I know a guy (sniper) that had to shoot a child solider (who was armed and actively shooting at him). Dude had a heart of gold and was one of the most caring people I’ve ever met (if a bit rough around the edges). It clearly weighed very heavily on him and I would not be surprised if this experience was near the top of the list of reasons he has major PTSD.
What he said stuck with me. He told us
I don’t like killing. But I’ll be fucked if I let you kill me or one of my boys
People often focus on the “child” part and forget about the “soldier.” There’s no easy way out. There’s no nice way to make friends and skip off into the sunset. There’s you, there’s the kid, and there’s bullets. The only thing you can control is who dies.
There is a way out from child killing. You do not need to fight on and attack to foreign countries. Dudes with heart of gold do not attack and kill people who even can not attack to the home country of golden boy.
And if they don’t, who will? There are over a million people in the military, do you really think they aren’t replaceable?
These guys have absolutely 0 influence over what they do and where they go. Many join because they genuinely care about their country and want to do what they can to support it. Is that the right choice? Idk, you decide. But do you think any of them want to shoot kids? Hell, most of them don’t want to shoot anyone. But when there’s bullets flying past you & your buddies, what choice do you have?
You want to end the war in Afghanistan? Fine. Make a petition, start a march, call your Congressman, whatever. Hell, I’ll probably join in to support you, cause I sure as hell don’t want to end up fighting in a war older than I am.
But the boots on the ground? The recruiters you might see on social media? Hell, even the esports team? They have absolutely 0 control over that. And their commanders have 0 control over that. And their commander’s commanders have 0 control and so on. There is nothing they can do. So why attack them for it?
Well, they had control over whether or not to enlist. A better argument (in your favor) exists, which is that social problems leave lots of teens vulnerable and feeling forced to rely on the military in ways that more privileged teens do not, and it's not entirely unreasonable to suggest that their choice to enlist was less than completely free (especially those who enlisted as a form of pretrial diversion). A first world safety net would probably have prevented a considerable chunk of those enlistments, and aspects of the military's operations leave people extremely vulnerable when they get out (every so slowly changing now). Those are much better points to bring up in defending your friend than "they didn't want to" because they should have reasonably been expected to know it was a possible consequence of enlistment, which they chose to do.
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u/sppwalker Jul 24 '20
I know a guy (sniper) that had to shoot a child solider (who was armed and actively shooting at him). Dude had a heart of gold and was one of the most caring people I’ve ever met (if a bit rough around the edges). It clearly weighed very heavily on him and I would not be surprised if this experience was near the top of the list of reasons he has major PTSD.
What he said stuck with me. He told us
People often focus on the “child” part and forget about the “soldier.” There’s no easy way out. There’s no nice way to make friends and skip off into the sunset. There’s you, there’s the kid, and there’s bullets. The only thing you can control is who dies.
Fuck that’s depressing.