Soldiers Should Lack Conscience!!!

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So, I saw a Korean movie today. The title is Hijack 1971 and it’s based on an actual hijacking event when a young man used homemade grenades to seize control of a plane bound for Seoul, South Korea, and tried to get them to fly to North Korea. It’s an epic movie with beautiful storylines and wonderful effects.

However, one thing I noticed with the writers is how they managed to infuse urgency and dilemma. It turns out that the co-pilot of this plane was once in the Korean Air Force and a few years ago when a similar plane got hijacked, he was ordered to shoot it down and stop them from leaving the South Korean air space. This was because there was a possibility that if they shot down the engine, the plane would be forced to land before it crossed the border into North Korea. However, there was also the possibility that everyone in the plane would die if he decided to shoot the engine.

So, he was faced with a dilemma. He could allow the plane to fly on into North Korean airspace where the passengers and crew would become prisoners, or he could shoot the plane down which could either save them or kill them. If he killed them, it meant that he would have the blood of 59 people on his hands. So, he was in a bit of a pickle.

And this, my dear friends, is the point of the post I’m trying to make today. If you found yourself in a similar situation, what would you do? Would you allow them to go on into North Korea? Knowing very well the kind of hell they’re flying into and the fact that they will most likely end up as prisoners or even worse, be killed. Or, would you take the chance by shooting the engine, knowing that with your shot, you could kill them all, or you could save them all?

As I thought about this, I realized that I couldn’t come up with a definite answer. This was like standing between a rock and a hard place. Whatever choice you made, there were bound to be consequences. But then, you could also argue that he was a soldier and the order had already been given for him to shoot the plane down. All he had to do was obey it, and he would get no blowback.

Well, I’m not a soldier. However, I know that shooting down a plane full of enemy combatants is very different from shooting down a plane full of your own people, you’re bound to hesitate. This is the reason why no matter how advanced technology gets, military weapons will never be fully automated. Even though there are drones in the sky, people still have to manually fly them and shoot the shots. This is because machines don’t think twice, once they identify a target, they take the kill shot.

You as a human soldier could see a kid dressed in the enemy’s uniform and holding a gun, however, by virtue of the fact that it’s a kid, you won’t readily open fire just like that. It won’t matter if the kid is actually an enemy. But then, a machine won’t have that luxury, if its target is to shoot down anyone wearing the enemy’s uniform, then it won’t matter if they’re friend or foe, adult or child, they will go down.

I know it’s for reasons like this that they tell soldiers to “obey before complain” because a slight hesitation on your part could mean a total defeat on whatever operation you’re on. And then, even as a soldier, no matter the kind of training you’ve had, you’ll have to rely on your conscience. This is because a soldier without a conscience is nothing but a psychopath and it will only be a matter of time before they turn into the very enemy they were trained to fight.

So, what would you have done in the soldier’s shoes? Would such a choice be easy for you to make? Or would you simply follow the last order, regardless of the consequences?

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.}

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