I was in a combat arms job, attached to an armored cavalry unit during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and also managed to get away with only firing like 3 or 4 rounds the entire time I was in Iraq (as a function check into some piles of sand). Didn't shoot at anybody, didn't run anybody over with a vehicle, didn't call in fire on a house, wasn't involved in any black bagging. (Probably some unexploded ordinance might have gotten thrown around when we were piling up stuff as fast as we could into pits to destroy it, so potential for human harm there.) The worst I, personally did, was some light theft and trespassing in abandoned houses. Not great, but not murder.
BUT, I was directly involved in an illegal war though. Even if I didn't understand it at the time, even if I trusted (naively) that people in the political class actually DID know what they were doing, so I get to be war criminal for ever.
In the general sense, yea.
I was in a combat arms job, attached to an armored cavalry unit during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and also managed to get away with only firing like 3 or 4 rounds the entire time I was in Iraq (as a function check into some piles of sand). Didn't shoot at anybody, didn't run anybody over with a vehicle, didn't call in fire on a house, wasn't involved in any black bagging. (Probably some unexploded ordinance might have gotten thrown around when we were piling up stuff as fast as we could into pits to destroy it, so potential for human harm there.) The worst I, personally did, was some light theft and trespassing in abandoned houses. Not great, but not murder.
BUT, I was directly involved in an illegal war though. Even if I didn't understand it at the time, even if I trusted (naively) that people in the political class actually DID know what they were doing, so I get to be war criminal for ever.