Killing in Wartime
In a recent blog , I argued about how sometimes wars are necessary. That’s what they call the Big Picture. But what about the soldier who fights that war? I am not talking about the guy who died during the war; I am talking about the guy who killed during the war and returns home. I read this article by an ex-US marine, Timothy Kudo, titled “ I killed people in Afghanistan. Was I right or wrong? ” and it raised some interesting questions. How do soldiers get themselves to kill people during war? Isn’t it the exact opposite of what all our ethics and sense of morality tells us? That one seemed easy to answer, at least for a Hindu: Didn’t the Gita call it the dharma of a soldier? But even that Krishna-Arjuna conversation brought up the point about the war being justified (or what they called a dharma yudh ). But doesn’t every country call its wars justified? In any case, armies today are professional units where a soldier could get court-martialed if he says he will pick...