A hero scorned

I think the editor missed the point here.
From day one, soldiers are broken down, taken apart, and rebuilt into what the military wants them to be. They make them into followers. Trained to follow orders without question and without over analyzing them. They are taught to trust that their superiors are privy to a bigger picture and plan.
These incidents are almost always a failure of leadership, not of individual soldiers.
Many times these days we allow individual citizens to use all manner of excuses for their behavior. Anything but accountability for their own actions. Yet on the contrary, soldiers who are less accountable are held to a higher standard. Either the method of training and indoctrinating military personnel should be changed to allow individuality (probably a bad idea for a fighting man) or leadership needs to be held to a higher standard.
When leadership, from officers up through pentagon officials and ultimately the Commander in Chief fail behave in an honorable way, and hold themselves to a higher standard, then they fail to become a moral compass for their troops. A compass which they have removed through training and indoctrination. They are then responsible for being that compass.
Abu Garab, My Lai, etc. are all examples of this.

Moral relativism will be, and is already becoming, the downfall of our society.

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