What's the 'Right' Choice?

This is from an e-mail I wrote a friend ...

I was reading through some of the Breaking the Silence testimonies and one thing struck me about the issues re: Rules of Engagement.

Before I get into that, I'll tell you that twice (so far) during my army service I was in a position to kill - both times my gut said no. Thankfully, I was right each time. And people who were just doing things that were highly suspicious were innocent civilians after all. But after the first event in particular, I really struggled with it. I was right, yes but what if I had been wrong? I would be dead ... That left me with a few difficult soul searching episodes but alas, long gone now thankfully.

That is a brief introduction to my issue - There are two issues here. IF innocent civilians that were in NO means suspicious, or were waving white flags (or whatever), were gunned down - the soldiers who did it should be in jail for a long time. There is no excuse there - unless there is something out of the ordinary that really is worrying the soldier (intelligence warning of a 'suicide bomber' on the way, a person was wearing heavy jacket - whatever). Now if there IS something out of the ordinary, I ask you to be brutally honest with me. If this was YOUR son and that was him in that situation, in a a war or in the middle of the operations, would YOU rather he has the attitude "Rather sit in jail than my parents sitting shiva (week long period of mourning, for more click on word) over me" or the opposite.

Would be very interested to see how you the reader responds ...
_