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[Phmcw]

Anyway, this is bad but is to be expected. There is a reason poeple were against sending sodliers on the ground you know.
Atrocities are damn hard to avoid when you put poeple in position of complete power (one of the foundation of right wing politics, but at this point I don't expect them to even think when they do something).

[Urist is dead tome]

Anyway, this is bad but is to be expected. There is a reason poeple were against sending sodliers on the ground you know.
Atrocities are damn hard to avoid when you put poeple in position of complete power (one of the foundation of right wing politics, but at this point I don't expect them to even think when they do something).

Testimony of many veterans would point to them not being in power and that's what causes them to become so  angry and violent. It's happened in Vietnam, Pacific theater during World War II, and I've heard it be described in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Jake]

That got changed after the 1970's, a time when the US military was literally nothing but a bunch of alcoholic druggies.  That was when "Goto to War or Goto Jail" was more than a marching cadence.  Ronald Reagan, wether you love him or hate him, is the man who cleaned up the military and re-instilled patriotism and honor to the services.  Criminals were kicked out, standards were set for advancement and recruitment began looking for more intelligent candidates for service.  That being said, when I entered the Army in 1991, my entrance scores were in the 96th percentile.  The man sitting behind me at the MEPS center got a 38 and passed.  But, that score does not indicate a predeliction to the amoral murder of civilians.  Just want to make that clear.

PS - there are some realllllllly dumb people in the Army.  The stories I could tell you.......sheesh.

The British Army did something similar for a while, but eventually ditched it because it was a lousy way to reform criminals and an even worse way to get boots on the ground. Not only was getting any useful work out of bored, resentful and sexually frustrated juvenile delinquents an uphill struggle for even the best platoon sergeant, but few of them could be safely entrusted with anything that might be vaguely useful in civilian life afterwards; some of the brighter ones might end up becoming cooks or truck drivers, but the rest were made into line infantry on the grounds that they were nothing if not expendable. Eventually someone realised that teaching petty crooks to use firearms correctly and booting them out to languish on the dole at a time when you could use the phrase "class war" in public without attracting ridicule was probably a bad idea.

[de5me7]

in the 1700s and 1800s, the british army was dominated by criminal convicts, the navy too. But vast numbers of casualties was the norm then, and drilling and firing a musket or cannon required less responsibility, they could also hang deserters and looters.