Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

1: Is the cause truly noble? If not, then we might be able to respect those who risk their lives for it, but we do not revere or praise them.

2: Do they fight honorably? If not, then they do not deserve respect (except maybe for the "dangerous animal" kind of respect I mentioned previously). Even if the cause is noble, those who fight for it only deserve respect if they fight honorably."

So an Englishman of the 18th century were to judge an American militiaman as a "dangerous animal" for (a) committing treason to his king to whom he had sworn an oath (b) bushwhacking officers from a forest without standing in straight lines, within gunshot range s in full view of the enemy,- thus fighting "dishonorably" as per the prevailing notions of "honor", he would be right?

Whether a cause is "noble" or not depends on who is doing the judgement. An Islamic fanatic who joins the Taliban can sincerely believe that he is fighting on the side of virtue and killing hellbound infidels who disobey God's word. To you his cause isn't noble. As for deliberately targeting citizens, that is precisely what bombing German cities, or Hanoi was.

Was dropping the Atom bomb or Hiroshima "honorable"?(Not saying Americans are particularly ignoble. Every army in history does what it takes to win and calls it "honorable", while the oppositions effective, uncounterable tactics often get called "dishonorable". )

What "fighting honorably" means, evolves over time and is almost always out of date. Knights called muskets dishonorable because a peasant could kill a knight from afar. Oh the horror. As did the Samurai. Hey Afghan insurgents think drones are dishonorable. American soldiers think IEDs and suicide bombers are dishonorable. Hmm.

English commanders complained that the American soldiers in the American War of Independence didn't fight "honorably" or 'like gentlemen'. Targeting officers was considered dishonorable and criminal. Wellington refused an artillery officer under his command permission to fire his battery at Napoleon because it was 'dishonorable'. Of course, Americans paid no heed because the tactic was effective. Sherman burned Georgia,and after the Civil War used the same tactics against the remnants of the American Indian tribes. These days, incinerating a city full of civilians from the air is "honorable". Poor Sherman was accused of barbarism for burning one city.

Coming to modern times, how is a drone attack blowing up a house full of civilians to target one insurgent commander "honorable"? You can argue it is effective. But honorable? You are fighting people with a technology they can't fight back against.

Should the Afghan insurgents fight F16s and Abrams with AK 47s while wearing distinctive uniforms so they can be picked off? That doesn't make any sense.

As a thought experiment, if you were an Afghan whose family were killed because drone operators half the world away mistook a wedding party for an insurgent group, would you be worried about conforming to the invaders notion of "honor"?

Martin Van Creveld has written a whole book, aptly titled "The Transformation of War" where he gives dozens of examples of practices that switched from "honorable" to dishonorable and vice versa with the passage of time.

(From Wikipedia).

The book's significance is attested to by the fact that until the middle of 2008, it was included on the list of required reading for United States Army officers, and (with Sun Tzu and Clausewitz) the third non-American entry on the list..

Well worth reading. Here is a sample of his writing. "Knowing Why Not To Bomb Iran Is Half the Battle" http://www.forward.com/articles/1254/ I don't always agree with Van Creveld but he makes me think.

First of all, police and firemen in the U.S. get a similar level of respect to the military. We just celebrated Veteran's day, so the emphasis was on the military, but at other times the police and firemen get the focus (to see an example of this, spend next September 11th in New York City).

That being said, the military experiences sacrifices (which I and others have mentioned) that police and firefighters don't: frequent moves, long time away from home, loss of rights, etc. Also, while I won't comment on the quantitative difference in danger levels between law enforcement and the military because I don't have statistics handy, I will say that there is an enormous qualitative difference in knowing that you are in proximity to an armed organization that exists for the express purpose of killing you and your fellow citizens.

>The assumption that everyone in the US army joined up to serve the Constitution etc and is universally motivated by "sacrifice" is very suspect.

Every single person who joins the U.S. military swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution, so even those who join for other reasons know what is expected of them.

You talk a lot about motivations for military service, but it's clear that you don't understand the U.S. military. The reality is that almost nobody joins for any single reason. For example, the OP gave a very complex and not entirely clear explanation for why he had joined, which included a certain amount of patriotism. There are certainly some folks who join just to get something they want or need, but the overwhelming majority are motivated at least in part by a genuine desire to serve their nation and the ideals it embodies. Also, I never said that anyone was motivated by sacrifice: I said that they accept sacrifice because they are motivated by other factors. (That being said, there probably are some individuals who really do seek sacrifice as an end unto itself.)

However, even those individuals who joined the military for purely selfish reasons deserve respect and gratitude: they did make sacrifices, and those sacrifices did support our nation.

In regards to your example of Japanese soldiers at Nanking: the moral worth of a cause is not completely subjective. If a person believes that spreading totalitarian rule is noble, that person is morally wrong. On the other hand, preserving a system of self-government is morally good. You can certainly argue that a particular war didn't actually do anything to preserve said system, but our service members don't sign up for particular wars, they sign up to serve our nation.

You contradict yourself here:

>The rest, the vows and the sacred oils and the lady’s favors, they’re silk ribbons tied round the sword.

>What distinguishes him from a mafia hitman is that...he is part of an organization subject to socially approved rules and regulations...

Those "vows" that your fictional character dismisses as "silk ribbons tied round the sword" are the same as the "approved rules and regulations." Furthermore, they are not merely "socially" approved. The rules of war as they exist today have been refined over the course of generations for the purpose of making sure that wars are fought between legitimate combatants, with everyone else left out of the violence to the greatest degree possible.

>And a description like, "individuals volunteered to make tremendous sacrifices in service to a noble ideal" would fit a policeman perfectly, if you happen to assume that every policeman chose his job only because he wanted to dedicate his life to justice and protecting his fellow citizens.

Actually, you don't have to make any such assumption because his motivations don't really matter: whatever his reasons for taking the job, he is making sacrifices, and his work directly contributes to justice and the safety of his fellow citizens. It doesn't matter why he chose to take the job, it only matters that he knowingly accepted the sacrifices that come with it and that he diligently pursues his duties.

>And yet we don't expect random people to thank every policemen "for his service".

First, nobody "expects" anyone to thank veterans. Second, I have seen plenty of people thank policemen, firemen, and teachers for what they do.

To me, one of the big take-aways that is relevant to HN is that military service, especially in wartime, gives you experiences that you cannot get anywhere else, and that these experiences prove extremely valuable to veterans in the civilian workplace. The first part (unique experiences) is not surprising, but the second part (military experience translates well to civilian work) is surprising or even counterintuitive to some people.

Another reason why this might seem content-lite to you is actually something you got almost right:

>I suspect what Dan really learned from the war will be discussed only over drinks with his fellow soldiers and not on any public forum.

I get the impression that he would be more than happy to share his most valuable lessons with anyone who asks, but the problem is that anyone who hasn't had military experience will not be able to truly understand the full extent of what he's trying to say. Your statement would be more correct if rephrased as:

"I suspect what Dan learned from the war will only be really discussed over drinks with his fellow soldiers and not on any public forum."

The reason being that those are the only people who can really understand what he's saying.

You actually demonstrate this effect in action:

>It doesn't say anything particularly interesting (imo). Other cultures are different and working with a diverse set of people teaches you tolerance? Well duh.

He learned, from the Afghans, a level of patience that most Americans (westerners in general, really) are simply incapable of comprehending. He tried to express this, but to you it just came across as a minimally interesting anecdote about differences in cultures. You can't really understand what he was trying to say unless you have been through a similar experience. Similarly, the military has a level of racial integration that just doesn't exist in most of the rest of American culture. He probably thought of himself as being comfortable in diverse crowds before he joined the military, and then he found out what it's like to work with a truly diverse group of people. He tried to explain this, but to you it just came across as an obvious point about diversity and tolerance. Again, you can't really understand what he was saying until you've been in immersed that kind of environment.

In my view, many veterans are simply misguided, confused, dangerous instruments of populist politicians. Some are criminals, and some others are true heroes. Throwing them all into the same "veterans" bucket and honoring them all doesn't do justice to any of them.

I'm also skeptical that things learned in a life threatening situation within a militarized kind of structure are very useful in other situations. In fact, many countries are blighted by military thinking and many noble causes have been perverted by that kind of mindset.