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I hated my drill sergeant too. I did not respect him but I certainly did fear him and I would have run through a brick wall if he had told me to. Thinking about it, I suppose there is a small difference between respect and fear. But I did not respect him. Maybe respect is not really necessary.
Perhaps the man held power over you - so between the power differential and social mores of the military - you were compelled to do whatever he said.
 
Perhaps the man held power over you - so between the power differential and social mores of the military - you were compelled to do whatever he said.
If you did not follow orders they would throw you in the brig and/or give you a dishonorable discharge. Not to mention we believed in America.
 
If you did not follow orders they would throw you in the brig and/or give you a dishonorable discharge. Not to mention we believed in America.
I suppose I was differentiating between whether a man was on-duty or off-duty. My guess is that many guys, even off-duty, would probably do what their superior tells them to do.

As for the nature of military's mode-of-operation ... the "company line" is that you follow orders no-matter-what because lives lie in the balance. However, there are many different organizational structures that could be implemented that could robustly achieve the same objective ... but allow for dissenting views.

The current standard mode allows for instabilities ... wherein abuses of power can lead to orders that result in too much civilian loss of life. I've had students who are traumatized marines ... who had to deal with a superior giving the orders to "completely eliminate the threat" and "let god sort things out afterwards." Guerrilla warfare is obviously terrible - made more so when you cannot distinguish friend from foe. However, some lines should NOT be crossed.

An order like the aforementioned one is definitely one that should be questioned.

Isn't "believing in America," at least in part, the same as believing in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Don't we wish those same ideals for others?

Believing in America should not be synonymous with being unthinking and potentially amoral.
 
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The military is always a poor analogy for anything else. Its the one place in American-actually everywhere, that the subordinates, especially the young privates and corporals, must robotically follow orders based either confidence their officers and sergeants are right or fear of not following orders and disagreement may cause otherwise unnecessary casualties. You need to fear the consequences of disobedience. No rational, independent thinking person is likely to charge a pill box or entrenchment if they stopped to think about it so any instinct to stop and think about it has to be distilled from the individual soldiers thought process.

Ghost, I especially like your comment on guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare, insurgencies or, as they were known until Vietnam "small wars" are inherently destructive, as you say, because the enemy hides their distinction from civilians. So a raghead that sells you coffee during the day might be on the fire line trying to kill you during an ambush that night. Put anti-air weapons in the parking lot of a mosque, or even on top of or in the mosque if its sufficiently large, does not give the guerilla's enemy any choice but to obliterate the threat, cuz the non guerilla combatant has no obligation to allow themselves to be killed.

Also, Ghost, do you ever talk military on any of the various online military history websites?

The metaphor to military life is overused in sports. No one is going to get killed obviously. But the goal is to win as a team not achieve individual fame, that's what tennis and golf are for, so there isn't much room for individual thinking when it comes to the team. Everything a player does reflects on the team, whether its a team activity or not. Publicity is a harsh bright and usually unfair light hence the need for less individualism off the field and out of the locker room.
 
do you know something or is this a guess? i see that he's a HS coach in florida currently. that, his nfl pedigree, and his origins in mo would play really well if he ends up getting the spot.

If this true, I would be all for Ladell coming back to Iowa as the RB coach. KF had the highest regard for Ladell as a person in addition to being a great player.
 
I think you need to reread my post, as it's not a condemnation of either Brian or Kirk.

Also, the president will not have as much say as the AD. And no P5 university, let alone Iowa, is going to hire a president that isn't athletics friendly in this day and age.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Iowa has a history of doing really odd stuff when it comes to the U president.
 
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