i asked him why he joined, he said he wanted to be a bad ass.

just super patriotic servicemen, and give them the benefit of the doubt when they commit murderous war crimes. Some of these guys are psycho killers. Fuck 'em, send them to prison and throw away the key when they go on killing sprees.

Yes, there are some psycho killers in the military, of course, but some war crimes are commited by people whose ability to distinguish war and war-crime are eroded by the environment.

I doubt Bale started out as a psycho. I suspect he started out as someone who thought of violence as a problem-solving mechanism and legitimate means of expression of emotion. A man who was more likely than average to get into a bar fight or drift into road-rage. A man who was more likely than average (I am not saying likely in and of itself) to have been a bully in high school.

A hard-ass. An emotional and reactive person.

These traits are not always or even usually manifested as psychopathy. They are often admired traits, socially. Many women are atracted to those traits. I cannot stand guys like that but they are not all deviant.

But they are violent people, relatively.

It may well be that the average serviceman is more psychologically healthy than I am. But when things go bad he is much likelier than I would be to shoot a bunch of people. (When I finally cracked in war I'd probably be likelier to kill myself.)

That is all.

Seeing the title I expected to roll my eyes once again as a read another anti-military hit piece.

But, no. What was written is fair and accurate. It most certainly is a balancing act. To have the mind and heart of a warrior, and (to be blunt) to have the desire to kill the enemy while still maintaining your humanity. It can be done, but I think there needs to be more focus on the latter.

When I went through Marine bootcamp in 1995, and later infantry OSUT in 2003, there was much emphasis on developing - not just the skills - but the mindset to kill. Such was evident in everything from our training to running cadences. Many on DU will likely disagree, but it is a necessary element to train members of any military.

But I also believe you can have and maintain your warrior instincts and still keep your humanity. You can desire to kill the enemy and still have empathy for the people. I believe such things can be taught, especially if you start in basic training. If things haven't changed in basic they will teach recruits that they must follow lawful orders. They will teach them about the geneva convention, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It's summed up as follows...

"Kill! But if you break the rules you will be punished."

The US military should incorporate training about conduct in war that doesn't just involve possible punishments if you break the rules. They should incorporate the human side of things. Many of us who have deployed have stories to share about positive interactions with the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan. How excited the kids get over things we take for granted, like chocolate. Smoking a hookah for the first time with some of the local men. Playing soccer with some of the kids. Things of that nature.

I already know what response comes next. "They're the 'war machine'! They don't want you to think they're human!." This, of course, is pure bullshit. Absolutely nobody benefits when incidences like Bales did happens. Aside from the human toll on the victims and families, it costs American lives and it severely damages the precious little progress we have made there.

know how much I edited the OP after you read it. I made some edits to beef up the point that Bale's actions were fundementally a break-down of discipline, which is in line with your comments about the role of discipline (and deterrence) in the context of war. He was trained to kill and he killed. But he was also trained to maintain discipline and he did not. He went outside his orders.

There are probably of lot of men who, after enough grueling time in the field, might like to go Bale on somebody but they do not because they are not allowed to.

I wrote something a while back about how I think the death penalty has a place in the Uniform Code but not in civil law because acts in war are a different class. I have no desire to see Bale executed out of blood-thirtiness, but because a generation of soldiers have been told, "If you do this you will be executed."

The disagreement was widespread but my argument was that if the military thinks it necessary to their maintainance of order I would tend to defer because the whole moral context of war is so different from civil society so the usual modes of moral anaysis become... well, less sensible.

Is that humans are inherently flawed, and any system of justice is inherently human. Simply put, you can't execute the guilty without sometimes executing the innocent. Unfortunately the same remains true in military courts.

I oppose the death penalty because I don't think the state needs to kill anyone, but in the context of war you can see why that argument breaks down.

In terms of justice (guilt and innocence), however, I absolutely agree that any human system with the DP will execute some innocent people.

The reason my opposition to the DP is more philosophical than practical is that I do not draw such a strong line between imprisoning the innocent and executing the innocent. One is worse, of course, but to me both are so far over the line that the two become morally similar. Not the same, just similar.

to be in 11 years.

Probably went from Afghanistan to Iraq and back to Afghanistan