[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by pgardn

I think this has its main roots in Vietnam when the troops were villified for fighting a war that was considered by many to be immoral.

So supporting means not getting on a person's case for doing their job. Understanding that the troops live in a democratic society that has put them in a situation that they personally may not particularly like. Even if you do not support the overall purpose of the conflict, understand their position.

Others of course will say it is a Republican ploy to support our current conflicts in other lands. If you support the innocent doing their jobs (read troops in this case) in the conflict, then the conflict becomes more palatable. Support of troops = support of conflict. Not a very well thought out slogan imo if it is taken this way.

Reading this paragraph made me think of the movie "A Few Good Men". I don't know if any of u have seen it but in it, there are a couple of low ranking Marines that are charged with the murder of a fellow Marine. All along, they contend that they were ordered to commit the act which led to the Marine's death. In the end, it was proven that they were so ordered. Because they were ordered to do so, they avoided being charged with murder but still were dishonorably discharged from the service for conduct unbecoming of a soldier. At the end, one of the Marines said something that I thought was great. He said that as Marines, they were supposed to fight for the weak (which the soldier they killed was) instead of just following orders.

So the question becomes is there a point when u know your orders or your mission is wrong and u decide that it's one that u can't complete, for moral reasons? Or do u just automatically do what u are told to do with no questions asked? A lot of the troops are in very difficult positions, ones that I don't envy at all. I'm sure that a lot of them have been put in situations where they've had the conflict in their minds of whether or not they had to follow their moral beliefs or follow the orders they were given? In a way, it can be summed up as do u follow God or follow your commander? Are we as individuals supposed to support those that are doing things that we may think are wrong? Tough choices here.