[juggernaut]

I'm in now till nov. And I still work with soldiers everyday, most have been in the "Sandbox". I have been luckly in my ex-career. And have not been in combat. I have seen some interesting things and scary places but never combat. I always try and look at this from both sides as I have a added perspective as seeing and dealing with it everyday. 1 part of me blames the leaders another part of me blames all the soldiers involved. The way I was tought was you do not obey an unlawful command. Regardless! Period!. I can bet that everyone of those soldiers is wishing they did what they were tought. Maybe not so the younger and lower enlisted as when you are at that level, disobeying a direct order is a scary thing. You are never really sure if your commanders over your commander are going to protect you. The upper-level enlisted should be ashamed, they know better and have been in long enough to not have fear of dis-obedience. We are also dealing with a differant style of branch, The Marines. They are trained to be killing machines. I'm sure most Americans have one or two as a relative or friend and know what I'm talking about. Not your most mentally stable people I have run accross. They are of such a brotherhood that its something no one will understand unless they have gone through it with them. We cannot place a judgement on soldiers as a whole. Here we are as a group of adult webmasters who consitantly yell out foul when we are placed in the same catagory as CP webmasters. There are bad bunches to every pile. Let's not turn this into another "We hate soldiers!" era of the early and mid-seventys. We are not in a possition to say what we would or would not have done if we were there. It's hard to place yourself in an envirorment where if you turn your back or even have been perceived to have turned your back on your brother what would happen. Those of you who have been in know how easy it is for a person to be ostracized. Something you cannot afford to let happen. Who knows, you can be the one on the floor the next day and the guy next to you thinks you fucked him. You think he might move just a little slower to help you out? Would you take that chance? How easy would it be for you to turn to the "dark side" and kill some people if you have watched friend after friend get wounded or killed day after day by these people? When you were most likly lied to as to the reason you were going in. When you are there you cannot make friends with that culture, you cannot trust them 100%. One day the nice lady who waves to you every morning. Is blowing herself up 30 feet away from you. Think of what it's like to wake up everyday and not knowing if you or the person you are friends with is going to die. Think if you were walking down the street in your local town and someone just exploded. They live in a world we cannot comprehend sitting were we sit. Bad things happen in war, that's why it's call war.
I for one will not place judgement on those guys. They are going to be punished both via the courts and their own souls.