War is a dreadful part of human living. The chaotic situation between nations and between people create specific tension that involves the concept of risking the lives of the civilians who know nothing and do not even want to be involved in the killings that are evident during the war years. Nevertheless, national governments continue to recruit their own armies of soldiers who would defend the nation and its people in times when such distress comes along the way.
Individuals who become specifically engaged in such occupation face the need to accept the fact that in order to defend their country, their people and their own lives, they would have to be ready to kill others who are within the enemy lines. Knowing that in battle, the other side of the army feels the same way and understands the concept of their job in the same manner, they too are expected to become more involved in accepting their role as the enders of the lives of their enemies.
Question is, is it ethically right to have to kill someone for the sake of saving another? Life, in itself, is endowed as something that ought to be respected in the face of the law. Relatively, humans have even created specific sanctions of international protective laws that identify well with the need to protect a person’s life regardless of the condition of background he has unless he actually posses danger to a specific mass number of individuals in the society. In war, it could be realized though that at least 45% of those who are killed are innocent civilians. The ethical condition of realizing one’s role as a soldier is then considered as a course of personal understanding that a person needs to give attention to when deciding to whether or not join the army.
References:
Military Ethics. http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20070910_02. Retrieved on June 3, 2014.
Milburn, J. (2009). Army rethinks how it teaches ethics to soldiers. http://www.armytimes.com/article/20091228/NEWS/912280316/Army-rethinks-how-teaches-ethics-soldiers. Retrieved on June 3, 2014.
