Originally Posted by Porion

but what if you can't suicide yourself? if you're lying with an arm half off in paiun and might not die for hours, would you like to sit there and hope a chopper comes along or see a soldier walking by with his gun.

if it were me i'd hand Wounded a grenade and say "Pull the pin if you really want to die." and walk off not knowing.

then the next medic that walks up to him after he pulls the pin just died because you decided to play with a life that wasn't yours!
Either way if you walk by or "put him out of his misery" for the rest of your life you will think about it and you will wonder if you did the right thing but one thing you can be sure of and that is You will never know. To the best of my knowedge no soldier/sailor/airman/or Marine has been pusished for trying to save a fellow brother in arms but as you can see for "mercy killings" it is a different story. Just to keep me and God on good terms i wouldn't do it. And to keep me and Uncle Sam on the best terms i dang sure wouldn't do it.

Gentlemen, several of you need to take a step back and think before you post. Feel free to post what your position on this or any other subject is (unless otherwise directed), but realize that you are neither impressing anyone nor helping your argument with senseless bravado. While it may make you a big man with your friends, it is out of place here. Death is not something to be discussed in a flip or careless manner, least of all by those with no experience with it.




The best I can hope for is to never be placed in a situation that would require me to make this decision, but I am inclined to agree with SGT Doody. I realize it may seem hypocritical that I do believe that I can take a man's life in combat but not immediately thereafter, but to my eye, these are entirely different situations. From a secular standpoint, that enemy no longer presents a threat to yourself, your fellow soldiers or Marines, or the civilian population (barring of course those situations where the enemy wounded is actively continuing to pursue a hostile intent), and by killing this individual, you are no longer operating within the limits of your job or your duty. As Charge_7 brought up, how can you know that an individual cannot be saved, unless you have extensive medical training? From several years of EMS work, I can tell you from personal experience that some injuries that might appear to be fatal are in fact survivable, and I am sure that several of the more experienced folks here can tell you the same. This "mercy killing" may in fact result in the death of an individual who was not in fact going to die from his previous injuries.

Hand him a knife and let him do it himself. But only a knife(and hope he doesn't know how to throw knives), not a rifle.

Read my previous post.

http://www.petitiononline.com/as124/petition.html

Erick Anderson did something of the same thing. Sign the petition if you believe that what is going on is wrong. He is from the same recruiter as me, but he shipped out before I ever showed up so I can't really enlighten anyone here on what he was like as a person.

Some of you guys get really carried away with yourselfs.

Military guidlines and the law would be clear on mercy killing.