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Obedience At All Costs Essay

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Following orders unquestionably is one of the traits that the military wants their soldier to have; this quality, however, has caused controversy throughout time. Rob Reiner captures this struggle in his film A Few Good Men. In this film, two men, Lance Corporal Dawson and Private First Class Downey are charged with the murder of fellow Marine, Private First Class Santiago. Dawson and Downey claim that they did not commit a crime but rather, were following orders to perform a “Code Red”. A “Code Red” is defined as a disciplinary action performed inside the Marines by Marines. Stanley Milgram’s article, “The Perils of Obedience” delves into the issue of obedience. His experiment consisted of subjects being told to electrocute other people …show more content…

Many military personnel believe that certain aspects of the military should stay inside the wall of the military. When Colonel Jessep shouts, “You can’t handle the truth,” he demonstrates that civilians and outsiders of the military would not be able to grasp why certain actions are taking place and the needs for such action (Reiner).
Soldiers in the military know the consequences to not following an order issued by a superior. According to Ron Powers, a man with 22 years of service and has been awarded many medals, states in his article “To Obey or To Not Obey” that soldiers are trained from recruitment to deployment to follow orders unquestionably. Soldiers are also told that willfully disobeying orders can result in a dishonorable discharge, or in a time of war, death (Powers). This leaves soldiers a minimal amount of ability to allow himself to follow his own morals. The thought of disobeying an order will usually bring disgust to the face of a soldier. This is because a soldier is merely performing his job in following order. Also, according to Kelman and Hamilton, the only time for a soldier to declare a complaint about an order is after it has already been followed through, thus causing the complaint to be moot (271). The military produces a difficulty for soldiers to follow their own morals if they conflict with the task at hand.
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