In 1951 in Korea, I was told by my commanding officer to kill four POWs and refused his direct order....
In 1965 in Vietnam, I saw a very connected intelligence captain torturing a POW with a field-telephone wire attached to his testicles and decided my personal belief system outweighed his father’s four stars. When I told him I’d shoot him if he didn’t cease and desist, the atrocity came to a screeching halt.
Funny... Hack had the will to disobey an unlawful order when he was an enlisted man in Korea, yet he's asserting we're "hanging out" these enlisted people who didn't possess the moral integrity to do the same?
And I don't see where he reported that unlawful order to the Provost Marshal or up the chain of command so that charges could be preferred and that officer punished..
Why not? Was he involved in a cover up of his own?
See how easy it is for the "pot to call the kettle black" under the stresses of war?
Hack did the right thing at a personal level, but then apparently covered up the incident to prevent the offender from being punished by higher ups..(because had he reported it, I feel sure that he would have included it in his anecdote).
So he blames the "higher ups", but even in his examples, he apparently did nothing to inform them of these abuses.
Yet, he showed by his own actions, that he understood the difference between a lawful and unlawful order... Yet, he wishes to deflect responsibility from the very soldiers who received even more training on the Law of War, as well as criminal and legal training corresponding with the Military Police mission.
Yeah... the leadership obviously stank.. But unless Hack can prove that these leaders either gave the orders to conduct the abuse, or ignored previous reports about the nature of abuses being perpetrated by their soldiers, I don't see how he could hold them anymore accountable than the leadership that never heard about the atrocities he witnessed.
Hack has a natural inclination to "pull for the troops" and blame the upper echelon. And in many cases he absolutely correct, such as when officers take care of themselves while neglecting their soldiers...
But he can't make a viable argument that these soldiers were not just as morally obligated as he, to prevent such atrocities from occurring.
Hawk |
