It's not like they're taught these things in school. All they know about war they learned from movies, television and video games. Why are you acting surprised?

@1337

Yes possible combat engineering, and yes the risks can be great. But as you say, I love my country and ill die for it if I have to.

@[HK]DeathEnhanced: Combat engineering? They can have some heavy casualties; be careful out there. Thanks for thinking about joining the military, by the way... that sort of willingness to protect your country is an admirable trait, I hope you do well.

Yeah, you're not supposed to shoot medics. Most of the terrorist groups will ignore this fact and shoot at anything belonging to an established military force, but it's not something that should be done by any civilized individual.

^ That is exactly correct, especially about the video game bubble bit =].

I intend to join up as an engineer, if al goes to plan =].

Most kids wouldn't even give a crap what the war was in favor of, they care about the fighting. It's so cool, isn't it children? Teehee.

lol, I kill anything I want to in videogames, but I know that if the opportunity ever came in real life, I could not take it upon myself to kill anyone, friend or foe, and I have no intentions of joining armed forces of any kind.

Now when you said he responded with "Of course i would, he's even more dangerous then any solider", he's obviously thinking inside that videogame bubble. Medics are hardly a threat to the opposing forces in terms of combat, and it's not like every single person he assists snaps right back up, ready to fight on. A lot of his patients don't even survive, and more survivors don't even return to battle.

LOL thats true, being a hardcore gamer myself, but i also intend to join the military, fairly soon in fact, so naturaly I was astounded when so many ppl had a lack of understanding about basic rules of engagement etc.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/9/21/

You can't ask gamers how war works, duh.

Im talking about in real life here, not in the game.

Basicly i asked a guy in game "would you fire at an unarmed enemy medic in real life, if he was trying to help a wounded solider?"

He responded "Of course i would, he's even more dangerous then any solider"

Iv asked this to many individuals in game, and every single one of them argued that real life soldiers do this all the time and its acceptable.

...Is there a massive lack of education about the rules of engagement and Geneva convention?

which state that it is a war crime to fire upon a medic, as they are classed as humanitarian workers and not targets.

That is why many medic's are either minimally or not armed at all.

...or is it that many ppl on here are children and dont have a clue about real life warfare, only what they know form CoD? 0.o