Soldier killing dying soldier

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ChrissyG333

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Is it a sin to kill one of your own soldiers if his wounds are beyond saving and he will die slowly on the battlefield?
 
First, in this situation I would hope there is enough morphine to stop the pain. But the only situation I can see it acceptable is that if the soldier is screaming and yelling in such a way the enemy will find you and kill you.

If it came to this I would still go to confession. But those days of me being a soldier are long over. back in 1942 they declared anyone over the age of 45 could not be drafted. Strange they still had to register
 
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This is a sin, always and everywhere. One can only say that death was inevitable if that same person takes the life. Such thinking negates the value of suffering.

I have qualified numerous times (and still qualify) to be killed under my state’s assisted suicide law. I have decided to allow God to decide.
 
The Divine Mercy chaplet is what a Catholic should be doing at the side of someone dying.
 
“Mercy killing” is wrong. Whether someone in an extreme situation who killed a hopelessly wounded person to end their suffering would be culpable for that wrong is another question.
 
There was an NCIS episode related to this very thing. Charles Durning was in it, great actor.
 
According to the church you are self defense is allowed. If you take a life defending yours that is acceptable.
 
A question that might be closer to home is if you’re in a bad car accident and it looks like your driver is beyond saving, should you just kill him quickly to end his suffering?

Who is even qualified to make such a decision? Even a doctor who might have the knowledge and understanding of the injury would try to help the injured until help arrived.
 
And there is the possibility that that the wounded, dying soldier could be captured by the enemy and tortured before he died. And we would not know how long that soldier would have lived before being captured and during such an ordeal. It’s not like it’s never happened before.
And what if the enemy was ISIS? And we know what ISIS does to prisoners. That is what I’m giving an example of. That, I think, should be taken into consideration. I could not imagine if that were to happen what would go through a soldier’s mind then, and for the rest of his life, regretting not knowing the fate of his comrade, esp. knowing that the enemy was heading toward them.
 
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ChrissyG333 said:
Is it a sin to kill one of your own soldiers if his wounds are beyond saving and he will die slowly on the battlefield?
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The Church does not condone murder, mercy killing, or euthanasia.

Also, I suspect that if your dirty deed was ever discovered, you’d be in quite a bit of trouble.
phil3 said:
if the soldier is screaming and yelling in such a way the enemy will find you and kill you.
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If they’re freaking out, you can restrain and gag them. I cannot see how they’ll be any more silent while you’re killing them.
PennyinCanada said:
A question that might be closer to home is if you’re in a bad car accident and it looks like your driver is beyond saving, should you just kill him quickly to end his suffering?
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That’ll be an interesting and gruesome news piece, “Car Crash Victim Murders Passenger”. Not only is it morally murder but you’ll definitely be going to jail for that one.
 
I would be kneeling beside reminding him of the inestimable value of redemptive suffering offered up to God & praying with him. Because of Christ our suffering is very valuable.
 
I know of one instance of this. It was not on a regular battlefield but against a cruel enemy, as you describe.

In 1943 the Jewish prisoner slaves of the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland staged a breakout, with about 300 of them making it past the barbed wire, and with the Germans shooting at them. One of them was crippled by a shot. The injury was possibly treatable but obviously if he were left behind he’d only suffer a cruel death at the hands of the Germans. He asked another escapee to shoot him. The other did so without without question, but asked him first to look back at the camp where so many of his family had died. (Thus adding a delay in which he himself might have been shot).

I read that account from the survivor who shot the other. He seemed to not question the morality of his action at all. I can sympathise.
 
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Real-life situations often upend armchair speculation based on philosophy, religion, and morality.
 
Code: 
 I was giving a hypothetical, of course, as I wouldn't doubt that that ever would happen, or never would happen. And you gave an excellent example, and unfortunately, or fortunately, for a person having to shot another for a humane, moral reason. And that certainly would not be an isolated incident. 
 I served in the military, the Army National Guard, way back in the 1980's, but that was in relative peacetime, and thankfully never had to serve during wartime. 
 I don't think that anyone who has never served in the military, especially someone who has never served during wartime, particularly in the heat of an actual battle, has the right to pass judgement on a battlefield hypothetical situation, and especially one that is certainly likely to happen on a battlefield (or in a concentration camp). And as a hypothetical that has probably happened in actuality,  innumerous times on the battlefield, when a soldier (from a private all the way up to 4 star General) has to actually make life and death decisions only a daily, or hourly basis, to save himself, his fellow soldiers, and others. 
 Could any of you truthfully say that if you were in the military, in time of war, would let your fellow soldiers to fall into the brutal, ruthless, bloody hands of an enemy that would make them suffer tortures beyond comprehension just because your decison was the most humane or moral for the wounded soldier?
 
We should do all we can to save another human being. By attempting to movie the seriously injured out of the danger zone, comforting with them during their last moments on earth. No one has the right to take another persons life (no matter how close to death they are or how uncomfortable with the situation is for the uninjured person), to do so in the context of the OP question it would be called murder.

It reminds me of Navy chaplain Luis Padilla giving men the last rights during a sniper fire in Venezuela in 1962. I am sure their are many more people out there that have done the same.

One has to wonder how many serial killers have gotten away with this on the battlefield and no one is non-the-wiser.
 
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