Thoughts of a Soldier-Ethicist

I am a retired U.S. Army officer who believes in the moral standing of the profession of arms, yet recognizes its shortcomings. I served in the Army from 1984-2017, mostly in the infantry and on the faculty at West Point. As a researcher of combat leadership and ethics, I interviewed hundreds of Army junior officers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at their home stations between 2002-2024. Welcome to this online space for thinking about war, morality, and the profession of arms.

If you have killed in war...

...I would love to hear from you about how you make sense of the experience, i.e., how you justify it morally.

I asked this same question in 1997 just as I began my study into the moral justification of killing enemy combatants in war, and the responses were fascinating. Now I hope to learn more, and perhaps to develop a taxonomy of justifications that could become part of Soldiers' professional education. I know how I would justify killing (although I have not killed anyone), but I also realize that there may be other approaches that work for other folks.

I would love to hear from you, if you have killed in war. Your information would remain confidential unless you prefer otherwise.

Pete Kilner
LTC, Infantry
pgkilner@gmail.com

1 comment:

Dave Johnson said...: Hi, I linked this over at Our Troops Newsladder: http://iraq.newsladder.net/; November 30, 2007 at 3:26 PM