusual by any means. You look after your team first, and if prisoners are a great threat, then you do what you have to.

I know guys who have been through wars, one fought germans from 1940 until VE day and then fought the japanese until 1947! (mopping up squads that wouldnt surrender). He still holds alot of hatred towards the german as they killed his family. His unit never kept a single german prisoner in 4 years of fighting, and none of them ever took leave. He was wounded at least 5 times and After the war he moved to NZ and was a wonderful father. (he would be awesome to write a book on)
I know guys that fought in Korea, Vietnam and Rhodesia and know that there were times when they couldnt afford to keep prisoners, so they didnt.
Pretty much 2 generations of NZ men saw combat in the 2 big ones. Most coped pretty well, and were normal men once back at home.

Would I shoot prisoners? By oath I would.

[SARGE]

i cant cotton to shooting a POW in cold blood.. after he has surrendered ( IF he is wearing a uniform in accordance to the Geneva Conventions)..


however.. if my knife happens to slip out of its scabbard and is recovered by said POW.. or if he is trying to make a run for it...all bets are off


as far as the Marine in Fajulla.......



Here is your situation . You just took fire from unlawful combatants shooting from a religious building attempting to use the sanctuary status of their position as protection. you set the mosque on fire and you hose down the terrorists with small arms, launch some AT-4s (Rockets), some 40MM grenades into the building and things quiet down.... So you run over there, and find some tangos wounded and pretending to be dead.... You are aware that suicide martyrdom is like really popular with these kind of idiots, and like taking some Marines with them would be really cool. So you can either risk your life and your fireteam's lives by having them cover you while you bend down and search a guy that you think is pretending to be dead for some reason. Also, you don't know who or what is in the next room, and you're already speaking english to each other and its loud because your hearing is poor from shooting people for several days. So you know that there are many other rooms to enter, and that if anyone is still alive in those rooms, they know that Americans are in the mosque. Meanwhile (3 seconds later), you still have this terrorist that was just shooting at you from a mosque playing possum. What do you do?

You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that's what.

What about the Geneva Conventions and all that Law of Land Warfare stuff? What about it. Without even addressing the issues at hand you first thought should be, "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6." Bear in mind that this is a perpetual mindset that is reinforced by experiences gained on a minute by minute basis.
Secondly, you are fighting an unlawful combatant in a Sanctuary which is a double No No on his part. Third, tactically you are in no position to take "prisoners" because there are more rooms to search and clear, and the behavior of said terrorist indicates that he is up to no good. the low end of no good and the high end of no good are fundamentally the same... Marines get hurt or die. So there is no compelling reason for you to do anything but double tap this idiot and get on with the mission.

there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now. RIGHT NOW. Have you ever lived in NOW for a week? It is not easy

[Sniper]

You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that's what.

I second that.

Also, just on a side note, looking back at what happened 50+ years ago, we can't judge anyone for their actions. At that point in time it was the right thing to do, and I suppose admitting this on a public forum will earn some harsh comments ect, but I think I would have done the same.

If you saw combat in WW2 and came through, you no doubt saw at least 3 of your friends die, thats enough to change any mans outlook on life.

[Finn]

It's very easy for civilians of today to look back in disgust at what went on. Just remember, these guys were drafted. They had no choice but to fight an old mans war.

If you've ever been in a "war" you'd understand that compassion, empathy and respect for fellow human beings (on the other side) dissappears pretty quickly. A "brother" who you went through training with and then onto several operations is taken hostage and you find his body 3 days later 1 metre in the air, suspended by a pole up his arse. He is missing his eyes, finger nails, dick, toes and is purple from the beatings. As luck would have it, you find his captors. Do you:

a) Share a hot cup of tea, some biscuits and chat about the weather

b) Take them hostage and call the police

c) Take them out