"MORAL" soldier's mistakes should result in confession & punishment.

[Sparkman]

When the soldier, who claims moral high ground in their military service, commits murder against innocents, kid and non-combatants (collateral damage?), should confess to capital crimes and if honest, pursue their criminal convictions.
But they never do, they rely instead on suffering depression and pay the price of murder with lip service to ethical behaviour.
This, to me, is PROOF that those who kill innocents are not really ethical human beings, but serve for reasons other than some moral commitment to service for God & country.

[JAbuchan08]

1. Well.... any job that gives people the opportunity to stir up their own

shit storm is bound to attract a few sociopaths. I mean, race car driving attracts speed freaks and celebrity attracts people who need constant validation, so while the Republican party tries to tell us that the simple act of being a soldier makes one a good person it is simply not so, it just attracts a certain range of personality types, sociopath being one, follower being another, and patriot being a third. Of course that isn't to say everyone falls in these catagories, but the job increases their prevalence.

[gratuitous]

2. Society is structured for it

Let's face it, the great majority of us never exercise any real authority. We're accustomed to following orders and taking direction. When the supreme authorities in our society, government and the media, speak with one voice, it's darned hard to resist. And one of the things that you will see over and over again from the government and the media is that military service is an honorable, moral calling.

Every time one of our star-spangled, freckle-faced men or women of the military buys it in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world, they get the "hero" treatment. Their picture is on the local news, and if their death was particularly newsworthy, they get on the national news. Their face is billboarded, the word "hero" bandied about, and the grieving family is interviewed to say a few nice words about the deceased. He could have been the biggest shitbird in the outfit, but now he's "the honored dead."

And the government is right there as well, piling on the encomiums and the bathos. Military funeral, color guard, maybe even a gun salute, all preceding the ritual of folding up the flag and its formal presentation to the survivors. The whole High Church of Redemptive Violence liturgy is observed and enacted. All of it reinforcing the concepts that might makes right, and that the U.S. of A. is always on the side of the angels.

So, when unpleasant reality intrudes, and it turns out that our heroes aren't operating on the highest moral plane, we experience a disconnect, a dysphasia that has to be reconciled. But because the most prevalent authorities in our nation -- government and the popular media -- are telling you over and over that you're moral, who are you (lowly, insignificant citizen) to question or gainsay such authority? It's far easier to conform, and to believe what you're told. And you're told you're good, which is a far more pleasant concept than your conscience telling you you're a murderer. So you go with the pleasant-sounding opinion.

For some people, it only works for a little while. For others, substance abuse is the ticket for deadening that part of one's brain nagging you about your actions. For others, it works quite well for the rest of their lives, and comes out on rare occasions when an uncomfortably parallel situation comes along. And for some of those people, they at last come to terms with themselves. For others, it's easier to shout "Support the troops!" and try to squelch all further discussion with accusations of "traitor" or "sympathizer."