They were not supposed to think. “Just following orders” conveniently removed the possible internal conflict by justifying immoral actions.

Individuals were removed of personal responsibility, indoctrinated from young ages to hate everyone that the leader chose to blame. When those forces become overwhelming, individual moral compasses go haywire.

Is this what is gradually happening now? We think of the atrocities of the Hitler regime and can’t imagine how the Nazis could do what they did and live with themselves. They believed they weren’t personally responsible because they were following orders.

The Nuremberg trials held after World War II firmly established that following orders is not a defense for crimes against humanity and they reinforced an international military code of ethics going forward that would seek to prevent future war crimes and insure their punishment. Among the Nazi defendants, few denied the accusations. One commandant of an Einsatzgruppe (mobile killing unit) was convicted of the deaths of 90,000, including children. Following orders was his defense. In the words of the commandant of Auschwitz, “Don’t you see, we SS men were not supposed to think about these things, it never even occurred to us…We were all so trained to obey orders without even thinking that the thought of disobeying an order would simply never have occurred to anybody…I really never gave much thought to whether it was wrong.”

Maybe fear of punishment led many to carry out morally wrong orders? Were Holocaust perpetrators threatened with harm if they didn’t comply? According to historian Doris Bergen, “Germans were not forced to be killers. Those who refused to participate were given other assignments or transferred. To this day no one has found an example of a German who was executed for refusing to take part in the killing of Jews or other civilians.” It was that greater force that held them in compliance.

Lt. William Calley did use the fear of punishment for a defense for following orders when he and his men slaughtered civilians in the village of My Lai, Vietnam. His trial upheld the principle established in Nuremberg. The U.S. Manual of Courts-Martial states that service members have a duty to disobey an illegal order. However, Calley said he understood “that all orders were to be assumed legal”, and failure to follow orders could result in the death penalty.

Calley would have been upheld by the Nuremberg principle if he had refused that order, but he was evidently not personally equipped to make that decision; either due to lack of, or a misunderstanding of his training, or just making it an excuse for his defense, or a character flaw of his own, or he was pulled into the force of overwhelming chaos that was the Viet Nam War.

It’s a big responsibility being put on our service members who depend on officers to make good decisions, to make those judgments.

What is our administration doing to our service men and women? Trump has deployed the military illegally and unnecessarily into US cities, making them responsible for decisions involving American citizens, who they have sworn to protect. Their mission is basically to be an intimidating presence, to normalize domestic military control. They have no law enforcement authority. The two national guard members who were gunned down were an easy target because they were put on a “high visibility patrol”.

They should have never been there, Sarah Beckstrom would still be alive. Condolences to her family, and a question – why did she not deserve government flags to be lowered? Charlie Kirk, a civilian, right-wing pod-casting influencer, got that honor immediately. Shameful. Trump’s solution? Send in 500 more troops and a metropolitan police officer along with each patrol as a bodyguard.

Trump has never shown respect for our military, from his bone spurs getting him out of Vietnam (what decision would he have made at My Lai?), to his denigrating John McCain for being a POW, his questioning the purpose of John Kelly’s son’s sacrifice, and now his accusation of Sen. Mark Kelly of sedition and treason.

Consider the irony of Pete Hegseth, an infantry platoon leader in the National Guard with several brief deployments, appointed to Secretary of Defense from the rank of a weekend Fox commentator with a reputation as a heavy drinking carouser, calling for the court martial of a U.S. senator, retired U.S. Navy Captain, combat pilot and astronaut in four space shuttle missions. Not to mention that he is using the Uniform Code of Military Justice to punish Kelly for reciting something directly from the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Kelly and five other members of Congress, concerned about the possible consequences of putting military on city streets, appeared in a short video reminding service members of their obligation to refuse orders they know to be illegal, and to uphold the Constitution. It’s the law.

This law also applies to the missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean. At least 20 boats have been blown up with at least 80 accompanying deaths, and the targets of these attacks have never been verified as “narco-terrorists”, a term they coined to make it sound legal. Drug smugglers or fishermen, according to International laws, neither deserve to be killed, but the appropriate actions involve interception and arrest, not murder. In particular, the Sept. 2 attack which was the first boat to be destroyed, left two survivors clinging to the wreckage.

A second strike, against clear rules of engagement that survivors are to be “given quarter,” or rescued and attended to, blew them up too. An investigation will ensue into war crimes, based on the Geneva Conventions which, particular to this case, “establish protections for the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked”. (Wikipedia)

Trump is trying to turn the Caribbean into a war zone, even though Congress has declared no war. He is using a war on drugs as camouflage for a war with the country of Venezuela for their oil. If he was actually concerned about stopping drugs coming to our country, he wouldn’t be targeting the boats he is targeting, as they are not even on the route that brings fentanyl in, but usually is used to move cocaine toward Europe. And he wouldn’t be pardoning Juan Hernandez, former President of Honduras, who had been convicted of drug trafficking and was serving a lengthy prison term. Venezuela is the real target, not drugs.

Now that the murder of the two survivors is gaining attention, the blame game of who ordered the second hit is on. Trump claims he knew nothing about it. Hegseth, who supposedly ordered “kill everybody”, claims to have left the room and didn’t see the survivors in the “fog of war” as he describes it.

So it appears that Admiral Frank Bradley is to become the scapegoat. If the admiral was alone in calling the strike, he should have known better and should be held accountable. If he received the order from the Secretary of Defense, they both are to blame. If Trump knew, he is too.

Little by little, all this is adding up to one of those forces that pull on our moral compasses, that work to normalize illegal, immoral actions by the government and wear us down. The stronger we let it get, the closer to Nazi Germany we become. Think.

Susan Bigler is a Sheridan resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com