Moral degradation in war is an evil that is unavoidable. In The Things They Carried stories, soldiers must do this during and after Vietnam War. The war breeds monsters and cruelty. If you have to choose between two evils, it isn’t necessarily wrong to pick the less moral option. It is this that separates the morality of a soldier from a civilian. Civilians have a strict black-and white perspective. They adhere to fundamental standards. Aggressive behaviour (e.g. The system has a just and fair way to deal with crimes like homicide, burglary, extortion etc. Soldiers are not subject to such a system. As long as the enemy is involved, it is morally acceptable to kill, which, as we all know, is wrong. However, this doesn’t mean soldiers don’t have ethics. Jimmy Cross showed guilt and commitment for the death of a fellow soldier. Just because the soldier’s duty is full of immoral acts. It is difficult for them to differentiate between ethical and immoral behavior. Soldiers developed new principles to justify injustice and fulfill citizens’ expectations.
In On The Rainy Day, O’Brien finds himself in a moral quandary when he receives his draft notice. He does want to avoid fighting an unjustified Vietnam war, but also doesn’t like to be called a coward. In such a case, some people might flee the country. O’Brien stays because he is afraid of what his community and family will think about him. He does not do it for nationalist reasons. In America, patriotism is more important than righteousness. The fear of being shamed motivates O’Brien to join the war. This experience illustrates the moral dilemma of misguided group expectations and personal beliefs. Soldiers may not think much of social acceptance but they do it to calm their minds in chaotic times. To achieve this clarity, they will do anything, no matter how absurd or dangerous, to get it. Curt, a soldier, cut out a perfectly healthy dental implant to relieve the embarrassment he felt over fainting on his previous visit to the dentist. Stress, unfamiliarity with a foreign land, and youth inexperience creates psychological hazards which only increase the inherent dangers of warfare. This is a tragic but inevitable part of war. Soldiers willingly violated their moral code and committed unethical acts in order to maintain their social standing. The morality of wartime is also reevaluated, in an effort to balance honorable military service with morality at home. Nevertheless, as we have already noted, reconciliation is hard due to soldiers’ duty to fight in war. Jeff McMahan a professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University responded, “Soldiers are not guilty even if the cause they support is unjust”. Moral equality among soldiers allows soldiers to be excused from ethical obligations.
A morally equal combatant (MEC) would allow opposing troops to also kill, even without a valid reason. It means that the soldiers of an aggressor country do not bear responsibility for their deaths, and the soldiers of a defending country are also not protected from death. Comparatively speaking, a soldier’s actions and their cause are not interchangeable. Some have also argued that the lack in consequences for soldiers, as well as the lack influence from citizens could lead to more unjustified wars. If citizens began to think that participating in unjust wars was wrong, they would make soldiers more hesitant to fight them, and governments less willing to start these wars out of fear. The citizens’ consent is needed to allow soldiers the moral latitude they need. This “ethical pardon” was questioned by the counterculture’s condemnation of violence and all its forms. Cross’s renewed loyalty to his soldiers as well as his leadership role in the military is condemned by this culture because it could be interpreted as a desire to kill his enemies. To combat this, soldiers need to create new values that are distinct from the ones of past wars. In past conflicts, the public had condoned violence during wartime and given soldiers “ethical forgiveness” when they were involved. It is important that the soldiers have a clear code of conduct to determine what behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable, especially since Vietnam’s atrocities were all well-known. To achieve this, soldiers must abandon their civilian morality to establish a violent system.
Overall, morality is no longer defined by a system that expects pacifism but rather as the use of violence in a desperate last resort. According to this definition, war is moral if the conflict can be resolved in the most effective and least destructive way or if the threat of further evilness is eliminated. O’Brien struggles to accept the morality of the mandatory violence in The Things They Created. In the stories of The Things They Created, O’Brien and the other like-minded soldiers struggle to accept this point of view in the context that mandatory violent actions are contradictory yet acceptable to civilian moral standards. Their actions confirm that there are indeed rules to war, whether they have been constructed or otherwise. It is important to note that this entire thought process could be summarized by a single quotation: “A moral code… might have codes of acceptable behaviour, which are often in conflict with the greater value system”. Morality can differ greatly between people. Since it’s subjective, there isn’t a winner when it comes to ideology.
