Army legal training for enlistees

September 29, 2005 9:08 PM

What are enlisted men and women in the U.S. Army taught about the Uniform Code of Military Justice?

The question was inspired by the recent media accounts of Lynndie England's conviction. Obviously enlisted personnel are not supposed to be trained attorneys; they are soldiers.

Are they ever exposed to teaching about the UCMJ or other guidelines about the treatment of prisoners? If so, who teaches them; during what part of their training; and how is their learning/retention of this information validated? Is there a test at the end? Who else is responsible for an enlisted person's violations besides the enlisted person herself?

Also, I feel a little sorry for Lynndie; she doesn't seem that smart. I wouldn't trust her to make ethical decisions on my behalf, for instance. I'd be curious to learn the opinions of current or ex-military folks - was she ridden out of town on a rail? Was she in a gray area? Was she totally in the wrong and should have known it immediately?

posted by ikkyu2 to law & government (15 comments total)

When I was in the Air Force it was completely centric to us being taken prisoner -- the Code of Conduct and relevant Geneva Convention topics. We received no training regarding prisoners. That might be different in the Army, and with military police. Also this might be addressed at Army military police level with a set of Standard Operating Procedures, so it may be a bit complicated.
posted by rolypolyman at 9:33 PM on September 29, 2005

Was she totally in the wrong and should have known it immediately?

Standing up, confronting your surrounding, legitimate authorities, and refusing to do the wrong they're commanding you to do is not something that normal people do; it's something that saints and heroes do. You and I and anyone else are a lot more likely to be Eichmann or Calley than we are to be Hugh Thompson (the helo driver who stopped Calley by threatening to kill him).

So I don't think there's really any option other than that she was ridden out on a rail, unless someone is seriously claiming that it was all stuff she made up against her superiors' wishes and orders, which defies even my expansive imagination. Even if she "should have" known it was wrong and illegal, that's really just self-serving crap to insulate the people higher up that fucking well told her to do it.

Not that she should get off with nothing. But in a just world, most of her sentence would be suspended and tacked onto the sentences of her superiors, who would face additional punishment for the crime of warping the poor little schmuck like that.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:59 PM on September 29, 2005

Erm. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I mean that even if the Army taught her about the UCMJ and her responsibilities under the Conventions, it's still unreasonable to expect a normal, workaday grunt who's not a moral superman to actually disobey a real, no-shit, do-it-or-else order, especially in a world where the Milgrom experiments are history.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:07 PM on September 29, 2005

even if the Army taught her about the UCMJ and her responsibilities under the Conventions

Right, that's the question. Did they, or didn't they?
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:16 PM on September 29, 2005

i don't know how things were when PFC england went through, but i can tell you what it was like in the post-abu g army.

eight hours of mind numbingly bad powerpoint during the week before you load up on the plane for theater. every ridiculous detail of the UCMJ. the slides and presenter cover everything, but they also do a pretty good job at emphasizing what is important.

"everyone wake up for this one, it's important." monitors actually walk around the room the whole time, making sure everyone is, at the very least, opened eyed, quiet, and pointing in the right direction.

one of the things they stress over, and over, and over is that everyone in theater, soldiers and contractors alike, falls under the UCMJ and saying that you were only following orders will NEVER stand up in court.

"if you are given an order that is illegal, it is your legal obligation to violate that order and inform the chain of command." must have been said, without exageration, seven or eight times.

the accountability for the presentations is a person you have to check in with every time you enter or leave the room.

like i said, i can't vouch for whether or not this all used to happen before abu g, but it certainly does now.
posted by bryak at 3:26 AM on September 30, 2005

I served in the Army from 1983 to 1992, first as enlisted and then as an officer. During basic training, AIT, various ROTC functions and the Infantry Officer Basic Course, we were repeatedly trained about the proper handling of prisoners. The Army even has a mnemonic for how it is supposed to be done: The 5 S's -- Search, Silence, Segregate, Speed to the Rear, and Safeguard (see this. They seem to have added a "T"). One of the core tenets of the "5 S's" is to safeguard your prisoner from harm. From the article above:



5. Safeguard the captives in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. Policy.

a. Protect captives from mental and physical abuse.

b. Provide firm, humane treatment at all times.

c. Provide first aid and food and water as necessary.

d. Protect captives from abuse by other captives or by local civilians.

e. Report all acts or allegations of inhumane treatment.

f. Notify your chain-of-command if you have seriously wounded captives. Evacuate them through medical channels.


These concepts were further reinforced EVERY YEAR during a common skills test that everyone had to pass.


I think England deserves everything she is getting, but I also think that at least her platoon leader, company commander and battallion commander should be in jail too. Her actions show a failure of leadership all the way up her chain of command.
posted by stupidcomputernickname at 3:32 AM on September 30, 2005

In Navy basic tanning in 1974 we were taught to refuse illegal orders.

HOWEVER

We were also taught, less officially (ie, culture) that only "sea lawyers" do this, and that sea lawyers can expect reprisal from their superiors.

I don't recall anything specific about prisoners.
posted by Goofyy at 3:41 AM on September 30, 2005

My Army experience (from long ago) is more like rolypolyman's than stupidcomputernickname's. Refusing illegal orders is a fine-sounding principle. Unless the refuser is a lawyer, it's also a pretty certain way to wind up in the stockade.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:12 AM on September 30, 2005

I'm prior-service Air Force and presently in the Army Reserve. I'm also a former military policeman. Pre Abu G, the Geneva Conventions and the UCMJ were hammered into our heads starting in basic training, and was covered in excruciating detail at MP school. Among the issues covered was torture, as was the definition of a lawful order. Instructors and superiors were always very clear on what constitutes a lawful order, and the right-of-refusal was always plainly stated. (Lyndie England is not the first soldier to go on trial for such things. Hell, anyone who has seen A Few Good Men knows that following unlawful orders is a very bad thing, and has very bad consequences.)

In addition, we are trained and tested on it every year, and briefed in mind-numbing detail before deployments. It's simply beyond belief that she didn't know she could refuse the order, if such an order existed.

My experience differs a bit from Kirth's. If an order is so out-of-line that it leads you to question it's validity, I can't imagine how you'd end up "in the stockade" for questioning it, especially if you're in an MP company! It simply doesn't work that way. (I'd never apprehend a member of my squad for simply questioning a morally-uncertain order, and I'd raise hell if someone else attempted to do so.)

Had Pvt. England questioned the order -- even once -- and it had been found in the record that she was overruled further down the chain, she'd be a free woman today. I mean, we're not talking about calling CNN and blowing the whistle, here. If an officer told her to pose for pictures with prisoners, all she had to do was tell her squad leader. Or conversely, if her squad leader gave her the order, she needed only to tell another squad leader or her platoon sergeant. Or her platoon leader. Or her First Sergeant. Anyone!

But she didn't.

Post Abu-G, you can imagine the briefings we get about torture. In addition to being morally wrong, it makes the Army look bad, it will get you in put in jail, will destroy the career of everyone around you, and it makes our job more difficult on the battlefield. (How? I'm glad you ask! If an enemy thinks being captured by Americans means humane treatment, he's more likely to surrender when the chips are down. If, on the other hand, he knows he's going to be subjected to torture, he's likely to fight to the death. This means American and coalition soldiers are exposed to increased danger.)

I've run into no military personnel who feel even the slightest bit sorry for Lyndie England. I agree that, no, she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but one doesn't need to be in Mensa to know right from wrong.
posted by rentalkarma at 8:04 AM on September 30, 2005

It's simply beyond belief that she didn't know she could refuse the order, if such an order existed

It's beyond belief that people would continue to zap a screaming, crying man who's pleading for you to stop, and keep right on going until he is dead, for no better reason than that the scientist running the study of which you are an entirely voluntary part, and where you know that you can get up, walk away, and call the cops on the fuckers, tells you that you should.

But that's exactly what happened, time and again, when random jerks like you or me were put in that situation. The victim was an actor and not really being electrocuted.

I'd never apprehend a member of my squad for simply questioning a morally-uncertain order, and I'd raise hell if someone else attempted to do so

What we know from the real world is that we all say that, and believe that, but almost none of us would actually go through with it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:51 AM on September 30, 2005

rentalkarma, I never said anything about questioning an order. I wrote about refusing an order. The several people that I saw refuse orders did, in fact, visit the stockade. Do you know of soldiers who refused an order without being punished?

Whether England's questioning an order would have protected her, I don't know, so I will bow to your superior knowledge.

I do believe that ROU_Xenophobe is essentially correct; it takes an unusual person to defy authority and risk sanctions on behalf of a stranger.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:57 AM on September 30, 2005

ROU_Xenophobe, you may be right, and I am thankful that I have never been put in a situation where I needed to question the legality of orders.

I can honestly see where Abu G came from. You're in a third world hell-hole, dealing with prisoners, many of whom are murderers and terrorists, everything is happening fast, and everyone is miserable. Soon you're taking it out on the prisoners, roughing them up a bit during movements from cell to cell. Over time, the treatment of prisoners gets rougher and rougher, and the natural inertia of such a situation takes hold. After a while, they're not even humans anymore, and you're taking pictures with them to send home to your buddies.

If I had to guess, Lyndie England was never given an order to abuse prisoners... it just sort of happened over time, and everybody there was more or less desensitized to it. It probably never even occurred to them that the world would see it as torture.

While a tragic episode, it's a valuable lesson in the necessity of strong leadership and constant vigilance in such matters, and the importance of auditors spot-visiting EPW camps for such violations.

Kirth, I misread what you wrote, and do apologize. The only time I've seen people refuse orders was for stupid things like showing up on time or general conduct, never with an actual refusal, but more of an ignoring-of-orders. And as I wrote previously, I've never been in a situation where anyone around me has issued an unlawful order that others have had to refuse. I know it happens, but thankfully, I've not seen it. And I agree with you, it would take a strong person to defy authority, but weak people aren't exempt from the law, as Lyndie can testify.
posted by rentalkarma at 10:34 AM on September 30, 2005

What we know from the real world is that we all say that, and believe that

perhaps, ROU_Xenophobe ... but on the other hand, i have to believe that a former military policeman is a lot closer to the real world than you and i are
posted by pyramid termite at 10:37 AM on September 30, 2005

Thanks for the helpful replies.
posted by ikkyu2 at 2:11 PM on September 30, 2005

What we know from the real world is that we all say that, and believe that, but almost none of us would actually go through with it.

Spc. Joseph Darby did. Is he all that special?

Hugh Thompson confronted the men killing My Lai villagers with his weapon.

And even in an extreme case of an entire society gone off the rails, officers of the Wehrmacht attempted on several occasions to assassinate Hitler, at risk to their own lives as well as enormous risk to their associates and families.
posted by dhartung at 12:54 AM on October 1, 2005