It has been widely discussed that Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay B-29 on the A-bombing mission to Hiroshima carried a packet of cyanide tablets. The entire crew, Tibbets included, were expressly ordered to commit suicide should their mission be aborted, or capture of the crew occurred. So secret was the program..... Today I wondered about other G.I.s. What about John McCain? Frank
Wondered what? If they carry cyanide tablets? I gotta think (a) not many of the troops are on missions of such secrecy, and (b) if this were a common thing, it would be common knowledge. Regarding McCain...well...gotta love a great PR Department. Of course, you also gotta wonder if the Enola Gay pilots really would have suicided. Even the culturally-indoctrinated Kamikazes were only given enough fuel for a one-way trip. You could argue that any more than that would be a waste, but you could also argue that giving them "just enough" pretty much removed their ability to choose.
@John Brunner It was widely alleged that when Gary Francis Powers was shot down in his U-2 spy plane, 1960. This is from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers#Conviction "Powers initially received a cold reception on his return home. He was criticized for not activating his aircraft's self-destruct charge to destroy the camera, photographic film, and related classified parts. He was also criticized for not using a CIA-issued "suicide pill" to kill himself (a coin with shellfish toxin embedded in its grooves, revealed during CIA testimony to the Church Committee in 1975)."
It's a weird society that criticizes those who suicide as being "cowards," and criticizes those who don't suicide as being "cowards."
Whilst in the military, I was included in a 2 week training course in crypto but I didn’t volunteer to be a cryptologist at the end of the course. Call me a coward if ya’ll will, but the guys in a crypto shack (trailer) are told that if the site is close to being breached, they have to fully destroy the shack with themselves in it to avoid capture and I just wasn’t that committed to the “cause”. I’d much rather face a hail of bullets than to deny whomever the joy of taking my life by taking it myself.
It's a very perverted position to put someone else in. And whoever relies on it is taking a significant risk putting by requiring someone's suicide as a condition of meeting the mission...or most likely, they're abdicating responsibility. It's one thing to agree to when it's a concept, and something else entirely when it's a demand of the moment. Hopefully, their resolve was not tested very often. I don't even want to ask what the success/fail rate was when such decisions were required. ps: Your altruism is admirable. And I'm glad no one took you up on your offer.
@John Brunner How right you are! Depends, I guess, on WHO orders the suicide........'course, who orders it for the hapless individual, the "Being Above"? Frank
Funny, I was gonna make a similar point. Those who command rarely order their own demise. It's good to be king...
@John Brunner Compared to the impoverished masses, have not each of us lived nearly like kings? Frank