kontextmaschine:

kontextmaschine:

Now that Ken Burns is bringing into public consciousness Vietnam “fragging” assassination of Army believer officers by disillusioned troops

That’s something about the huffy recurring “well why didn’t they ORDER their men not to rape/pillage/torture the enemy”

There’s a saying the first rule of command is never give an order that won’t be followed and it’s awfully… civillian… to assume that if you made such an order to severely demoralized troops who’d been taking casualties the result would be the order being followed

on that note the real difference between the US Army and the Red Army in occupying Europe is the US troops were rotated out for fresh after every major push and the Red Army had been in the field for years

the traditional way to ensure your bullshit orders would be followed was physical discipline up to and including execution, several U.S. presidents came up from militaries where this was the dynamic

there was an article recently like “haha a lot of the mythology against going AWOL and deserting is hung off this one guy executed in WWII but in truth mostly you won’t get punished and you’ll be released without too much trouble” and thanks buddy

(traditionally though, exemplary sentences of execution were often pardoned or amnestied after they and observers had squirmed enough in the realization you could, moderns overlook that)