[pluto9]

It's not weird at all. Soldiers on opposite sides have a lot in common, just as you might have a lot in common with someone of your profession from a different country. Their conflict is that of their respective countries, or they may think they're serving a good cause. But in either case, it's not personal.

It's also a mistake to think that every time a soldier shows an ounce of humanity, they're only doing it to "help their conscience". Soldiers are usually not the tortured individuals Hollywood portrays them to be. Why should these two men's consciences bother them? NATO troops thought they were defending the oppressed, and Serbian troops thought they were defending their sovereignty.

[lostlogin]

I think you are attributing a lot of what goes on to choice - war has a poor track record in this regard and soldiers are often recruited very young and/or conscripted. Even the US recruits soldiers defined by the Convention on the protection of children (below 18). Schools are used for recruiting in many places.

This aspect of war is really sad - giving kids and young adults guns and sending them off to shoot people is widely glorified. It is estimated that 70% of conflicts involve child soldiers, though any measurement is hard due variable definitions and the difficulty in measuring.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_military

https://www.savethechildren.org/us/charity-stories/child-sol...

[pluto9]

I'm talking about the men in this article. Both of them were career military officers. It's fair to say that that was their choice.

Certainly there's propaganda that goes into recruiting naive young people in the US, but it's quite a stretch to equate that with child soldiers. I chose to enlist and so did everyone I served with. The vast majority of us do not regret it or feel that we were conned.

[lostlogin]

> Certainly there's propaganda that goes into recruiting naive young people in the US, but it's quite a stretch to equate that with child soldiers.

The US has signed The Convention on the Protection of Children. This agreement defines a child solder as one below the age of 18.

You may not feel conned but it’s not just about you - it’s the places they go, the decisions they make and the population they supposedly protect that should also matter.

[pluto9]

There is little difference in maturity between a 17 year old and an 18 year old, and I would not consider either a child. And 17 year olds cannot be deployed.

But since we're being legalistic, yes, we signed the convention. But we did not ratify it. It is not legally binding on us.

[lostlogin]

> But we did not ratify it. It is not legally binding on us.

Yes, mostly.

“When a state has signed the treaty but not ratified it, it is not yet bound by the treaty's provisions but is already obliged to not act contrary to its purpose.”

[effie]

Why did you enlist, at what age? In retrospective, do you think it made you stronger/more mature? Or was it a money thing?

[pluto9]

I enlisted right out of high school. Did my 4 years and got out.

I think it made me more mature, or at least less naive about certain things...eventually. The experiences were valuable but it took a long time for me to fully reflect on them and extract that value. I was 22 when I got out, barely past being a teenager.

Money wasn't a factor for me. I had 96% of my tuition to a good engineering school paid for by scholarships, which I gave up to enlist. My reasons were a combination of things. I had a lot of friends who enlisted and I felt bad that they were risking their lives and I wasn't. I was also sick of school and saw war as an adventurous alternative, and a way to prove myself as a man. And I genuinely believed in the mission at the time.

I think the influence of money on soldiers going into actual combat is overstated. It's true that there are a lot of people who enlist for a paycheck, vocational training, or as a way to pay for college. But you get to choose your job. I was in the infantry, and pretty much everyone I knew legitimately wanted to fight, which is the only reason to join the infantry. If you're after job security or education benefits, you can be a clerk or a mechanic or a thousand other things that will generally keep you away from enemy fire. There's an idea floating around that the government keeps people poor so it'll have an endless supply of desperate peasants to feed into the meat grinder, but that doesn't hold up in my experience.

[mahmudiyah]

> This aspect of war is really sad - giving kids and young adults guns and sending them off to shoot people is widely glorified.

The American war machine has a lot of white supremacy elements built into it. Not just camps named after Confederate war criminals but actual common training refrains like "if they's brown, shoot them down" were taught during the invasion of Iraq which played at least some role in the war crimes at Mahmudiyah and Falluja. The Mahmudiyah murders and rapes were most eggrigious especially attempting to cover it up and lay the blame on Al Qaeda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings

The Mahmudiyah rape and killings were war crimes involving the gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her family by United States Army soldiers on March 12, 2006. It occurred in the family's house to the southwest of Yusufiyah, a village to the west of the town of Al-Mahmudiyah, Iraq. Other members of al-Janabi's family murdered by Americans included her 34-year-old mother Fakhriyah Taha Muhasen, 45-year-old father Qassim Hamza Raheem, and 6-year-old sister Hadeel Qassim Hamza Al-Janabi.[1] The two remaining survivors of the family, 9-year-old brother Ahmed and 11-year-old brother Mohammed, were at school during the massacre and orphaned by the event.

Five U.S. Army soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment were charged with rape and murder; Specialist Paul E. Cortez, Specialist James P. Barker, Private First Class Jesse V. Spielman, Private First Class Brian L. Howard, and Private First Class Steven D. Green[2]).

Lets not forget that Trump also pardons these kinds of criminals.

[jki275]

Oh stop the hand wringing.

The US doesn't recruit child soldiers.

The very few who actually sign up when they are 17 are almost all 18 before they go to bootcamp, and of the extremely rare ones who aren't they are 18 before they go to their first command or do anything at all. They are not allowed to deploy outside the US or participate in any hostilities until they are 18.

[effie]

18 year olds men are mentally immature. Not children, but for sure they are teenagers.

[jki275]

And yet they get to vote.

[lostlogin]

Yes, but younger kids get recruited. The voting age in the US is 18 as far as I can tell, and the US military recruits 17 year olds.

https://www.usa.gov/voter-registration-age-requirements

[jki275]

As I addressed in my comment above. 17 year olds are allowed to sign up with their parent's consent, but are not allowed to deploy outside the US or take part in any hostilities.

[effie]

> Why should these two men's consciences bother them?

It would bother me, so I'm projecting.

But good points. I am also more inclined to understand this as a case of people "just working here". Like Germans were.

[pluto9]

There's an element of the "just working here" mentality, but it's more than that. I was in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, and in my mind, we were fighting against the abuses and brutality of the Taliban. The guy shooting at me from a mountainside with a PKM was "one of them", a legitimate bad guy.

In retrospect, I realize that guy was probably much like me. A young guy, full of testosterone and looking for adventure, with notions of being part of something grand and heroic (repelling an invader) and a certain naivete about the larger forces and agendas that were using him. We'd probably get along if we met now.

Awhile back I saw a conversation on Reddit between an American soldier who fought in Ramadi (or maybe Fallujah, I can't remember) and an Iraqi soldier who was there at the same time fighting against the Americans. There was no ill will at all, just storytelling and reminiscing, and talking about the courses of their lives, families, and careers since then. The fact was that these guys had almost everything in common about that time in their lives, and had similar motivations for taking part in it. The only difference was that they happened to be on opposite sides.

[rascul]

> Awhile back I saw a conversation on Reddit between an American soldier who fought in Ramadi (or maybe Fallujah, I can't remember) and an Iraqi soldier who was there at the same time fighting against the Americans.

Any chance you might be able to dig up that link? I think it might be interesting to read it.

[pluto9]

Unfortunately I can't find it now. I was looking for it earlier because I wanted to reread it myself. Wish I'd bookmarked it at the time. Sorry about that.