Warriors_Code

Warrior’s Code. What is the unwritten, unspoken pact' Why do the soldiers of the war believe in it' Why do I believe in it' It’s what separates the soldier’s job from the thugs. We fight for a cause and for a purpose. We have a mutual respect for the enemy. This is all because friend or foe we are all fighting for someone else’s cause. It’s something that the civilian population will never understand until placed in the mentality of war, or a war like situation. The warriors code is the embodiment of a mindset held for thousands of years passed. It’s behaviour in its own and has never been questioned until the 21st century. The watchful eye of the civilian population has risen as a new element of war. Chastised and shown disgust when an innocent is killed in an uncontrollable circumstance; the military labels it collateral damage while the civilians call it murder. But when a Canadian soldier dies along with three or four injured it’s just a part of war even though that same bomb from the enemy could have just as easily injured a child. The soldiers know have one more stress added to an already overwhelmingly stressful job. They know have to worry if they will be chastised for showing mercy to an enemy combatant. To place that poor soul out of his misery instead of slowly bleeding out with the knowledge of he has no chance of survival. The soldier know has to live with either the knowledge he has done the right thing in the eyes of the public, or the knowledge that he has given the soldier a death he wanted, short, quick and painless. Both leave issues that cannot be conceived, one leaves you with a conscious unable to come to term with, another leaves you with a jail sentence long and unearned. Captain Robert Semrau of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment based in Petawawa chose the one that I suspect every soldier would pick if placed in a position such as the one he was placed in. He was placed in a position where it was his conscious or the right of law. He chose the path that leads him to feel at peace within himself. He chose to end the combatant’s life with two 5.56mm rounds from his C8 rifle. The enemy was going to die regardless of those two rounds. Without a medic in sight and a severed leg this man would have bled out and have been at the gates before his body would have made it to the forward operating base located in Helmand province. Semrau had been arrested by military police and his lengthy trial of second degree murder had begun. The fact that Semrau is being put on trial for ending a man’s suffering is unimaginable. Doctors make that decision on a daily basis in a hospital environment. They don’t get charged for second degree murder. An elderly person walks in and is put on iv and has degenerating health and is depending on machines to live. As a doctor you can turn those live systems off and essentially kill a person. Yet, this soldier who is educated and keen cannot place two bullets in a man that is visibly going to come to terms with the deity he believes in. The case prompted a letter to the Editor of Canada’s ‘National Post’ this week from a World War II veteran who relayed a harrowing tale of having to listen to the agonizing cries of a badly wounded German soldier left in the no-man’s-land between the position of Canadian forces and trenches the Germans had retreated to. The screaming went on all night but the Canadians could not risk going and getting the guy for fear it was a trap. The letter writer described the night as “soul-destroying”. He then told of how a Canadian medic crawled out the next morning only to return without a patient, declaring he couldn’t save him but put him out of his misery. (Jane Young, “Disgraceful Conduct, Not Murder”) The fact of the matter is, mercy killing is a part of war, and our moral code will not allow us to live with the knowledge that we let a person die in pain that is long and arduous. Semrau followed what he believes. This path is a path Soldiers the globe over believes in either knowingly or unaware. It has been instilled in us from basic, never let a teammate suffer, never leave a man behind. Always protect your own. When aiming shoot for the center of mass, to provide a quick and painless death. Captain Semrau is the generation’s reality check. He had to take this punishment for doing the right thing in order for the soldiers to come to understand that you have to live with your decisions, and it’s your job to decide whether you want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning or if you can go back to work doing a job knowing you made a mistake you can never change. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”Edmund Burke. This quotation can be arguably been seen in a deeper light then when first read. In a war, both sides are believed to be “good men”. But in war the evil man triumphs when he refuses to do the good job of ending his adversaries’ life free from strife and pain. So in reality the evil man is the one who does not do the deed dreaded by most. The warrior’s code is a code that is unwritten and will always remain unwritten. The mentality of a soldier can only be defined by a soldier, and even through a soldiers eyes it is clouded by words. It’s indescribable and unexplainable. It is what it is and will forever remain in the world’s history for centuries to come. Bibliography "National Post Editorial Board: Semrau Verdict and Euthanasia Debate Showing the Gaps in Canadian Law | Full Comment | National Post." Web. 12 Nov. 2010.