Re: Conscientious Objector

["swan" <swan@haysco.net>]

Joe, I go to the precinct convention after nearly every election. I have
even been to a couple of county conventions. A lady friend and I went to a
Weight Watchers convention in Biloxi (this was after she had gotten slim,
and no longer really needed that organization). But I never made that
convention in Geneva.

OK, so this is being facetious, but I can't recall the Geneva Convention
mentioned but one time. Some gung ho guy got hold of a file somewhere, and
was filing notches on the back of his bayonet. Someone said this was against
the Geneva Convention. Someone else mentioned what might happen to a guy who
was captured with a notched bayonet. Of course, we all knew what would
probably happen to a any guy captured by the North Koreans .... with or
without a notched bayonet.

The only thing I ever used my bayonet for was to open C Ration cans, when I
lost my little can opener.

Bob Dove

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Brennan" <jbren1@optonline.net>
To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: Conscientious Objector


> I'm a little confused about armed medics, the legal situation I mean,
though
> I take the point about preservation of life taking precedence over
legality
> in some practical circumstances.
>
> My understanding was that the 1949 Geneva Convention (which went into
effect
> Oct. 1950) specifically allows medical personnel to be armed with certain
> restrictions. That's certainly the international law now. For example Army
> FM on the subject describe the restrictions, as for example don't fire on
> the enemy to stop his advance on your position, but if he's firing
> specifcially at you, you can fire back, etc. And armed-to-the-teeth medics
> appear in offiicial combat photo's in more recent wars (UK, Falklands for
> example).
>
> But I thought those provisions were a modification to earlier Conventions
> that prohibited armed medics. I was also under the impression that the
> official position of the Army in WWII was no arms in the ETO because the
> opponents had signed the then current Convention but yes v. the Japanese
> because they hadn't. If not true the foregoing is at least a very
widesperad
> misconception. One sees mentioned in first hand accounts (for example WWII
> ETO medics who armed themselves though thinking it was technically
illegal).
>
> Anway KW question is what was the official policy I wonder and whether it
> actually changed when the new convention came into effect or not because
NK
> hadn't signed the old one. And I guess all this didn't apply to
> conscientious objectors of the category "serve but not take up arms". For
> what little it's worth Hollywood seems always to depict medics as unarmed.
>
> Joe
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marc James Small" <msmall@infi.net>
> To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
> Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 12:53 PM
> Subject: Re: Conscientious Objector
>
>
> At 09:29 PM 9/1/02 EDT, AMPSOne@aol.com wrote:
> >Medics by
> >the Laws of Land Warfare are not supposed to be targets, but they also
are
> >not supposed to carry any arms or provide weapons and ammunition to other
> >soldiers. A medic in Korea -- the type described as removing wounded and
> >dead from the battlefield in Korea -- would be typical. A number of
medics
> >have been awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism under fire, so simply
not
> >carrying arms does not mean that they carried any stigma for objecting.
>
> Cookie
>
> Since 1940, the US has required its medical personnel to be armed.  The
> medics in every unit in which I served certainly were armed, and did their
> qualification firings with the rest of us.  There are repetitive tales
from
> WWII, Korea, and Viet-Nam of medical personnel fighting to preserve the
> lives of their patients.  I recognize the logical disconnect in all of
this
> but, trust me, the US Army mandates that its doctors qualify on their
basic
> weapon and carry such into a combat zone.  (The highest performer in my
> Dad's CA (AA) Regiment in 1941, incidentally, was the Regimental Surgeon,
> an avid hunter.  I encountered the same in 1981 in the 329th Spt Gp in the
> VaARNG, where our doc routinely outshot the rifle team.)
>
> In a similar vein, Chaplains are exempt from qualifying on their basic
> weapons but Chaplain's Assistants are not.  I had a number of friends who
> served in Viet-Nam as such, and all were armed and, in at least several
> cases, saved their Chaplain's lives as a result.
>
> Fire superiority saves lives.  Compassionate nonsense costs lives.
>
> Marc
>
>
>
> msmall@infi.net  FAX:  +276/343-7315
> Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!
>
>


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