Quote:
Originally Posted by Joana
To clarify: as I said in my post HIS myspace page is set to private by now- and the other is ABOUT him not BY him.
It was made by someone who is upset about this guy and shows up if you search the guys name.
The other three vids are DIFFERENT soldiers- not the puppy thrower.
Jacko- on the one hand I agree when you say that he is a Marine shouldn't play a role in this part because what he did is just HIM being a jerk. On the other (esp. as there are those other vids of soldiers on duty in Iraq doing the same thing, torturing animals) it somehow does have to do with it as
a) there are certain professions that you expect "good" stuff and "right" stuff from, foremost doctors, nurses, policemen etc. (and yes, all of those have had members of their profession screw up before as well!) but soldiers as well. If you read comments on the pages where the video is being shown many are upset and say that as a Marine he should not do such a dishonourable thing............hard to explain, but maybe you get my drift. There are simply groups and professions out there who are claimed to have a special sense of "honour", the Marines being one of them. That is why the vid is even more irritating. On the other hand: Marines are drilled to kill. So why is everyone so surprised a Marine is able to kill a puppy?
b) his profession is also playing a role in this when you read the excuse- he says it had to do with his job and what he sees on duty that he acted this way. And there are others who do the same, on video. Who might have the same excuse. So the question I would ask is: shouldn't people in the army, esp. those doing "front-duty" be trained better to deal with stress? It IS part of their work after all to see gruesome things, shouldn't they be taught to deal with it in a more healthy way than throwing puppies off cliffs? I know that those in Abu Ghraib used the same excuses for what they did...............
And - to take the focus away from the US soldiers- I remember the uproar in Germany when some German soldiers posed with skulls from a mass grave for pictures in Afghanistan. They stated the same thing.
So the question has to be asked: how can you prepare the folks who do this kind of job BETTER for the stress they will face and the things they will see??
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IMO, you can't ...because it is not the stress of training that is likely causing this behavior, ....and in MOST cases, it is not the stress of intense, active duty combat.
Perhaps training can do a better job of teaching basic ethics and morals to young people that have already ingrained attitudes...but that is a VERY tall order.
Give me someone with a great attitude and raised with strong ethics and morals and I can teach them most anything. Give me someone who is very
smart, but has a bad attitude or lacking ethics or morals and I would most often be wasting my time.
I think we must be very careful here in how we assess all of this...extreme combat stress in the field is one thing...the vast majority of all active duty military folks are never exposed to that....is that the claim of this person?
Beyond that, IMO, the military training you speak of is not near strong enough to overcome basic attitudes and personality traits we all established as children...you know, "Everything I Ever Learned, I Learned in Kindergarten" type philosophy.
Regardless, the "excuses" you speak of above should NEVER be acceptable...not by us, or by the teachings of any civilized military organization. I do not believe any responsible military person has made the point that these excuses would be valid for the types of behavior we saw at Abu Graib...or for throwing a defenseless puppy over the cliff......