Bill Faith sends this item, under a heading he describes in terms that would have pleased Fritz Leiber:
Of Unsung Heroes and Split-second Decisions. Of Mo Duc and Fallujah. Of Soldiers and Marines and Killing or Dying. Of Kevin Sites and a Camera. Of Doing The Right Thing.It's not as noble a story, but I told a similar tale from my days with the Southeastern Detective Agency here. In many ways it mirrors the story Bill's friend has to tell.
One of them is the epistemology of risk. It's interesting to notice the similar breakdowns in these two groups:
1) Those who say that it was right to take down Saddam, even though the WMD evidence was uncertain,
2) Those who say the Marine in Fallujah was right to finish off the terrorist, though the question of the threat he posed was uncertain.
I know one fellow -- our honored friend Deuddersun -- who is group 2 but not group 1. Everyone else seems to be breaking down the same way.
Both Bill's friend and I made the same choice, and accepted a real risk to avoid carrying the guilt of killing an innocent. It happened to work itself out right in both cases. It could have gone otherwise.
When you're guarding the weak, or the backs of your brothers, you've got to look at things differently. What is an acceptable risk when nobody but you is on the line, may not be acceptable when you're protecting a child, or a brother Marine. Any Marine would rather go before a court martial than carry the guilt of having gotten his brothers killed. He would rather go to prison. I suspect it is likely that he would rather go to Hell.
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