A video has been making the rounds lately, taken in Afghanistan, showing a group of Marines urinating on some dead Taliban fighters. The outrage was, of course, extreme and has gone all the way up to the Secretaries of State and Defense.
Personally, I'm having a hard time getting worked up over it for a few reasons.
- These are Marines. They don't come to your door to sell you cookies, they are the people we send out to kill our enemies and break their stuff, a job they perform admirably. They are rough, hard men (my own father was a World War II Marine, so I have some personal experience there). They've likely seen some of their friends killed or maimed, they may even have been wounded themselves. They may have just been taking fire from those very Taliban, and when they emerged victorious I believe they're allowed to let off a little steam. They are, after all, still alive despite the efforts of the Tangos. Winston Churchill said that there's nothing move exciting than being shot at and missed, so these Marines live very exciting lives.
- Before you criticize these Marines put yourself in their boots. Look around you right now, what do you see? A computer, a chair, a wastebasket, a phone. These are the things you deal with and encounter every day. Imagine, if you can, being in a position where the sight of a corpse is just as common. Most of us have never seen a dead person outside of a funeral home or hospital. The sight of dead bodies is a common one for combat Marines, seeing one affects them about as much as seeing a trash can affects you. They don't experience the horror that we would. They'd never be able to function if they did.
- Next, back in their boots. You're put into a position where your duty, and your survival, require you to kill another person. That's a terrible and weighty situation, but it must be done. How do you make yourself pull the trigger on someone? You learn to hate them. My father (the aforementioned World War II Marine) carried his hatred of the Japanese to his grave. Letting go of that hatred is something our returning veterans must learn to do in order to function back here in civilized America, but when they're in combat they need that hatred. Still, hatred is caustic, you can't allow it to build up and still retain your sanity, therefore it must be released. Personally, I think pissing on the corpse of someone who was recently trying to kill you is a pretty tame method of releasing some hatred. Others have done far worse, as the records of atrocities committed by soldiers throughout history shows. They didn't dismember them, rape their wives and murder their children.
- It's not as if our own dead were treated with compassion and respect by our enemies. I remember the pictures of decapitated and burned bodies hanging from a bridge. Let us also not forget that this war started with terrorists flying jets into buildings and people having to make the horrible choice of jumping hundreds of feet to their death or burning to death. Pardon me if I find it hard to want our enemies treated with compassion.
- Spare me the statement that this will only make our enemies hate us more. They already hate us enough to commit suicide by flying airplanes into buildings. They already hate us enough to strap on explosives and blow themselves up in hopes of killing us. They already hate us enough to murder us indiscriminately, men, women and children. It's hard to imagine them hating us more than they already do, and honestly I don't care if they do. I don't want our enemies to love us, I want them to fear us.
Having said that, I'm not saying that what they did wasn't wrong. They dishonored themselves, their nation, and the Marine Corps. They need to be punished, but that punishment shouldn't be the equivalent of a felony conviction (which is what a less-than-honorable discharge is). Marine officers and NCOs can be VERY creative at finding ways to punish Marines who misbehave, so I think their immediate superiors should be given free rein to make an example of them. There is absolutely no need for the Secretaries of State or Defense to be involved. Who knows, the miscreants may even become better Marines as a result.
